Murder convictions overturned in 1993 slaying of Paterson video store clerk

PATERSON — The murder convictions of two men who have been behind bars for 24 years for the 1993 slaying of a Paterson video store clerk were overturned Friday because of DNA evidence.

Attorneys for Eric Kelley and Ralph W. Lee, two Paterson men who were locked up two days after the July 28,1993 murder of Tito Merino and later sentenced to 30 years to life in prison, presented DNA evidence that convinced Judge Joseph A. Portelli that there would have been a reasonable doubt to the men's guilt if the DNA, which did not match either man, was presented at trial.

"I emphasize that this new DNA evidence is clearly and convincingly capable of raising a reasonable doubt as to the guilt of both defendants," Portelli said.

The DNA samples do match that of another man who was never charged in the case, Eric Dixon, a former Paterson resident who now lives in Virginia.

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At the hearing Friday, 52-year-old Kelley sat at the table in his prison scrubs with his attorney, Vanessa Potkin from the Innocence Project, which is a group that seeks to exonerate people who were wrongfully convicted. He raised his eyes toward the ceiling as cheers erupted from family and friends who packed the courtroom.

Kelley's eyes welled up as he hugged Potkin. Then he turned to his daughter, Erica, and his granddaughter, who were in the courtroom, and mouthed the words, "I'm going home."

Lee, who is recovering from abdominal surgery at Trenton State Prison, did not appear in court.

"Right now, I'm very excited," Kelley's daughter, Erica, said following the hearing. "I want to get my father back."

By ordering a new trial, Portelli's did not immediately free Kelley, who is being held at East Jersey State Prison in Rahway. But it did set in motion a series of decisions to be made by the Passaic County Prosecutor's Office, chiefly whether to try Kelley and Lee again, or whether to revive the investigation to include Dixon.

The Passaic County Prosecutor's Office would not comment on Friday as to whether they would pursue a case against Dixon.

Chief Assistant Prosecutor Jason Statuto, the head of the major crimes unit, said the first decision to be made is whether to appeal Friday's ruling. That decision will likely be made in the coming days, he said.

The state didn't go easy on Friday. Immediately following the ruling, Assistant Prosecutor Eileen Kane asked the judge to set bail at $1 million, cash only, which is standard for suspects charged with murder. Portelli agreed.

Defense attorney Paul Casteleiro, the legal director for Centurion who represents Lee, said the stiff bail was not entirely unexpected. The defense will file a motion asking Portelli to reduce the bail for Kelley and Lee.

Statuto said it was "more than likely" that the state would oppose a bail reduction because there had been convictions in the case.

Casteleiro said the prosecutor's office thus far has ignored the new DNA evidence and has refused to talk to Dixon. He is convinced that Kelley and Lee were wrongly convicted, and that the bails will be lowered so that both can walk out of prison soon.

"We're optimistic that these guys are innocent and that ultimately, the courts will recognize that," Casteleiro said.

Tito Merino was a 22-year-old student at Passaic County Community College who had just arrived from Peru and was working in his uncle's video store when he was stabbed multiple times and then bludgeoned on the head during what police said was a robbery. The Merino family still runs the business, and to this day, a picture of Tito hangs in the rear of the store.

Reached Friday with the news that Kelley and Lee were about to get new trials, Tito's uncle, Miguel, was dismayed.

"I believe that they [Kelley and Lee] are the ones who did it," Miguel said.

Miguel said he attended both murder trials back in 1996, and had seen Kelley and Lee in the store prior to the murder, and believed they were the culprits.

The murder, committed somewhere between 1:20 and 1:35 p.m. in broad daylight, shocked the community of merchants along Union Avenue. Then-mayor Bill Pascrell met with worried merchants the next night, and Paterson police aggressively canvassed the neighborhood looking for suspects.

The murder weapon was never found, but police did take into evidence a green baseball cap that was found next to Merino's body. They also located three witnesses who had visited the video store during the 15-minute window when Merino was killed.

Two days after the murder police arrested Kelley, Lee and another Paterson resident, David Hancock, who allegedly acted as a lookout. Kelley and Lee gave statements to police that implicated each other and Hancock, and all three were charged with murder, robbery, conspiracy and weapons possession.

Those statements were never recorded or videotaped, and Kelley and Lee both recanted when they went on trial separately in 1996. Kelley and Lee both claimed that the statements had been coerced by police. But both were convicted of murder and sentenced to 30 years to life in prison.

Hancock went on trial in May of 1996 after Kelley and Lee were convicted. But Kelley and Lee refused to testify against him, and the judge declared a mistrial. The state eventually dropped all charges against Hancock, after he had spent three years in jail awaiting trial.

In his ruling, Portelli noted several inconsistencies in the way the state gathered evidence and presented its case. The judge noted that all three of the state's key witnesses who visited the video store around the time of the murder testified that they only saw one black man inside, not two. Kelley and Lee are black and Hancock is white.

One of those witnesses, Carmen Parades, said she got a momentary glance at a man wearing a hat. Although she told police she didn't get a good look at the man, cops later had her pick out a suspect from a photo lineup.

Most compelling though, was the new DNA evidence. Police believed the hat found at the scene belonged to Kelley. But Kelley's DNA was not found on the hat, either in 1993, during the original investigation, or in 2014, when the hat was tested again and matched against the federal data base that had not yet been developed in 1993.

"It's clear, 100 percent, that Eric Dixon's DNA is on that hat," Portelli said.

The Innocence Project, which works to free inmates it believes are wrongly convicted, got involved in Kelley and Lee's case back in 2008. It took years of briefs, motions and appeals to get the courts to even revisit the case.

The Innocence Project has developed an alternative theory on the case. Dixon, they found, had been convicted of robbing a store clerk at knife point in downtown Paterson in 1989. The robbery was interrupted when customers walked into the store, and he was apprehended a few blocks away.

He pleaded guilty to first degree robbery in 1990 and was given a 10-year sentence. He served three years and was released from prison in April of 1993, just three months before the Merino murder at the video store, according to briefs submitted by the Innocence Project.