8 Years Later, Woman Still Waits In Jail

A former beauty queen imprisoned for eight years for her husband’s death remained behind bars Thursday despite a judge’s recommendation one year ago for a new trial.

Susie Mowbray awaits an appellate court ruling on whether her conviction was based on flawed scientific testimony. She contends her husband committed suicide.

Although Mowbray still believes she will be released, she has stopped planning on holidays with her family.

“You learn to prepare for the worst,” she told The Associated Press. “I have to prepare myself for another Christmas here, and I have.”

Mowbray, 48, said her wealthy car dealer husband shot himself in their bed one night because of financial and emotional troubles.

But prosecutors said Mowbray killed him for insurance money, and she was sentenced to life in prison, partly on the basis of a state expert who said there were microscopic spatters of blood on her nightgown.

Mowbray owes the chance for release to her 25-year-old son, Wade Burnett, who at age 16 was in the courtroom when she was convicted of his stepfather’s murder. He went to law school in the hope of winning her freedom, and he found apparent flaws in the expert’s testimony.

Austin, Texas, police Sgt. Dusty Hesskew, who testified at the trial that tests had discovered the microscopic spatters of blood although no bloodstains were visible, was forced to admit during a review last year that his testimony was scientifically invalid because a follow-up test had not been conducted to confirm his findings.

Judge Darrell Hester ruled that without that testimony, there was a reasonable chance Bill Mowbray’s death was suicide or an accident.