Dennis Morgan Hicks needs our help! He sits on Death Row at Holman Prison in a 5'x8' cage for a heinous crime he did not commit. In fact, he wasn't even aware of the atrocious crime for many months after the supposed date of the murder. Please take the time to read his story and sign the petition. We are friends of Dennis and need your help to join with us and demand justice for a man falsely accused, convicted and condemned to death. Your signature will mean a lot! Here is the story in his own words:

 I need your help to correct the egregious injustice that has happened to me. I am on Death Row, 100% innocent of this terrible wrong. There was no crime with me involved in it. Please help me reveal the facts to the courts, become exonerated and acquitted.   

My reason for reaching out to you is simple. I am seeking your prayers and your help. I have been wrongfully charged and convicted of a terrible crime. I did not have any part in it. All the forensic evidence would clear me but was disregarded by an untrained and inexperienced detective and a legal team that sold me out. I have been locked up for nine years now and have lost all; my liberty, relationships, reputation, opportunities and all my worldly possessions. So much suffering and needless heartaches.

As I was about to step into adulthood at age 21, two men attempted to harm and to rape my nephew. During their attack and assault, I shot both of them believing I was doing right to stop them. Each of them were in their early 30’s, my nephew only 16 years old.

The short version is we accepted a ride from Mobile, Alabama to Meridian, Mississippi. The men pulled off to the side of the road and assaulted and attacked my nephew – to do bodily harm and to rape him. I shot both men and was arrested. I admitted to the judge and to the court my part, why I did what I did. I refused to fight the case and did not request lesser charges or sentences. The judge sentenced me to two life sentences in the Mississippi Department of Corrections to be served concurrently.

I remained in their custody from October 30, 1979 until I was paroled in February of 2005. For over twenty-five and a half years I worked toward self improvement and the advancement of a mature character and mind. I took many prison educational courses and programs as well as courses offered by mail from across the country.

Through repentance, rehabilitation, redemption and forgiveness I was blessed to be granted a miracle parole. I was eligible at the ten year mark, was denied seven times in the fifteen year period, then eventually given the “miracle” parole.

My sponsor, Rev. Christy Morgan, who was my uncle, lived in Corinth County, Mississippi. He lined up a construction job for me and I became a member of his church, the First Presbyterian Church of Corinth. While doing well working and becoming involved in church activities, my mother’s husband died. My mother was Mrs. Marie Morgan Hicks Cash. I am the youngest of ten children from my parent’s 28 year marriage and the only one who is single.

Mother summoned me back home to become her full time caregiver as my siblings were trying to force her into a rest home. Due to her age of 85 years, she did not want to go there. I was honored and privileged to love and comfort her in her home for the last part of her life. After a year and a half she departed for heaven. I remained in Mobile and was blessed to have my parole transferred there.

While mother was alive she decided to give away special pieces of property she owned, be it family jewelry to nieces and daughters, real property to sons and nephews, etc. She blessed those she wanted to with special items and appointed me as executor of her estate. She took her house of twenty years out of the will and sold it to me for one hundred dollars to make it legal. Had Mother asked me to donate it to a stranger, a church or whatever, I would have fulfilled her wishes to the best of my ability.

After I took care of the funeral and the will, I remained in Mobile another five years attending church, doing voluntary community service and working at shipyards to earn a living. I tried to be a real asset to my family, my church family and the community at large.

I had several recommendations for a clemency pardon and never missed a monthly parole report.

In the almost seven years of parole I had an excellent record. I was always able to pay all my fees and was allowed to work for myself when laid off from the shipyard. You should know I never failed any drug test in all the time in prison nor the six and a half years on parole. I was given perhaps hundreds of them while incarcerated and working in sensitive jobs and being a statewide trusty. Never failed any of them whether for alcohol, marijuana or drugs of any kind.

In September of 2011, five years after Mother passed, I helped a young man out. He had been kicked out of his grandmother’s house and was literally sleeping in a ditch. I agreed to help him by putting him to work and renting him a room. He paid for a month, but was in that house with me only for about a week. I had become busy with family things as my brother-in-law had just suffered a heart attack and I had a sick sister that needed help. At the same time I was trying to help several families in the ministry.

My stepsister’s son and his wife were both in prison and they had 3 small children, 3, 4 and 5 years of age. My stepsister was old and sick, it was too much for her to handle and I was asked to help. I became a very strong and active surrogate in the children’s lives.

They all called me “Uncle Dennis” like dozens of children from the church did. Before she asked me for help she asked the other grandmother to help take care of the grandchildren. She lives in Illinois and agreed to take one, the youngest, a three year old toddler. In June 2011, the kind grandmother rode a bus down to pick up the child and kept him with her in Illinois until the mother, (her daughter), was released from prison in late November 2011.

A body was found on October 24, 2011 on police owned property behind a security fence. They claim the person had been dead since Sept 5, 2011, and the body was identified on November 30, 2011. It was the body of the young man that had stayed with me earlier in the year.

An investigation was started and an inexperienced detective was put in charge of the case. He had never worked a capital homicide case before. When this cop found out I was on parole for a double homicide in Mississippi, he decided I did the crime. He refused to check out other possible suspects, even ones that severely beat the victim before with a 2x4 and threatened to kill him. They apparently thought he was a snitch.

Fast forward six months into the “investigation.” The detective told people in the community and law enforcement agencies that I killed the man in my house. I had my stepsister call him and tell him he was wrong and that she could prove it with footage from her neighbor’s surveillance security camera. That footage would show the young man working with me on my sister’s roof.

They obtained a copy of several days surveillance, edited it and changed the so called crime scene from my house, (which had quarantined for about seven months as they performed various tests), to my stepsister’s house.

When the police got the video and saw the man was alive and well when he was with me they changed their theory. The detective asked the little 3 year old boy to tell him “about Uncle Dennis killing a man.” This child didn’t know anything about such an event and couldn’t for two reasons. One is that whatever event took place to cause the man’s death didn’t involve any of us. The second reason is that the little boy was in Illinois when the murder is said to have taken place. This is a fact and should be fairly easy to prove.

Folks from my church and in our community would certainly disagree with the September 5th date of death as many saw him and spoke to him well after the police claim he was deceased.

Here’s what really happened. The police bribed the children with sweets, toys, etc. Eventually the little boy who was in Illinois when the victim died began to repeat “Uncle Dennis killed the man.” The detective went to child care experts and told them the little boy had witnessed the killing and to have him reenact the crime on video. The baby tells of all sorts of imaginative nonsense including a fictional fight, that never happened. The boy said in essence that there were seven people present that saw the fight, the boy and his two siblings, me and the victim and also my stepsister and her boyfriend.

The short story is that not only did the boy have a vivid imagination, but also the police. Both grandmothers who had legal custody of the little boy testified that he was not even in the state of Alabama during the alleged crime. Both of the other two siblings testified that there was no fight, no killing. It just didn’t happen, at least not with anyone in our family or anyone we knew. The child’s mother even testified that from prison she knew that her son was in Illinois at the time and that she even talked to him on the phone there.

All the dozens of forensic tests done at my home, in my vehicle, my stepsister’s house and the tree did not show I had anything to do with the murder. In fact, all the blood samples, pieces of clothing, 7 different body hairs, etc. that were found on the victim did not match me. The DNA from these samples alone clearly show that someone else did this crime. Sadly, the overzealous police detectives continued to pursue my guilt when they knew from the forensics I was factually innocent.

The only lead, clue or whatever links this crime to me is the testimony of a toddler who wasn’t even in Alabama when the young man died. Nothing or no one supports his testimony except a police detective with a pocket full of candy and a twisted imagination. The boy was eight years old during the actual trial and testified that he doesn’t remember any killing. The D. A. would claim the boy has P. T. S. D. and used the edited tape of when they bribed the boy to say he saw the killing.

Please allow me to digress for a few moments and share a little more about the sad detective work on the case. Loaded with all the bogus evidence mentioned above, the cop formally moved his theory from my house to my stepsister’s house. He told the County Medical Examiner that he had an eyewitness to the killing and she believed him. And so they used that date on the autopsy and death certificate.

The detective went to the child experts and got several of them to trick the child into “reenacting” the crime scene by using a doll and a stick, even producing videos of this sick stuff. Next he went to the sheriff’s department and told them all that he had “solved the case.” That he had “eyewitnesses.” He took the same errors to the District Attorney’s office who the had the ambitious cop share the same erroneous information with a secret grand jury.

He shared with them his disgusting theory and they voted for an indictment. Also they bumped it up to a capital murder charge due to my parole status. And he continued to build his case for several years based on the testimony of that three year old that couldn’t keep his story straight because it simply wasn’t true. He spread his lies to my family, my church family, my friends and the whole community. Told them I was a serial killer.

To help his cause, the cop got a depraved, reprobate drug addict to testify against me in exchange for his freedom. From a mandatory life sentence for his fifth offense, the man’s sentence was reduced to thirty months because he helped put a so called killer on death row.

While the detective was fabricating the case against me I was forced to remain in the county jail for almost five years. There I used the time to study, hold group Bible courses and even worked in the G. E. D. department for over two years.

I’ve been on death row for several years now and desire to go public with my case. I am 100% innocent of the charges against me. There was no fight, no crime and no killing between this man and me. The cop and the child made it all up then bathed it with lies to make it appear like I did it. But it never, ever happened. Not at all. Period.

My state appointed lawyers sabotaged my case, withholding about 80% of the evidence that supports my innocence. They sold me out, keeping the actual facts from the ears of the jury. Many truthful people who had volunteered to testify were never called. Out of the sixty-five or so witnesses lined up to testify less than a dozen were called.

I need help! I need help in introducing the real and absolute truth of my innocence. I need a legal team that will recruit people to gather up evidence that the young boy actually was in Illinois. The boy hurt his ankle during his time there so he saw and was treated by doctors, nurses, x-ray technicians, etc. He attended Sunday School and church services while living with his his grandmother also. So many people would have interacted with him there and some would remember him.

Someone needs to interview and depose the many witnesses that saw the victim after he was presumed to be deceased. There are over a dozen of them. It’s obvious why these witnesses were not ever called to testify. The zealous cop’s dates would no longer work, the coroner would find out they were lied to etc., etc.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and for adding your signature to this petition. I am willing to do interviews, take lie detector tests, go on television or whatever I can do to help bring the absolute truth of my innocence out. Please consider helping me. Specifically, I am available for phone interviews, personal interviews and via letters at this time. Personal cards and letters mean a lot, and I will look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

 

Dennis Morgan Hicks # Z-804

3700 Holman Prison Death Row

Atmore, Alabama 36503