CHARLESTON — A Preston County man convicted of rape and kidnapping in 1987 will remain behind bars following a State Supreme Court ruling upholding a Preston Court decision to deny his most recent attempt to be freed.
Russell Sayers Jr. is serving life plus 30-50 years at Mount Olive Correctional Complex for four counts of first degree sexual assault, one count of first degree sexual abuse and one count of kidnapping a child.
The Supreme Court said on Friday in a memorandum decision that Preston Circuit Judge Lawrance Miller, in December 2016, correctly ruled against Sayers’ two contentions: that his original trial attorney was ineffective, and that DNA evidence presented to the court in 2010 proved his innocence.
Sayers’ attorney said Tuesday via an email exchange he preferred to decline comment, pending discussion of the ruling with his client.
The Supreme Court’s case summary and reports from The Dominion Post archives show that in 1987, Sayers and an accomplice forced a 15-year-old girl into a car at knifepoint at the Dorsey Avenue Dairy Mart, took her to an abandoned home near Kingwood, repeatedly raped her, then returned her to a spot in Morgantown about 15 miles from her home.
Sayers, 22 at the time, argued unsuccessfully that the girl joined them voluntarily to “party.” A physician testified that the girl had been assaulted orally, vaginally and rectally, that her hymen had been broken and there was evidence of bleeding.
Former State Police crime lab analyst Fred Zain – who died in 2002 and who was accused of fabricating evidence in more than 100 cases, leading to a number of rape and murder convictions being overturned – testified at the time that blood on the girl’s jeans, jacket and underwear was hers, not Sayers’.
Following his conviction, Sayers failed in four attempts to have it overturned. His fifth attempt, the Supreme Court’s decision recounts, began in 2010. Sayers alleged that his trial counsel failed to convey to him a plea deal that would have freed him after 30 years. He also alleged that counsel failed to request DNA evidence and highlight Zain’s testimony in his favor.
The process for his fifth attempt concluded in December 2016. One of the DNA tests, Miller said in his ruling, showed that Sayers’ semen was present on the crotch of the victim’s jean. “Accordingly … rather than exonerating Petitioner Sayers, or even casting doubt on whether he engaged in sexual relations with the victim, it lends support for the state’s theory that [Sayers and his accomplice] engaged in sexual activity with the victim.”
Miller continued, “Former-Trooper Zain’s testimony at trial — which is clearly wrong in light of the DNA testing — did not harm Petitioner Sayers. …. Zain’s testimony, although erroneous, was favorable to Petitioner Sayers.”
Sayers appealed Miller’s ruling to the Supreme Court in January 2017. The Supreme Court found no error in Miller’s evaluation of the DNA evidence.
The Supreme Court also found that Sayer’s contention about ineffective trial counsel and the supposedly bungled plea deal had already been adequately addressed and rejected in previous court proceeds, and was therefore without merit. The prosecutor at the time had in fact offered a plea deal of a minimum 30 years, which Sayers rejected, believing he would receive a lesser sentence at trial.
Sayers can only be reached by mail and could not be contacted in time for this report. He wrote two previous letters to The Dominion Post, prior to his September 2016 hearing, asserting he was wrongly convicted based on Zain’s testimony.
