KINGWOOD — A convicted Preston County murderer’s appeal has been denied by Senior Status Judge Larry Starcher.
Richard Knotts was convicted in 1990 of murdering Robert Barlow Jr. The jury’s verdict of first-degree murder without mercy carried a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole. In hearings in 2019 and 2020, he argued the conviction should be overturned and a new trial granted.
Knotts, who didn’t testify in his original trial, said in the appeals hearing that he took the blame for the murder because his mother asked him to. His brother, Dale, actually committed the murder, Richard Knotts said.
Both his mother and brother are now dead.
Knotts confessed to the crime to police more than once, according to testimony at the hearings. Those confessions were never refuted, Starcher said, citing this as another reason for not granting a new trial.
According to testimony in the trial, Barlow was stabbed 34 times and shot four times. The motive given for the murder was that Barlow was dating Dale Knotts’ wife.
In the appeal Knotts, now 60, also questioned some of the DNA evidence introduced at his trial.
Knotts admitted on the stand that a shirt found at his house, which had Barlow’s blood on it, was his. But recent DNA testing was inconclusive, according to testimony at the hearing by Knotts’ expert.
The judge said evidence at the appeal hearing didn’t prove that the original blood tests of evidence from the seat of Barlow’s car was false.
The blood evidence was secondary in the trial anyway, Starcher wrote.
DNA testing wasn’t available in 1990, the judge noted. For the appeal, Knotts’ attorney had DNA testing done on some of the evidence from the trial.
“Consequently, the new DNA testing … with the exception of the DNA blood evidence from the victim’s car seat … was inconclusive, and would not in any way change or affect the evidence presented in the original jury trial,” Starcher wrote.
Evidence at the murder scene, including blood, a broken gun and signs of a struggle, also contradicted Knotts’ testimony that his brother killed Barlow in Morgantown and left his body in Preston County.
Attorney Michael Benninger, who represented Knotts in the 1990 trial, testified during the appeals hearing.
Benninger denied that he was incompetent in his defense but said if he’d had the new blood evidence or more information about Barlow’s brother’s alleged involvement, he would have pursued that information.
In short, Judge Starcher ruled, none of the testimony at the appeal established grounds to overthrow the conviction.
Starcher noted that Knotts’ attorneys first filed requests for a new trial 17 years after the original trial and requested the DNA evidence 25 years after the trial, even though such testing was available in the mid-1990s.
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