The Conclusions of Pro Bono Experts in Merry Pease's Case

I am very distressed about many aspects of this case.

Based upon the totality of information which I have reviewed in this case I must say that I am surprised that it was ever taken to trial. There are far too many questions which need to be addressed. I can only pray that The Great State of Virginia does something to assure justice will be served.

After an examination of the submitted items it is the opinion of this examiner that the shooting of M.C. Pease and Dennis Pease was done by Dennis Pease.

This examiner, after 30 years of examining firearms evidence has never experienced, or heard of a case of a self inflicted alibi gunshot wound that was fired through the torso of a person, into vital organs.

A marvelous comedy is unfolding in Virginia. But it is not funny to the fall-girl victim. A long series of astounding mistakes have been made in Wise County by law enforcement personnel and a prosecutor. These mistakes have resulted in the impoverishment, due to legal fees, of an innocent victim who was shot by her husband near the middle of her body. The absurdity of this being a self-inflicted, alibi wound is patently obvious to any experienced investigator. I have worked many thousands of cases and testified about 2,900 times on physical evidence and crime scene reconstruction. I have seen some developing cases get off on as poor a track as this one, but I have never seen one this bad actually go to trial.

Merry Christine Pease has been tried and convicted multiple times for the murder of her husband, Dennis Pease. The problem with the case is simply that the physical evidence clearly shows it impossible that she shot Dennis and then shot herself and fled the scene. Police photographs and videotape footage of the death scene and the later walk-through of the violent events by the wife, conducted and videotaped by the police, very clearly show the completely truthful physical evidence which proves her innocence.