Jerry Townsend

• Alibi

● Alibi witnesses included his employer, probation officer and landlord

• Confession

● Townsend led police to six different crime scenes, confessed at each, and correctly identified location of the body at one crime scene ● He knew one victim was strangled ● He described that one victim was wearing a dress. ● He described that a white house at the crime scene had previously been yellow BUT Townsend gave incorrect information, including the wrong name for a victim, claimed to have cut a victim who suffered no cuts. See Amy Driscoll and Manny Garcia, Townsend Confession at Odds with Evidence, Miami Herald, May 27, 2001.

A detective noted, “There is number of inconsistencies in his statements. There is no way of getting around that.” As to one victim, “He said he put his hands tight around her neck and he strangled her…” Townsend said “’See that white house right there?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He says, ‘It was yellow.’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘1973.’ . . . I didn’t know that. Naturally when I got back in I checked and it was – it was yellow.”

“And they [the detectives] didn’t tell him what to say. You heard what he said. If they had told him what to say, the would have those statements down exactly, but there is not – There is many inconsistencies because there is many crimes and he gets them all confused to a certain extent…”

• State Law Evidence Claim

Townsend v. State, 420 So.2d 615 (Ct. App. Fla. 1982)
Townsend v. State, 430 So.2d 452 (Fla. 1983)