I’ve written quite a bit in this blog about the two murder trials of Raynella Dossett-Leath, whom Knoxville, TN, media dubbed the “Black Widow.” This woman’s story is nothing short of a Greek tragedy—whether or not she’s guilty. (But I’m increasingly convinced she’s innocent.)

After Ms. Dossett-Leath was convicted of murdering her second husband by staging his suicide, I heard from Dossett family friends, who were interested in what I had written about the case. We corresponded briefly. Yesterday I learned that something I wrote led them to contact the defense team who investigated further and now have uncovered new evidence in the case. Attorney James Bell has petitioned Judge Baumgartner to order a retrial or overturn the verdict based on this new evidence.

For me, a mystery writer, who lives in a fantasy world, this is a very strange situation. I still can’t quite comprehend it. Instead of writing a whodunit plot that ends with a clever twist, in this case I wrote about a real human tragedy, and now it seems that what I wrote may help exonerate an innocent woman.

A Blog Post on Colt .38 Cartridges and Casings

The issue that caught my attention a few weeks ago was the empty shell casings found in a Colt revolver beside David Leath’s body. According to the prosecution and investigators, three empty casings were found in the cylinder. Because of the casings’ positions, the second of three bullets fired was deemed to be the fatal bullet. If that was true, then the shooting was homicide, not suicide.

The prosecution claimed Ms. Dossett-Leath staged the entire scene to look like suicide. They said she fired the three bullets, the second of which struck her husband in the forehead (yes, it’s a rather bizarre staging), and then placed the gun in or near her husband’s left hand. As Mr. Bell told reporter Balloch, “It was in fact law enforcement setting the stage.”

What puzzled me was how crime-scene investigators could know there were three empty casings in the cylinder when the gun was still in the dead man’s hand. Now defense attorney, James Bell, has uncovered evidence about the original police investigation that proves my theory: they only knew because they took the gun out of his hand, ejected the casings, and then replaced them and put the gun back in the deceased’s hand.

According to Knoxville reporter Jim Balloch, Mr. Bell learned that one of the patrolmen who first responded to Ms. Dossett-Leath’s 911 call was seen holding the gun in his hand before detectives and the CSI unit arrived. Unbelievable! What would possess a cop to touch a weapon that was covered in blood? That also explains why they couldn’t recover usable fingerprints from the gun.

Dumb or Unlucky?

I wrote last year that I thought it was possible Ms. Dossett-Leath was either the dumbest “Black Widow” murderer ever or one of the unluckiest women on the planet. Now it looks to me as if the dumbest person involved was a patrol cop and Ms. Dossett-Leath is, indeed, one of the unluckiest women on Earth: she will go on trial early next year for murdering her first husband by drugging him and then throwing him out of his wheelchair in the path of a cattle stampede. (Here, too, we have to ask how dumb she is. The poor man was dying of cancer. If she killed him, it must have been because she was not only dumb but impatient.)

I’m very happy for the Dossett family. I hope Ms. Dossett-Leath will soon be released from prison. And I also hope the Leath family will reconsider their conviction that their loved one could not have committed suicide.