Bibb judge considering whether Fargason murder case evidence will be tested for DNA
Thursday marked the 22nd anniversary of the day that Teresa Bowman Fargason was convicted of killing her 6-year-old daughter, Taylor.
The verdict came after a five-day trial and more than two years of investigation.
The 33-year-old was sentenced to life in prison.
She was paroled in January.
Now 54, Fargason and her attorneys are seeking to have evidence from the murder case tested for DNA. If new DNA evidence is discovered, they also are seeking a new trial.
Bibb County prosecutors have opposed the request.
Chief Macon Judicial Circuit Superior Court Judge Tripp Self heard arguments on the matter Thursday, but didn’t issue a ruling.
A passing motorist found Taylor dead on the side of a stretch of Interstate Parkway in west Bibb County on June 9, 1991. Her mother was arrested Dec. 29, 1992.
Fargason claimed her daughter disappeared on a shopping trip at the Kroger on Forsyth Road.
Prosecutors alleged at the trial that Fargason suffocated Taylor with a blanket in her bed because her boyfriend didn’t want to marry a woman with a child.
They argued that she put the girl’s body and blanket in her car, dumped her on the side of the road and went to Kroger to establish a false kidnapping story to cover her tracks.
Twenty-two years later, Fargason and her lawyers want to test Taylor’s nightgown and a tennis shoe that were found beside her body for contact DNA from her assailant.
“There’s the possibility that it’s going to come up with the answer” to who killed Taylor,” Aimee Maxwell, executive director for the Georgia Innocence Project argued Thursday. “We’re not going to know unless we test” the evidence.
Prosecutor Dorothy Hull argued against Fargason’s motion, saying the evidence has been contaminated, DNA testing was available at the time of the 1993 trial and that testing wouldn’t have a “material effect on the outcome of the trial.”
She also argued that Georgia law allows a person convicted of a crime the opportunity to file one “extraordinary motion for new trial” and Fargason’s request seeking additional testing is her second such motion.
Her first was filed in 2008 and was denied in Bibb County Superior Court, Hull said.
Drew Findling, another of Fargason’s lawyers, argued that Georgia legislators amended the law more than a decade ago, making provisions for a convicted person to seek a new trial after new DNA testing procedures were developed.
He contends the hair evidence testing procedures used for Fargason’s 1993 trial have since been deemed “garbage.”
Evidence presented at the trial showed hairs found in Taylor’s hands, nightgown, body and the sheet her body was wrapped in at the scene were consistent with her own hair and some were consistent with her mother’s hair, according to prosecutors’ response to Fargason’s motion requesting the testing.
Cynthia Seguin, an assistant manager at the GBI’s crime lab, testified the lab began testing contact DNA in 2010.
Contact DNA is left behind when someone touches something and leaves behind only a small sample, Seguin said.
Hair can now be tested for DNA with, or without, having a root attached, she said. The FBI performs testing for samples without a root.
While lab workers can isolate multiple DNA profiles from a piece of evidence, it’s possible that too many samples could yield testing inconclusive, Seguin said.
Kathy Geeslin, the court reporter for Fargason’s trial, testified she’s been the custodian of the nightgown, shoes, a sheet Taylor’s body was wrapped in at the crime scene, the hairs and other evidence.
The gown, shoes and sheet have been stored loose in a cardboard box she brought into the courtroom Thursday.
Hull noted that the items would have been handled by attorneys, court personnel and possibly jurors during their deliberations.
Even if a DNA profile was found, it wouldn’t necessarily point to Taylor’s killer, Hull argued.
It’s also possible that hair and DNA could be found on the items from Taylor’s interaction with other people from earlier on the day of her death.
Fingernail clippings from Taylor’s autopsy -- which could include trace amounts of the girl’s assailant’s skin or blood -- also are on the list of items Fargason wants to have tested although they’ve not been located.
Maxwell has said Fargason now is living with family in the Tuscaloosa, Alabama area and is working a factory job.
A special condition of her parole bans her from Bibb and Houston counties.
Although she had planned to attend Thursday’s hearing, which was allowed as an exemption to her parole restrictions, she was unable to attend, Maxwell said.
Information from Telegraph archives was used in this report. To contact writer Amy Leigh Womack, call 744-4398 or find her on Twitter@awomackmacon.
This story was originally published September 17, 2015 at 5:32 PM with the headline "Bibb judge considering whether Fargason murder case evidence will be tested for DNA ."