Tim Hennis: Murderer or Martyr? Part Four

In 1986 Tim Hennis was convicted of murdering an young mother and two of her three daughters. A retrial in 1989 set him free. Now almost 25 years after the murders he once again sits on death row for murders he says he did not commit.

The Intervening Years

After Tim Hennis was acquitted at his 1989 trial for the murders of Katie Eastburn and two of her daughters he continued on with his life. He remained in the service and remained married to the same women he had been married to at the time the crimes took place. He raised his own infant daughter to adulthood, and in 2004 retired from the service.

However, the prosecutors office if Fayetteville North Carolina was not done with Tim Hennis and though they could not try him again for the murders of Katie Eastburn and her daughters they knew that the army could. So, they persuaded the army to do just that, based on what they called new DNA evidence. The army agreed and in 2006 called Tim Hennis back to active duty for the sole purpose of trying him once again for the murders of the Eastburns.

Little information about the new trial seems to exist other than the DNA evidence that came from the body of Katie Eastburn and other items within the home at the time of the murder. Here is what that evidence revealed.

• Although the bloody towel found at the scene had DNA on it from at least one person other than the victims none of that DNA could be matched to Tim Hennis.

• The DNA from under the nails of Erin and Katie Eastburn did not either exclude or include Tim Hennis. It was inconclusive.

• The DNA from the body of Katie Eastburn is somewhat contradictory. Here are the statements that various “experts” made. One expert stated that he doubted if the DNA could have survived for 20 years without deteriorating. Another “expert” testified that there was only a 1 in 400 chance that the DNA came from a white male at all. However, he did state that based on the type of test he did he could not rule out Hennis. However, the woman who tested the sample for the North Carolina Crime Lab stated that there is only a 1 in over 12 thousand trillion chance that the DNA did not belong to Hennis.

• However, it should be noted that this same crime lab has been found to do improper testing in several cases and that their methods of arriving at their conclusions have come under fire time and time again.

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