Stuart Heaton request for new trial denied

[TheCars1986]

This case is a prime example of one where a clearly guilty person who insists on DNA evidence to be tested is not some sort of evidence in of itself that the person must be innocent or why else would they want DNA testing done? Heaton knew there was a chance that a 2nd round of testing would have been roughly the same odds as the first round and was banking on that fact to get another trial. It reminds me of Roger Keith Coleman who was executed in 1992 for raping and murdering his sister-in-law. Coleman's supporters were adamant that the State executed an innocent man, as the DNA testing done on the rape kit of Wanda McCoy (the murder victim) showed the presence of more than one person depositing semen. Coleman's DNA was within 2% of the American population who could have deposited the semen. His last words were:

An innocent man is going to be murdered tonight. When my innocence is proven, I hope America will realize the injustice of the death penalty as all other civilized countries have. My last words are to the woman I love. Love is eternal. My love for you will last forever. I love you, Sharon.

His DNA was retested years after his death after his supporters and death penalty abolitionists continued to insist that the State executed the wrong man. The new round of testing in 2006 showed without a shadow of a doubt that he was the sole depositor of the semen found at the crime scene, and that the odds of it being a random match were 1 in 19 million.

[Pelham Bay]

Guilty.

300%

DNA doesn't lie.

He killed Krystal and he will rot in prison, where he belongs.

[TheCars1986]

Whoever was running the "Heaton is innocent" website is taking off the trial transcripts that they had posted years before. Anyone who ever read through his trial would know he was guilty even before the more recent DNA tests came back.

[XCalibur]

Originally Posted by TheCars1986

This case is a prime example of one where a clearly guilty person who insists on DNA evidence to be tested is not some sort of evidence in of itself that the person must be innocent or why else would they want DNA testing done? Heaton knew there was a chance that a 2nd round of testing would have been roughly the same odds as the first round and was banking on that fact to get another trial. It reminds me of Roger Keith Coleman who was executed in 1992 for raping and murdering his sister-in-law. Coleman's supporters were adamant that the State executed an innocent man, as the DNA testing done on the rape kit of Wanda McCoy (the murder victim) showed the presence of more than one person depositing semen. Coleman's DNA was within 2% of the American population who could have deposited the semen. His last words were:



His DNA was retested years after his death after his supporters and death penalty abolitionists continued to insist that the State executed the wrong man. The new round of testing in 2006 showed without a shadow of a doubt that he was the sole depositor of the semen found at the crime scene, and that the odds of it being a random match were 1 in 19 million.

Interesting you bring up Roger Keith Coleman. I never made a connection between him and Stuart Heaton but there were definitely similarities, both did push their innocence hard and for DNA tests they apparently knew would just prove their guilt and some can't help but wonder why.

I knew the Coleman case very well, I was born not five minutes away from where it happened and lived in the area my whole life. Interestingly enough most of the people who defended him were outsiders to the area and believed his neighbors and the town of Grundy were just a bunch of backwards hicks who wanted to off someone for Wanda's murder. But most of the people in the area who actually knew him knew he had a history of being a perv and a sexual sadist and believed he was guilty. Two months before the murder he allegedly showed up at the local library and masturbated in front of two of the ladies working there. Of course he always denied it was him and though it was never proven the two women identified him.

But for his advocates, I don't really know what they wanted for proof. He had bloodstained jeans with the victim's blood type. His jeans were wet as high as the creek was the night he supposedly waded it to get to her house. HE had a history of perverted behavior, and then the DNA. Some even tried to put that off as he was having an affair with her, but the only problem with that is his DNA and Wanda's husband's were the only foreign samples found on and in her body. So where was the killer's? Literally the only thing he had going for him was an alibi that was shaky at best. In fact his movements that night are classic alibi concocting that several killers have done going out of the way to make sure they are seen several places around the time of the murder before and after. Basically they count on the fact that the authorities cannot pin point the exact time of death, only a range so they make a special effort to make sure they are seen around the time of death elsewhere. there was another case on Unsolved Mysteries where a husband who suspected of shooting his wife is believed to have done the same thing, I cannot remember the names for the life of me just that was in season 2. And another one on Forensic Files where a guy killed his wife in a hotel room and made sure he was seen elsewhere around the time, although he was caught and the one on Unsolved Mysteries if indeed he killer her has never been charged.

Of course there are differences between Stuart Heaton and Roger Coleman. I think Heaton killed Krystal Nabb for personal reasons, whereas Coleman had no known beef with his sister in law and is believed to have done it simply because he was a sexual sadist who needed a victim that night for his own sick needs. Coleman could very well have been a budding Ted Bundy who fortunately was caught and done away with before he had a chance to hurt to many people, he was only 22 at the time of the murder. But he was such a good liar and so adamant about his innocence pushing for DNA that would prove his guilt that even many people who think he did it believe he must have done it in an altered state and could not remember his own actions. Similar claims have been made about a lot of killers because they continuously denied their actions, of course in 99.9% of cases I've always believed that's complete hogwash. I believe Jekyll and Hyde like cases where people black out and do things they don't remember are very rare almost to the point of being non existent. Its just a cop out. By and large people just don't want to believe someone could be such an evil psychopath they can lie forever, they like to think even when someone does something bad sooner or later they will have a come to Jesus moment and admit it. But many never do, guess that is why God made DNA.

[TheCars1986]

Originally Posted by XCalibur

I knew the Coleman case very well, I was born not five minutes away from where it happened and lived in the area my whole life. Interestingly enough most of the people who defended him were outsiders to the area and believed his neighbors and the town of Grundy were just a bunch of backwards hicks who wanted to off someone for Wanda's murder. But most of the people in the area who actually knew him knew he had a history of being a perv and a sexual sadist and believed he was guilty. Two months before the murder he allegedly showed up at the local library and masturbated in front of two of the ladies working there. Of course he always denied it was him and though it was never proven the two women identified him.

This is basically what innocence fraud is. Activists, some of which devote their lives to certain cases as if it was a religion, think they know better than the people who were from the area and the original investigators. I am always skeptical whenever there is an "exoneration" that results in letting the "innocent" person free without having another person convicted. The TIME Magazine photo spread for Coleman shows you how certain cases are framed:

[DALLASTEXAN!!]

saw this segment today and thought I'd bump the thread. I read through the UM wiki page and it did say that his supporters believe that his second round of DNA testing was fraudulent. it seems like when the segment originally aired people thought they could poke holes in DNA testing. not many argue against DNA evidence anymore.

Some have said that Stuart is convincing and maybe hindsight is 20/20, but watching Stuart's interview is not convincing at all for me now. He is a serial liar and probably got away with lying for his whole life based on the way his mother defended him. This is a classic bad guy shielding himself behind religion and his lies convince people who believe heavily in their religion to the point that they are blinded by the repetitive lies and terrible acts that people do. they want to believe that terrible people who commit terrible acts upon others can change and can be good. Stuart knows that and he takes advantage of it like the predator that he is.

[TheCars1986]

Originally Posted by DALLASTEXAN!!

saw this segment today and thought I'd bump the thread. I read through the UM wiki page and it did say that his supporters believe that his second round of DNA testing was fraudulent. it seems like when the segment originally aired people thought they could poke holes in DNA testing. not many argue against DNA evidence anymore.

Some have said that Stuart is convincing and maybe hindsight is 20/20, but watching Stuart's interview is not convincing at all for me now. He is a serial liar and probably got away with lying for his whole life based on the way his mother defended him. This is a classic bad guy shielding himself behind religion and his lies convince people who believe heavily in their religion to the point that they are blinded by the repetitive lies and terrible acts that people do. they want to believe that terrible people who commit terrible acts upon others can change and can be good. Stuart knows that and he takes advantage of it like the predator that he is.

On the surface you want to believe Heaton. He had no prior history of violence (pre-conviction his rape of a minor was not known), was married with a young son, and seemingly had a very narrow connection to the victim. Krystal Nabb was stabbed hundreds of times with a pair of scissors during a weekday afternoon. To some people it would seem inconceivable that Heaton would do such a thing or have a motive to do so. Which is why the DNA was the final nail in his coffin. There is no way to refute it.

[DALLASTEXAN!!]

Originally Posted by TheCars1986

On the surface you want to believe Heaton. He had no prior history of violence (pre-conviction his rape of a minor was not known), was married with a young son, and seemingly had a very narrow connection to the victim. Krystal Nabb was stabbed hundreds of times with a pair of scissors during a weekday afternoon. To some people it would seem inconceivable that Heaton would do such a thing or have a motive to do so. Which is why the DNA was the final nail in his coffin. There is no way to refute it.

well said. I wish that people didn't do these types of things to other people. especially men abusing, raping, and killing women.

[Clockwork]

Originally Posted by TheCars1986

On the surface you want to believe Heaton. He had no prior history of violence (pre-conviction his rape of a minor was not known), was married with a young son, and seemingly had a very narrow connection to the victim. Krystal Nabb was stabbed hundreds of times with a pair of scissors during a weekday afternoon. To some people it would seem inconceivable that Heaton would do such a thing or have a motive to do so. Which is why the DNA was the final nail in his coffin. There is no way to refute it.

Can you explain that one for me please? I am trying to see if I am reading that right. I was always under the impression he never had anything prior. But are you saying he raped a minor at a different time but it just wasn't known?

Edit:
Ah, I see now. He had a couple other issues. He scratched a girls car who rejected his advances once and he raped a girl at a party back in 1986 but she never said anything about it. I mean, this could be something that is said after the fact of course once she realizes he is convicted. I do tend to wonder about things that are not tested in court that are of that serious in nature.


I am not necessarily disputing the DNA evidence, but my issue is that there could have been some intentional compromising with it. I know that people think cops can be crooked, well, this counts at one of them I think. Who says some results can't be compromised? That is the only thing that bothers me about this case, and the circumstantial evidence.

Also the motive, I think whoever got her pregnant, or who thought they were the one doing it, could have done this. But 81 times being stabbed? Why? That's just vicious. I can see the motive for killing her if he is married or something, which Heaton was, but there really ought to be a lot more evidence against Stuart I would think. Shouldn't there have been blood all over his truck for example? Or on him?

[TheCars1986]

Originally Posted by Clockwork

Shouldn't there have been blood all over his truck for example? Or on him?

He dropped his wife off for work in the morning on the day he murdered Krystal Naab, and was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. He has no alibi from about 10 o'clock that morning to around 3 in the afternoon, where he showed up at his mother's house wearing only sweatpants. Multiple witnesses place his distinct truck at the Naab residence during this time frame. He had plenty of time to shower and clean up.

[TheCars1986]

Heaton's current mugshot.

[Pelham Bay]

Originally Posted by Clockwork

I am not necessarily disputing the DNA evidence, but my issue is that there could have been some intentional compromising with it. I know that people think cops can be crooked, well, this counts at one of them I think. Who says some results can't be compromised? That is the only thing that bothers me about this case, and the circumstantial evidence.

I think there is an important distinction that needs to be made when talking about contaminated DNA.

DNA can be contaminated so that it looks like it does NOT match a particular person - but there is no way to contaminate DNA so that it will falsely appear to MATCH a particular person. That is simply flat out impossible.

The reason is simple. DNA is matched to people by seeing how certain patterns and "bands" show up in the genetic material. If a sample was contaminated, that can easily alter the material so that it muddies up those genetic markers - which then will not match that certain someone, in this case Stuart Heston.

However, there's just no way to manipulate a DNA sample so that it magically builds the genetic markers and bands to be identical to someone else's.

Think of it in this way:

Imagine you have a bowl of alphabet soup in front of you. In the soup, there are only the letters A, B and C, and no others. If you walked away for a few minutes and someone came in with a pocket full of Ds and Es, and dumped them into the soup, it would then make it appear that the soup does not match yours, because yours had only As, Bs and Cs.

However if someone wanted to fraudulently pass off a different bowl of soup (with only Xs, Ys and Zs) as your bowl of soup, they could try contaminating it by adding As, Bs, and Cs, but that wouldn't produce an exact match because there is no way to remove the Xs, Ys and Zs that are part of the soup's "genetic code."

We've all heard about cases where some question if there was tampering with the DNA, but I think there's a lot of ignorance in those conversations among folks who don't know how DNA works. Contaminating DNA can make it NOT look like someone's, but contamination cannot make a sample MATCH a particular person, at least not intentionally. There's simply no way to manipulate it for that purpose.

[James T]

Originally Posted by TheCars1986

Heaton's current mugshot.

Still looks as arrogant as ever.

[TheCars1986]

Watched this one last night on YouTube and they did not have an update about Heaton's DNA conclusively proving that he was the murderer of Krystal Naab.

[Clockwork]

What bothers me about this case is the "why"? He claims he never knew Krystal, she was pregnant (I assume from her boyfriend?) and what is the reason for him to commit such a terrible crime by repeated stabbings against a teenage girl? What incited that sort of hatred? Why do it in the middle of the day? Why leave the murder weapon there? Just so many questions to ask and it doesn't make sense. I am not saying he is innocent, but they relied a lot on DNA. I don't remember them even stating a motive