Forensic scientist Dr. Henry Lee defended himself after a federal judge ruled that he was liable for falsifying evidence in a murder case that sent two Connecticut teenagers to prison for 30 years for a crime they did not commit. Ralph “Ricky” Birch and Shawn Henning were convicted four years after the December 1985 murder of Everett Carr partly due to Lee’s testimony about bloodstains on a towel in the 65-year-old victim’s home. In 2008, a test showed the stains were not blood, and by 2020, a judge had vacated Birch and Henning’s felony murder conviction. The two subsequently filed a wrongful conviction lawsuit against Lee, 84—known for his involvement in the JonBenet Ramsey and O.J. Simpson cases—along with the town of Milford and eight police investigators. Last week, U.S. District Court Judge Victor Bolden agreed with Birch and Henning in a pre-trial ruling that there was no evidence to indicate Lee had ever even tested the towel, but in a Wednesday statement to Fox News, Lee defended his reputation, saying the bloodstains may have simply degraded over time. “I have no motive nor reason to fabricate evidence,” he wrote.
