by Tim Junkin
In early 2003 Susan Levine, a Washington Post reporter, decided to write a lengthy piece on Kirk Bloodsworth. As part of her research she contacted the Baltimore County State’s Attorney’s Office and asked what had been done to follow up on Dawn Hamilton’s killer. She received little in the way of a response. In June of 2003 the Baltimore Sun ran an article questioning why the DNA had not been compared to the state’s DNA database of convicted felons, a database in place since well before Bloodsworth’s release in 1993. Pressure on the prosecutors was mounting.
On September 4, 2003, following a long Labor Day weekend, Kirk got a telephone call that scared him. After a morning spent crabbing on the river, he’d been watching television in his and Brenda’s cottage in Cambridge. When the phone rang he picked it up.
“May I please speak to Kirk Bloodsworth?” he heard. He froze. He recognized the voice. His heart started racing.
“Who’s calling?” he asked.
“Ann Brobst from the state’s attorney’s office.”
Kirk could hardly speak. Then it came to him. They had to have found the killer.
“I need to meet with you, Kirk,” Ann said. “It’s about the Dawn Hamilton murder.”
“You found him!” Kirk screamed into the phone. “You found the bastard!”
“I can’t tell you that,” she answered calmly. “I need to see you.”
Kirk could feel the blood rushing to his face. His ears burned. “Well, goddamn it, don’t tell me no,” he cried out. “Don’t you tell me no!”
Brobst heard the plea. “No, I won’t tell you no,” she softly answered. “I just want to see you and tell you in person.”
“You haven’t said a goddamn word to me or called me in twenty years and now you want to meet with me?” Kirk cried out.
“Calm down. Please calm down, Mr. Bloodsworth,” Brobst said. “I want to talk to you in person. I owe you that. You pick the time and place. Anywhere you want. It’s important.”
Kirk didn’t want Ann Brobst coming anywhere near his home. He agreed to meet her the next day in the Burger King parking lot, the one on the water with a small broken-down pier out back. He thought he knew what she was going to tell him, but he decided to take no chances. The parking lot had two different exits by car, and he’d have his boat anchored just off the pier. He wasn’t going to let them take him back. That night he couldn’t sleep. He knew something important was about to happen.
Kirk was nervous enough about the meeting to call his legal adviser in Washington, Deborah Crandall, and she drove to Cambridge to join him. Kirk’s cousin, Cindy, came to the house also, and accompanied Kirk and Brenda to the Burger King parking lot. Kirk was dressed all in black. Brenda held Kirk’s arm as they got out of the car and walked over to where Brobst and two detectives were standing.
Ann Brobst shook hands stiffly and introduced the two detectives to Kirk. Brenda, Cindy, and Deborah said hello. They all agreed to go inside. One of the detectives pushed two tables together where everyone could sit.
“So what’s this about?” Kirk asked.
“We have a cold hit on the killer,” Ann Brobst said. “We’ve found more evidence on Dawn’s clothing. We put the DNA into CODIS. We have the man. The evidence is unequivocal.”
Kirk started shaking. Tears streamed down his face. Brenda was crying and holding on to him tightly. The floodgates just burst. He couldn’t stop himself. “Oh my God,” he cried. “Oh my God.” He began sobbing into his hands. “Who is it?” he asked. “What’s the bastard’s name?”
“Kimberly Ruffner,” one of the detectives answered. “He was in the prison with you.”
“No!” Kirk screamed out. “Kimberly Ruffner? I spotted weights for that man. Brought him library books.”
“We know,” Brobst said.
“There is no doubt whatsoever in our minds,” one of the detectives said.
“We’ve gotten three separate hits on him,” the other detective said.
It went unspoken, but everyone at that table knew that it happened only because of the persistence of Kirk Bloodsworth in trying to clear his name. Only because he and Bob Morin had refused to quit, had found that unseen spot of semen on Dawn Hamilton’s clothing. The crime was solved because of them.
“Believe it or not, I’ve been pushing for this to go into the database for years,” Brobst said.
Kirk made no reply.
“The database has been there, but we honestly didn’t have the funds to test this DNA. We got a grant just a bit back,” the first detective added.
“Kirk, I’m sorry,” Ann Brobst said. “I wanted to come and tell you that personally. I am deeply sorry for what we did to you.”
Kirk was still shaking, almost convulsing. He pointed a trembling finger at Brobst. “I have hated you for twenty years,” he said in a loud, bellowing voice. He was almost shouting. “For twenty fucking years! You have called me a monster . . .” His words broke up. He was sobbing, choking back his heaves. It took some time for him to compose himself. “You have called me a child killer . . .” He could hardly continue. Brenda handed him some paper napkins and he tried to stanch his tears. “I am no angel, but I am not out killing little girls . . .”
Brobst sat there across from him. Controlled. Professional. Inside the Burger King it had turned stone quiet.
Kirk calmed some and studied her. It was just a gesture Brobst had made, coming to Cambridge. Not much after so much pain, so much arrogance. But it was something. “I don’t hate you no more,” Kirk said more softly. He heaved a sigh. He nodded to her. “‘Cause of what you done in coming down here yourself to tell me this. I know it was hard. I know it took a lot. I forgive you.”
Ann Brobst sat there. She didn’t know how to answer.
The detectives told Kirk what would probably happen. Kimberly Ruffner was being charged for the rape and murder of Dawn Hamilton. He would be brought to justice. Later Kirk learned that one of the original tips in the Hamilton slaying, from back in 1984, concerned the fact that the composite resembled a man wanted in the Fells Point area for a number of child rapes. The lead had never been adequately chased down.
Before he got up from the table, Kirk asked Ann Brobst about Thomas Hamilton, Dawn’s father. Word had it that he’d had a difficult time, had gone to prison himself. Brobst was surprised at Kirk’s question. That Kirk would care enough at such a time to express concern for Hamilton. She told him the little she knew.
Outside the restaurant, Kirk excused himself for a moment, stepped away, and called his father on his cell phone. Curtis Bloodsworth shouted out loud when he heard the news.
As Kirk rejoined the group, the sun was high over the silver Choptank, winding wide and silent across the landscape. From the parking lot, Kirk could see his boat bobbing gently on the deep river. He inwardly laughed. Freedom was his.
Kirk asked one of the police officers, the one with the twang, where he was from, and Major Rufton Price told him: “West Virginia.”
“Took an old country boy from West Virginia to finally catch the son of a bitch, didn’t it,” chuckled Kirk. “Figures. And thank you.”
Later Kirk likened that moment to having a million-ton ball of pig iron on his back and then having someone just kick it off. He felt like he had just walked through Alice’s looking glass, back into the world. As everyone got ready to leave, Kirk shook the hands of the detectives, and said good-bye to them. He then turned to Ann Brobst. She stood there unmoving, small, diminutive. Kirk opened up his large bearlike arms. Brobst waited, uncertain. Kirk smiled, walked up to her, put his large arms around her and said, “Thank you for coming.” He squeezed her, and she tentatively raised her arms and then hugged him back. “It’s over,” Kirk whispered. “It’s finally over. And now we both can find some peace . . .”
EPILOGUE
Kirk Bloodsworth (far left), with his lawyer, Bob Morin (third from left), leaves the Maryland Penitentiary on the day of his release, June 28, 1993.
SPRING 2004
&n
bsp; KIMBERLY SHAY RUFFNER had been twice charged with sexually assaulting children before Dawn Hamilton’s slaying. He’d been accused of an attack on a young teenager in Baltimore City, a charge that was dropped, and then charged for sexually assaulting an eleven-year-old girl in November 1983. He was tried on that charge in the summer of 1984, but when the jury could not reach a verdict was set free. The date was July 12, two weeks before Dawn Hamilton was killed. Ruffner lived in East Baltimore, approximately six miles from Fontana Village. Six weeks after Dawn’s death Ruffner was arrested for the attempted rape and stabbing of another woman in the Fells Point area of Baltimore. It was that crime that put him in the same prison as Kirk Bloodsworth. Following the match of his DNA with that from the Hamilton crime scene evidence, including semen recently identified on the sheet used to transport Dawn Hamilton’s body to the morgue, charges were filed by the Baltimore County Police Department on September 4, 2003, against Ruffner for the rape and murder of Dawn Venice Hamilton. In November 2003 he was indicted for the crime by a grand jury. The Baltimore County State’s Attorney’s Office initially indicated that it planned to seek the death penalty. Kirk Bloodsworth, while intent on seeing Dawn Hamilton’s killer brought to justice, opposed this decision. During the months following Ruffner’s indictment, and with the consent of Thomas Hamilton, the prosecutors decided to engage in plea negotiations with Ruffner’s attorney. On May 19, 2004, Kirk was visited by several detectives, including Major Rufton Price, as well as a deputy in the state’s attorney’s office, Steve Bailey. They explained to Kirk that in order to avoid the wrenching ordeal of another trial the state had offered Ruffner a plea bargain that would allow him to escape a death sentence. Ruffner had agreed to accept it. In so doing he had acknowledged his sole responsibility for the crime, stating that he had smoked PCP and had drunk a large amount of rum the morning before he encountered Dawn Hamilton. He also admitted that he had slain Dawn with the rock that was found near her head. On May 20, 2004, almost twenty years after the murder, in Baltimore County Circuit Court, Kimberly Ruffner, standing about five feet eight inches tall, and with cropped dirty blond hair, entered a plea of guilty to the first-degree premeditated murder of Dawn Venice Hamilton. He was sentenced that same morning to life in prison, to run consecutively, or in addition to, the sentence he was already serving. In a press conference following the hearing, Steve Bailey told reporters that his office expected that Ruffner would never leave prison. He also said that it was absolutely clear that Kirk Bloodsworth was innocent of any involvement in the crime. He went on to acknowledge that the Bloodsworth experience had caused his office to reexamine its decision making in capital cases.
Judge Robert Morin, appointed by President Clinton to the Washington, D.C., Superior Court in 1996, continues to preside over legal matters. His prior law partner and friend, Gerry Fisher, was also appointed to be a judge in that same court and occupies chambers not far from those of Judge Morin. Stephen B. Bright remains the director of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, maintaining the fight against death sentences and on behalf of equal justice nationwide.
Dr. Edward Blake continues his work in the field of DNA testing for forensic purposes. Dr. Blake recalls the Kirk Bloodsworth case well. When Dr. Blake received the panties of Dawn Hamilton for testing, black markings were on them, having previously been put there by the FBI. This is consistent with the testimony of Agent William McInnis at Kirk’s first trial that he had made such markings. These markings included circles, some lettering, and an arrow pointing directly at the stain of semen that Blake’s lab discovered, analyzed, and from which Blake obtained the DNA sample that freed Kirk Bloodsworth. Blake reports that at the time he received the panties, no fabric from the area of the stain had been removed. He concludes that the FBI, even though it drew an arrow pointing directly to the area where the semen stain existed, failed to test the stain to determine what it was. Blake has photographs of the panties vividly showing the markings and the arrow pointing directly to the semen stain.
William McGinnis, the FBI serologist who testified at the first Bloodsworth trial, has no specific recollection of the case. He reports that he would often make markings on evidence indicating the spot from where he intended to try and lift samples for identification and testing. If no spermatozoa were then found, he’d conclude that no semen was present. The fact that there were markings on the clothes, he posits, would indicate only that he probably attempted to identify blood or spermatozoa from those areas. The question thus remains, How could McInnis and the FBI have failed to find any semen on the crime scene evidence?
Sandra O’Connor has provided little in the way of a satisfactory explanation as to why her office waited ten years—from 1993 when Dr. Blake discovered the semen stain until 2003—to try and match the DNA found on Dawn Hamilton’s underclothing with a suspect. For all her office knew, the murderer of Hamilton could have been stalking other victims during those ten years or been pending release from a prison or a jail. The Baltimore County Police Department utilized dozens of officers and spent vast resources to investigate the crime. O’Connor’s office also spent significant resources in prosecuting Bloodsworth twice, in vigorously resisting Bloodsworth’s efforts to free himself, and in defending its convictions during two appeals. Yet after Bloodsworth’s release, when it came time to appreciate that Bloodsworth was not the assailant, O’Connor’s office delayed ten years before comparing the DNA retrieved from the actual killer’s sperm with that contained in the state’s database. It was short of funds, Ann Brobst explained.
Ann Brobst has been promoted to be deputy of the Circuit Court Division of the Baltimore County State’s Attorney’s Office. She was not assigned to the Kimberly Ruffner prosecution.
Robert Lazzaro presently works in a law firm in Towson, Maryland, primarily handling divorce matters. He and his partners did accept appointments in two cases to defend death penalty prosecutions brought by his old boss. “There’s quite a difference being on the defense side,” he remarked. “As a prosecutor, the crime has already been committed. As a defense lawyer, you actually hold someone’s life in your hands. It’s a sobering responsibility.” In both cases, he was able to avoid a death sentence.
Steven Scheinin, David Henninger, and Leslie Stein all continue in private practice in the greater Baltimore area.
Judge William Hinkel sits occasionally as a retired judge but has no plans to ever again hear a capital case. Judge James T. Smith left the bench in September 2001 to run for office. He was elected as the Baltimore County executive in 2002.
In 1994 the State of Maryland abandoned the gas chamber as a means of execution, replacing it with lethal injection, considered more humane. In May 2002 Maryland governor Parris Glendening, citing continuing questions about the integrity of capital punishment, placed a temporary moratorium on death sentences in Maryland. In January 2003 Maryland’s attorney general, J. Joseph Curran Jr. called for an abolition of the death penalty in Maryland citing flaws in the system and the real possibility that innocent persons could be executed. Maryland’s newly sworn-in Republican governor, Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., however, has lifted the moratorium. He has done this despite a recent independent study by a University of Maryland researcher pointing out that of the twelve men then awaiting execution in Maryland, the vast majority were from one county—Baltimore County, eight were black, and all were convicted of killing white people.
Kirk Bloodsworth continues his work as a consultant with the Justice Project and regularly travels to speak on behalf of prison reform, access to DNA testing for prisoners, and against capital punishment. He has been the recipient of numerous awards for his efforts promoting civil rights and equal justice. In 2003 bipartisan sponsored legislation in Congress, called the Innocence Protection Act, contained a grant to prisoners providing funds for DNA testing. It was named in his honor—the Kirk Bloodsworth Post-Conviction DNA Testing Grant Program. Kirk lobbied hard for this legislation. He even handed out a copy of the first hardback
edition of this book to each United States senator. Through his efforts and the work of many others, the legislation passed both houses of Congress in October 2004. It was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 30, 2004.
On March 15, 2004, Sir Alec Jeffreys was awarded the prestigious Pride of Britain Lifetime Achievement Award in a ceremony in the Grand Ballroom of the London Hilton attended by dignitaries and celebrities from all over the world. Kirk Bloodsworth, accompanied by his wife, Brenda, was secretly flown in to appear onstage as the special guest of Jeffreys before a televised audience estimated at over 10 million people.
Freedom, Kirk Bloodsworth’s workboat, at least when her skipper’s in town, can usually be seen plying the tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay, trotlining for hard crabs, occasionally trolling for stripers, a fine example of a waterman’s craft, not particularly fast but stable and sturdy, steadily moving forward through the waves, a white gem on a river of blue.
Author’s Note and Acknowledgments
WHEN I FIRST APPROACHED Kirk Bloodsworth with the idea of working on this project, he agreed enthusiastically to make it a collaborative effort. He generously provided his time, shared with me the intimate and often painful details of his life story, and encouraged his prior lawyers to speak with me and give me access to their records. My job was to research and write the book. Since then, Kirk and I have spent many days together, and I am sincerely grateful for the opportunity he gave me to undertake this project and for his enormous contribution to it. In working with Kirk I have gained a profound admiration and respect for his courage, his integrity, and his character. To endure what he endured and then to turn his life into a positive force for justice is both remarkable and inspiring. It is in keeping, of course, with the grit of a Chesapeake Bay waterman.