Willie Jerome "Fly" Manning (born June 12, 1968) is on death row at Mississippi State Penitentiary, USA, with two death sentences for a conviction of double murder (Steckler-Miller murders). He was previously also convicted and sentenced to death for an unrelated double murder (Jimmerson-Jordan murders), but the State Supreme Court overturned this verdict and ordered a new trial. The charges against him for the Jimmerson-Jordan murders were then dropped, and the Death Penalty Information Center listed him as a 2015 death row exoneree for this case.
Steckler-Miller murders: background and trial Jon Steckler, 19, and Tiffany Miller, 22, were two students at Mississippi State University in Starkville.Emily Lane, "Miss. execution due Tuesday, FBI claim testimony 'invalid'", Reuters, published in Chicago Tribune, May 6, 2013, Jon Stephen Steckler was a sophomore majoring in forest resources. He was an athlete who played high school football for Cathedral High School and a practicing Catholic who served on the mission field in Mexico. He was also an outdoorsman and hunter. Pamela Tiffany Miller was a third-year sophomore (having taken a year off) from Madison, Mississippi, studying nursing.
On December 11, 1992, at 2:15 a.m., a motorist found Steckler shot in the back of the head and left for dead by the side of a road just outside Starkville,Campbell Robertson, "Mississippi Inmate's Bid for DNA Tests Is Denied With Tuesday Execution Set," May 3, 2013, having been run over by Miller's car, a Toyota MR2.Web site of WJTV.com, May 31, 2013, http://www.wjtv.com/story/22154822/mdoc-releases When law enforcement officers arrived, they found Miller's body in nearby woods. She had been shot twice, in the forehead and mouth.Vicky Oswalt, Columbus Commercial Dispatch, November 4, 1994, p. 1A. The evidence suggested that she had been sexually assaulted.Campbell Robertson, "Mississippi Inmate's Bid for DNA Tests Is Denied With Tuesday Execution Set", May 3, 2013, Steckler died shortly afterward.
In the morning, Miller's car was found double-parked at an apartment complex in the vicinity of her trailer. A woman had seen the car parked outside the apartments at 1 a.m. (A witness told law enforcement that after midnight on the night of the murders, she heard a man yelling from the direction of Miller’s trailer. Two witnesses said they heard what sounded like a white man yelling, followed by two gunshots.) Miller's missing ring was found between her car and her trailer.
Law enforcement made slow progress with their investigation, which included a theory that the murders were linked to theft from a car outside Steckler’s university fraternity. On the morning of the murders, one of Steckler's fraternity brothers, John Wise, found his car had been burglarized. Prosecutors said the two students had interrupted the burglary.Emily Lane, "Miss. execution due Tuesday, FBI claim testimony 'invalid'," Reuters, published in Chicago Tribune, May 6, 2013, The two students were, according to prosecutors, forced into Miller's car from the street in front of Steckler's fraternity house.
Manning’s cousin was a suspect, but implicated two other men, passing a lie detector test when doing so. Both these men were excluded as suspects (Manning’s cousin was later to shift the blame to Manning).
Months elapsed before Manning became the main suspect. According to the sheriff, Manning fell under suspicion when a silver huggie, identified as being from the car theft, was found 5 miles from his home. The sheriff did not explain why this discovery made Manning a suspect.
Prosecutors said that Manning had a record of convictions for theft and other crimes and had recently been paroled:Chicago Tribune, May 6, 2013, http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-execution-mississippibre9450yk-20130506,0,5285389.story But there was no physical evidence linking Manning to the murders or the car burglary. No gun was ever discovered. Footprints from the scene of the crimes could not be matched to any shoes at Manning’s home.https://www.wlbt.com/2023/10/03/death-row-inmate-seeks-clear-his-name-murder-two-msu-students/ Anthony Warren, WLBT3, Jackson, Mississippi, October 3, 2023. Death row inmate seeks to clear his name in murder of two MSU students In his defense, Manning said that he did not commit the murders and that he was at a club on the night of the murders.R.L. Nave, "Is Miss. About to 'Lynch' an Innocent Man?", May 3, 2013 Two witnesses saw him at the 2500 Club around midnight on the night of the murders; one of them remembered declining Manning’s request for a lift. Manning’s legal team argued that the narrow timeframe made it impossible that he had committed the murders over 3 miles away.
The trial of Manning included testimony that he possessed and also tried to sell items stolen from the Wise burglary.Campbell Robertson, "Mississippi Inmate's Bid for DNA Tests Is Denied With Tuesday Execution Set", May 3, 2013 One of the items stolen was a gas station token."With hours to go, execution is postponed," New York Times (Campbell Robertson), May 7, 2013. A very similar token was found at the scene of the killings,New York Times (Campbell Robertson), May 3, 2013 but it did not match Wise’s description of his missing token (such tokens were common then).
Also stolen was a black leather bomber jacket that was later recovered from Manning's girlfriend who testified at trial that Manning had given it to her. (However, Manning's post-conviction attorneys dispute the reliability of her trial testimony, saying law enforcement pressured her to cooperate e.g. by paying her $17,500 in cash). Another witness testified that she saw Manning wearing a leather jacket and possessing a gold class ring and a watch similar to Steckler's.Vicky Oswalt, "Inmate tells murder story," Columbus Commercial Dispatch, November 6, 1994, p. 1A. Another stolen item was a portable CD player, which was traced by its serial number from Wise to a pawn shop in Jackson. The person who pawned it testified that he obtained it from Manning. Manning stated that the CD player he was selling was stolen by someone he did not know.
Manning's girlfriend, who testified to Manning's possession of the stolen property, also testified that Manning had been using a tree for target practice, (but the reliability of her testimony is disputed by Manning's post-conviction attorneys because of payments and threats made to her by law enforcement.)Death row inmate seeks to clear his name in murder of two MSU students, Anthony Warren, October 3, 2023. WLBT3, Jackson, Mississippi. According to an F.B.I. firearms expert, slugs recovered from the tree were fired from the same gun used to kill Steckler and Miller. (However, a US Department of Justice letter in 2013 challenges this trial evidence, stating that the testimony should not have linked a specific gun to a specific bullet; and 2023 court documents include an expert report which goes further, concluding that firearm identification and toolmark analysis constitute unreliable forensic science. Two 2013 Department of Justice letters also declared hair testimony at Manning's trial invalid.)Andrew Cohen, Feds Acknowledge Scientific Errors in Testimony in Willie Manning Case, The Atlantic, May 6, 2013.
Manning's cousin said Manning had admitted to him that he and another man,https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=4679 Willie Manning, The National Registry of Exonerations, accessed January 5, 2024 Jesse James "One-Wing" Lawrence, had committed the murders, but Lawrence was in jail in Alabama at the time,Vicky Oswalt, "Manning guilty; Sentencing half begins today," Columbus Commercial Dispatch, November 8, 1994, p. 1A. and four people would not have fitted into Miller’s two-seater sports car. This witness changed his story several times: he had earlier implicated two other men. (In 2023 this witness retracted his trial testimony against Manning, saying he had lied when the sheriff encouraged him to do so. The witness said he afterwards received a lighter sentence for the crimes he had recently committed, and also received some reward money.)Heather Harrison, Mississippi Free Press, Jackson, Mississippi, November 22, 2023. State Pushes to Execute Willie Jerome Manning Before Year’s End After Key Witness Recants, Claiming Coercion
2023 affidavits reveal that another witness also lied at the trial: his testimony, that he overheard Manning explaining to another man how he disposed of the murder weapon, was false.
Manning was convicted of the murders of Steckler and Miller after a trial by 10 white and 2 Black jurors; the jury deliberated for one hour. Manning was sentenced to death on November 8, 1994, after the jury decided the crime was "heinous, atrocious, and cruel."Vicky Oswalt, "Manning gets death penalty," Columbus Commercial Dispatch, November 9, 1994, p. 1A.
Steckler-Miller murders: 2013 argument for new DNA testing, stay of execution, and subsequent developments Manning claimed that he should have DNA testing using technology that was not available at the time of his trial.R. L. Nave, "Mississippi Preps for Year's First Execution, Jackson Free Press," April 30, 2016 He pointed out that multiple fingerprints found in Miller's car matched neither him nor the two victims.Campbell Robertson, "Mississippi inmate's bid for DNA testing is denied with Tuesday execution set," New York Times, May 3, 2013, p. A11,
Manning said that at his trial, the prosecutor, Forrest Allgood, illegally dismissed as potential jurors African Americans who read African American magazines because these were liberal publications.R.L.Nave, "Is Miss. About to 'Lynch' an Innocent Man?" Jackson Free Press, May 3, 2013, .
Manning also argued that witnesses against him in the Steckler-Miller murders gave conflicting testimony and multiple versions of testimony,Spencer Hsu, "Justice dept. admits flaws in forensic testimony in Mississippi death-row case," Washington Post, May 3, 2013, and that some of the trial witness testimony contradicted known facts.Campbell Robertson, "Mississippi Inmate's Bid for DNA Tests Is Denied With Tuesday Execution Set," New York Times, May 3, 2013, . He said that his cousin made several different statements, earlier implicating two different men, but later stating that Manning confessed that he and a second man committed the murders.Spencer Hsu, "Justice dept. admits flaws in forensic testimony in Mississippi death-row case," Washington Post, May 3, 2013.
Manning's lawyers also contended that Manning's former girlfriend, a key witness, was granted a favorable plea deal on fraud charges, in addition to almost $18,000, to reward her for testifying for the prosecution, arrangements which were not fully disclosed to the trial jury. Manning's lawyers alleged that she also tried to implicate Manning when she asked him leading questions that were secretly recorded by officials and not disclosed to defense attorneys.Andrew Cohen, "A Ghost of Mississippi: The Willie Manning Capital Case," May 2, 2013, .
In a 5–4 ruling on April 25, 2013, the Mississippi Supreme Court denied his claims.
On 30 April 2013, the Mississippi Innocence Project filed a brief supporting Manning.