10 People Who Were Probably Wrongly Executed

5. David Wayne Spence

David Wayne Spence was executed on 3rd April 1997 after he was convicted of killing two 17 year old girls and an 18 year old boy 15 years earlier in Waco, Texas. On 13th July 1982, the bodies of Jill Montgomery, Raylene Rice and Kenneth Franks were discovered in Speegleville Park. Several days after their bodies were discovered, police arrested Muneer Mohammad Deeb, the owner of a local gas station. Police believed that Deeb hired David Spence, Anthony and Gilbert Melendez to kill one of his employees, Gayle Kelley, so he could collect an insurance policy that he had taken out on her, but instead they killed Jill Montgomery, who bore a striking resemblance to Kelley.

At the time of Deeb's arrest, Anthony and Gilbert Melendez were in prison serving sentences for various crimes and the only evidence that police had was various testimony provided by inmates who claimed that they confessed to the killings. These statements were later retracted when they claimed that they were given rewards for their statements against David Spence. In 1984, Anthony Melendez pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment. David Spence meanwhile was sentenced to death.

A year later, Gilbert Melendez pleaded guilty and, like his brother, was sentenced to life imprisonment whereas Muneer Mohammad Deeb, who protested his innocence, was also sentenced to death. Anthony Melendez is the only one of the four defendants still alive (Gilbert Melendez died in prison) and is fighting to get DNA evidence from a shoelace that was used to tie up one of the victims which he thinks will prove that they did not commit the brutal murders of 3 innocent teenagers.