Hearing Today Over Retrial Of Black Man Convicted of Killing Cop

Key Witness Says he Lied About Role In Wakefield Case
A man convicted nearly 30 years ago of killing a Greenville County sheriff's deputy, and the deputy's father, says he was set up, and a key witness against him has recanted. Wakefield, 50, is serving a life sentence at the Kirkland Correctional Institution in Columbia, after being convicted of killing Greenville County Sheriff's Lt. Frank Looper, 34, and his father, Rufus Looper, 57, in January 1975. An eighth-grade dropout and former mill worker, he has been refused parole two times, and had parole revoked twice after public outcries. Government records show him to be a model prisoner. Eric Gottlieb, Wakefield's lawyer, has said police ran roughshod over the evidence in their zeal for justice against a slain fellow officer. Police originally suspected an escaped murderer, Larry Poole, in the shooting. But when Poole's alibi held up -- he was out of state at the time of the shooting -- police turned their attention to Wakefield. Two witnesses placed Wakefield at the murder. One was a woman who came forward after eight months and claimed to have seen Wakefield outside the garage. She had trouble picking him out of a police lineup. The other witness was a man named Wyatt Earp Harper, who testified at the time that he acted as Wakefield's lookout. He recently told a documentary filmmaker that he lied under oath. [more ]