GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — The defense team for Michael Chapel, a former Gwinnett County Police officer who has spent the last three decades in prison for murder, says it has new proof he is innocent. A key piece of recently unsealed evidence could make Chapel's case harder to prove.
Chapel's newly appointed attorney, Billy Rennie of Athens, recently filed a habeas corpus petition asserting his client's innocence.
"In order for habeas to succeed, we have to be able to show that Mike's constitutional rights were violated, and we believe we can," Rennie said. "We have found information through our review of evidence and also through some witnesses who have come forward recently."
Gwinnett County officer accused of murder
Chapel was arrested for the murder of 53-year-old Emogene Thompson, who was found shot dead in her car in April 1993. Her purse, containing thousands of dollars, had been taken from the vehicle.
Though it was raining heavily that night, several eyewitnesses reported seeing a police officer pulled behind Thompson's vehicle around the time of the murder. Chapel, who had previously interacted with Thompson when he responded to her home for a theft call, was accused of gaining her trust and killing her for the money.
Chapel was arrested just weeks after the murder but has always maintained his innocence, insisting he was waiting out the storm at a local firehouse when Thompson was killed. Witnesses at the firehouse confirmed Chapel was there around the time of the murder but left shortly after. Then-Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter argued Chapel could have made it to the scene of the crime in time to shoot Thompson.
Porter told 11Alive investigator Savannah Levins he has no doubt Chapel murdered Thompson. In 1995, he convinced the jury, and Chapel was sentenced to life in prison.
The recent habeas filing comes after numerous failed post-conviction filings that aimed to exonerate him.
"At some point, we're going to run out of new information that can yield a hearing," Rennie said. "So I do feel pressure to make this the last one, the successful one."
New evidence revealed
As a part of the habeas, a judge ordered old boxes of evidence to be unsealed in the case.
"These boxes were taped shut and nothing, as far as we know, had been touched inside," Rennie said, noting the unsealed boxes include records of a 1993 investigation into corruption within the Gwinnett County Police Department.
In the habeas, Rennie claims those now-released records include exculpatory evidence that would have provided evidence of the motive of a different officer and support the argument that Chapel was being framed for Thompson's murder.
But Rennie says the most compelling evidence they're submitting in the habeas is witness testimony from Jermaine Rogers, who has come forward to vow he saw another GCPD officer kill Thompson that night in 1993, not Chapel.
11Alive News is not naming that officer since the claims linking that officer to the murder have not, to this point, been substantiated. That officer died by suicide days after Thompson's murder. The details of the investigation into his death are included in the newly unsealed evidence.
In the habeas, Rogers states he told Gwinnett County investigators in 1995 that he had prior "nefarious dealings" with that officer and that he saw that officer kill Thompson firsthand.
“We've got somebody who saw Emogene Thompson be murdered by somebody who was not Mike Chapel; that in and of itself is revelatory," Rennie said. "If we can establish credibility, I think that the habeas court will have no choice but to exonerate Mike.”
Henry Ball, a community advocate and author who has asserted Chapel's innocence, said the unsealed evidence included Rogers' name written down in the lead investigator's notes on the case. That, he said, led them to further believe Rogers' claim that he'd spoken with police.
"There's information both in (the) handwritten notes and in the crime scene itself that corroborates his story," Ball said. "It's things that he just could not have known unless he was somehow involved in the investigation."
However, there was seemingly no record of that police interview with Rogers, which Rennie said raised a red flag.
“I expect someone at some point knew that our witness had information that would that would have exonerated Mike and either through neglect or nefarious intentions, didn't disclose," he explained. "We know at the time of the investigation, police knew about our witness."
Testimony vs. tape
Days after speaking with Rennie and Ball, 11Alive investigator Savannah Levins found a VHS tape from 1994 in the evidence boxes. On it was Rogers' interview with police.
However, the taped interview with Rogers seems to contradict his testimony in the Habeas. In the tape, he doesn’t say anything about witnessing the murder firsthand. He also claims Chapel was involved in nefarious dealings. When asked by investigators if any officers were involved in "drugs or anything," Rogers responded, saying, "No, sir. The only person I ever dealt with was Chapel."
11Alive notified Chapel's defense team about the tape.
In a statement, Rennie said:
"I have reviewed the video of the Jermain Rogers interview with investigators. We were aware that Mr. Rogers had been interviewed by investigators prior to Mr. Chapel's trial. The interview video does nothing to change our position in this case. We remain confident that Mr. Chapel will be vindicated once a judge has heard our case in full."
Although the tape was in the original boxes of trial evidence, it was never used in the state's case against Chapel, likely leading to the defense's misunderstanding about its existence.
Levins asked Porter why the tape was never used in the initial trial. Porter said as the case is decades old, he didn't remember exactly why he made that decision but stated it was always accessible to the defense in evidence.
Through it all, Chapel maintains his innocence.
"Somebody with authority will do the right thing and I'll be home with my family very soon, I think," Chapel told Levins in November 2022, on a recorded phone call from Long State Prison. "The truth will be known in the end.”