Hello everyone! Welcome back to Crime Sunday where we talk true crime every single Sunday. Today I am starting a new series called Innocently Convicted where I cover stories of those who have been wrongfully convicted of crimes. I believe that sharing the stories of victims of heinous crimes is crucial, but so is casting light on these cases because when someone is wrongfully convicted, essentially, that is another person that lost their life, and most of the time and most of the time they will spend years fighting for their freedom. So I do hope you guys appreciate these stories as well as I plan to do at least one a month. Thank you for reading, if you would rather listen as always scroll to the bottom of today’s post to find the YouTube video for today’s case!
Corsicana, Texas is located just an hour outside of Dallas. It has a population of just over 25,000 and hard-working middle-class families make up most of this small city’s community. It’s a place full of tradition and history, with twenty-five blocks of historic buildings. Back in the day, it was known to be one of the wealthiest oil boom cities in Texas as this town is where oil was first discovered west of the Mississippi. Today it is best known for Navarro College which has been featured on Netflix for its outstanding cheer team.
On August 30th, 1981, a local woman was checking on her livestock around 9 o’clock in the morning when she stumbled upon the body of 21-year-old Carol Armstrong. Carol grew up in Blooming Grove, Texas which is a small town just 20 minutes from Corsicana. She graduated from Blooming Grove High School in 1978 and she stood out to her classmates as she was voted her class’ #1 choice which was based on popularity and the ability to get along with others. She played basketball and volleyball and participated in FHA and her senior class play. She was also a member of the student council, was a homecoming nominee, and also voted her senior class favorite.
She was working at a dress shop in Dallas and had just spent the weekend visiting with her Mom in Blooming Grove. Carol’s body was discovered on a rural road, she had been stabbed over forty times and was naked from the waist down. Her green 1978 Ford Thunderbird was found abandoned just a few miles from her body with the keys still in the ignition. Inside her car, law enforcement found a black hairnet and a partially smoked joint. A gas station clerk said she saw Carol driving her car at about 10:30pm the night before on West 7th Avenue in Corsicana. She was clearly very loved by everyone around her so when police discovered she had been brutally murdered and sexually assaulted, they had no idea who would want to hurt her and for two years her case went unsolved.
In 1983, a man by the name of Bennie Lamas contacted the Corsicana Police Department from prison in Tennessee, where he was serving a life sentence for an armed robbery conviction. On this phone call, he tells police that his friend, Randolph (Randy) Arledge had admitted to him that he was the one who had killed Carol and even showed him the knife that he used. Randy and Bennie’s girlfriend, Paula Lucas, had also been convicted of the same robbery in Tennessee. Coincidently enough, Randy was visiting his family in Corsicana the same weekend that Carol was murdered. The next day he headed back home to Houston where he met up with Bennie and Paula and the three of them began road-tripping in a stolen van and were eventually apprehended in Tennessee. A single-edge hunting knife that had been confiscated from Randy when he was arrested was similar to the one that had killed Carol. Randy was questioned by police about his involvement in Carol’s murder but he denied these allegations against him. He did admit that he had fallen into the wrong crowd of friends but he said he did not kill Carol. However, the police felt like they had enough evidence with the knife and the statement from Bennie to charge him with Carol’s murder.
During the trial, the prosecution relied heavily on the testimonies of Bennie and Paula. Paula agreed to testify against Randy in exchange for a reduced sentence for her involvement in the armed robbery which was reduced to just probation. Paula testified that Randy had threatened her with a knife and said that he had killed a woman before. A pathologist testified that the size and shape of Randy’s knife were consistent with Carol’s stab wounds. However, the defense had an alibi as Randy’s sister testified that he was at a party at her house the night Carol was murdered. She said that he had been in a couple of fights but he never left her house and stayed the night. However, a couple of people who attended the same party testified that Randy left the party and that he even had a knife on him.
Despite there being no physical evidence linking Randy to Carol’s murder, the jury found him guilty on March 27th, 1984 and he was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He was first sent back to Tennessee to serve his time for the armed robbery charge and when he was granted parole in 1998, he was transported back to Texas to begin his sentence for Carol’s murder. At times, Randy felt hopeless and his heart shattered every time his parole was denied. He had no resources to prove he didn’t commit this murder and he felt like there wasn’t even enough evidence to prove he was innocent.
That was until 2006 when the Innocence Project in New York picked up his case and began working to prove he was wrongfully convicted. They were able to locate the DNA evidence including hair from the black hairnet which was found in Carol’s car that had been preserved for three decades. The Innocence Project’s lawyers requested that DNA tests be performed on the evidence and the Navarro County District Attorney’s Office agreed. In 2011, the DNA testing performed on the hair from the hairnet and was not a match for Randy. They also tested Carol’s pubic hair for any other DNA and that partial DNA also came back as not being a match to Randy. This was the first glimmer of hope that Randy had in years but the fight for his freedom wasn’t over. A lawyer from the Innocence Project made a trip to the Tennessee prison where Bennie Lamas was incarcerated in hopes that he would admit that he lied during his testimony. Bennie confessed to lying and said he wanted to seek revenge on Randy because he thought he was sleeping with Paula which was his girlfriend at the time. He also said that he was promised (and later received) favorable treatment from Tennessee authorities. Bennie signed an affidavit where he stated “Randy did not confess to the murder or say anything that would lead me to believe that he was involved.”
Based on the DNA test results and Bennie’s recantation, lawyers for the Innocence Project filed a state petition for a writ of habeas corpus. On February 11, 2013, with the concurrence of the Navarro County prosecutors, a Texas judge recommended that Randy’s conviction be vacated and the case dismissed. Randy was released on bond after nearly 30 years in prison, 15 of those years were for a crime he did not commit. When he was released, he was shocked, and as you can imagine it took him a while to get used to his freedom. He was thankful to be with his children again who through all these years stuck by their Dad’s side and never gave up hope that one day his conviction would be overturned.
On March 6, 2013, the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals upheld the judge’s recommendation that the charges against Randy be dismissed. Then on May 3rd, 2013, the case was officially dismissed and Randy was finally proven innocent and free of all charges related to Carol’s Murder.
Randy Arledge was the 118th person in the state of Texas to have his conviction overturned and state lawmakers have passed several laws to try to prevent wrongful convictions. One which allows all inmates convicted of a crime to seek new DNA testing. It also has the nation’s most generous law for ex-inmates who have proven their innocence, providing a lump-sum payment of $80,000 for each year they spent behind bars, as well as an annuity and other benefits. Randy received $1,146,000 in compensation from the state of Texas plus a monthly annuity of $7,140. He is now a grandpa and spends a lot of time with his family who he, unfortunately, missed out on so much time with. He also believes that jailhouse informants should be limited in trials, especially when they are being offered reduced sentences in exchange for their testimony.
The DNA found in Carol’s car and on her body did provide a match to a felon named David Sims who was a resident of Corsicana at the time of Carol’s murder. In April 1996, he had pled no contest to a 1985 attempted murder in Dallas where he stabbed a woman over 90 times. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was paroled but was later convicted of three crimes in 1992—a burglary, a robbery, and an aggravated robbery. He pled no contest to those crimes as well and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Despite his violent history, he was on parole when his DNA was matched to the hairnet in Carol’s murder. When police questioned him, he said that he worked at a Long John Silver’s close to where Carol’s body was found and they were required to wear hairnets but that doesn’t explain how his hairnet ended up in her vehicle. Not only that, he said he would have left work around 10:30 or 11 the night Carol was murdered and that is the time frame that police believe she was attacked.
Even though police have DNA evidence linking someone to the crime, nobody has been arrested for the murder of Carol Armstrong. This is unfortunate since they were able to convict an innocent man without DNA evidence but they have yet to build a case against the person who is a match. When Randy was cleared of his charges, Carol’s family was present in the courtroom but they declined to make a comment. I can only imagine that it was a hard day for them as I’m sure all those feelings that had for two years of not knowing who murdered their daughter and sister came back. This family thought for years they had gotten justice but in reality, the person who murdered Carol was still free and still is to this day. This is another reason why I want to share more of these wrongfully convicted stories because the person who actually committed these evil crimes should be found. Navarro County District Attorney Lowell Thompson said this case will stay open until they solve it as he is determined to get justice for Carol and her family.