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Not guilty
Jury acquits handyman in Shakira murder trial
Monday, December 20, 2004
James F. McCarty
Plain Dealer Reporter
One of Cleveland's most notorious murder cases was returned to the
ranks of the unsolved Sunday after a jury acquitted Daniel Hines of
kidnapping and murdering Shakira Johnson.
Eleven-year-old Shakira's mother and brothers sobbed loudly during the
reading of the verdicts, prompting deputies to escort them from the
courtroom in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court.
Hines, 26, a learning-disabled handyman from Cleveland, wept for joy
with each not-guilty verdict. He had faced the death penalty if
convicted.
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Hines looked back at his mother, Esther, but said nothing before being
led away in handcuffs to jail. He will stay behind bars without bond
while awaiting trial on unrelated charges involving an attempted sexual
assault on a 13-year-old cousin prior to Shakira's death in September
2003.
Prosecutors said their inability to tell the jury about the other
sexual assault case -- and thus provide a possible motive in the
Shakira case -- proved fatal to their chances to win a conviction.
Judge Thomas Pokorny decided before the trial that allowing prosecutors
to offer evidence of the other crime would be too prejudicial to Hines'
defense in the Shakira case.
Still, Assistant County Prosecutor Richard Bombik said, the evidence
presented during the five-week trial should have been more than enough
to convict Hines of aggravated murder and kidnapping.
"All roads pointed to Daniel Hines," Bombik said. "No roads pointed to
anyone else."
Police investigators found a pair of work gloves in Hines' basement
with two drops of blood on them. DNA tests showed the blood was
Shakira's.
Police also collected three plastic garbage bags from a field on East
71st Street last October that prosecutors believed had once held
Shakira's body. Comparison tests showed the bags were perfect
end-to-end matches with bags from a box found in Hines' basement.
And trace evidence technicians found a fiber stuck to one of the bags
that matched the carpeting in Hines' van.
"I have no idea whatsoever" how the jury acquitted Hines, Bombik said.
"I'm totally clueless to what they based their decision on. I couldn't
even begin to offer a remote explanation."
The seven women and five men of the jury declined to talk with
reporters or lawyers in the case. The jurors deliberated for about five
days.
Defense lawyer Brett Mancino said he never doubted the innocence of his
client.
"From Day One I knew it," he said. "The evidence wasn't there."
The verdict brought a mixed conclusion to a case that had captured the
passions, fears and sympathies of the public after Shakira's
disappearance from a block party on East 106th Street 15 months ago,
and the discovery of her mutilated body in October 2003.
Police teamed with FBI agents on door-to-door canvasses of the
neighborhood. Concerned citizens organized search parties and rallies,
and distributed posters with Shakira's picture on them. The media
covered the story nonstop.
Almost from the start, Hines had been a suspect. Prosecutors said he
had shown an unhealthy attraction to young girls, based on the other
sexual assault case. He lived near the last place Shakira was seen
alive. And he lied to police about leaving his house that day.
Bombik theorized that Hines lured Shakira into his house and, after she
resisted his sexual advances, killed her.
But lacking a strong motive, all that prosecutors had to offer the jury
was meager physical evidence.
Defense lawyers attacked the evidence as unbelievable, and challenged
every state witness who testified, raising questions of doubt that they
believe connected with the jurors.
"They had no proof of anything," Mancino said. "Nothing fit. Only
questions."
The defense presented four witnesses who said they saw Shakira the
afternoon and day after her disappearance. They also called a former
police officer who testified she saw a police officer pick up Shakira's
tooth brush and hair brush from her home for DNA comparison. But the
officer did not drive straight to the police station. He stopped first
at Hines' house, she testified.
That was one way, Mancino said, that Shakira's DNA could have been
transferred to the glove in Hines' basement, creating the illusion that
the DNA was from the blood rather than from a different source.
"This guy would have had to have been Houdini to pull off this crime,"
said Paul Mancino, who teamed with his son in Hines' defense. "And he's
a special education student?"
Bombik cautioned anyone holding out hope that police will one day find
and arrest Shakira's "true killer" to contain their optimism.
"No one else could possibly be prosecuted for this case," Bombik said.
"It would never be successful."
But the Mancinos said they are not yet ready to drop the cause on
behalf of Shakira. They said they have been contacted by a woman who
insists she was a witness to Shakira's murder. They plan to meet with
her Wednesday and videotape the interview, then present it to police if
her story appears credible.
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
jmccarty@plaind.com, 216-999-4153
=A9 2004 The Plain Dealer. Used with permission.
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