XENIA — A death row inmate convicted of killing a teenager in 1993 is back in Greene County and will start making his case for a new trial at an evidentiary hearing beginning Monday, July 15.
Attorneys for David Lee Myers in February filed a motion in Greene County Common Pleas Court to vacate his death sentence and receive a new trial based on newly discovered DNA evidence they said proves his innocence.
Myers was convicted and sentenced to death in 1996 for the much-publicized railroad spike death of Amanda Jo Maher near some abandoned railroad tracks in Xenia. Attorneys for Myers — who had an appeal denied in 1999 — raised several claims in the motion, including his convictions and death sentence are predicated on what new scientific evidence has proven to be fundamentally unreliable expert testimony and evidence, in violation of due process.
His attorneys also said that if a jury were to hear the newly discovered evidence, “it would raise a reasonable doubt as to Myers’ guilt. Thus there is a ‘strong possibility’ that Myers would be acquitted.”
Visiting Judge Jonathan P. Hein ordered that Myers be transported from the Ross Correctional Institution in Chillicothe to Greene County Jail in order to attend the hearing, which could last as long as two weeks, according to court records.
The Greene County Prosecutor’s Office has opposed myriad motions by Myers since he asked for a new trial in June 2022.
“The jury got it right in 1996,” Hayes told this newspaper. “In my view, the evidence of David Lee Myers guilt is overwhelming. The Greene County Prosecutor’s Office is committed to defending the conviction and seeing that Myers pays the ultimate price for this vicious murder. We believe that the facts and the law are on our side, and we believe that the visiting judge hearing the case will see it the same way.”
There is no set date when Hein may rule on a new trial but he did order Myers to be “immediately returned” to Ross Correctional Institution after the hearing is concluded.
Reach Scott Halasz at 937-502-4507
