Page 3 - Kenneth Clair News Today

Minorities and homeless people were doing time for crimes and the santa ana police department was just closing out their cases. you know, to make the public happy. so they would find what i call disposable people and they would convict them. kenneth clair was homeless. he stayed at different places with different people. >> i was on the streets. i can remember just sleeping, you know, on the sidewalk, finding a doorway to try to get an hour or two of sleep. sometimes, you know, i ate. sometimes ...

So kenneth assaulted her, punched her in her abdomen. and she ended up losing the child. >> i was pregnant by him. and then he hit me in the gut and i miscarried that evening after he had hit me. and personally, after a certain amount of beatings, face swollen, busted lip and everything else, i just wanted to have a citizens arrest on him. >> clair was convicted of murder without a jury ever knowing about his beatings of pauline, which may have impacted her testimony against him. finally, loomin...

Traumatized that she did not want to come to california and testify. she didnt want to be put through the ordeal of being on the witness stand looking at her rapist. for him to say that hes not a violent person is ridiculous. >> two months before linda rogers murder, a man tried to intervene in an argument between clair and his then girlfriend, pauline flores. clair allegedly slashed the man in the chest with a bayonet. >> pauline said straight out, im scared of him. im scared hes going to hurt ...

Explanation consistent with innocence. its very clear hes the killer. >> clairs defense argued that no physical evidence tied him to the murder. but clairs own words were impossible to discount. on july 28th, 1987 the jury found kenneth clair guilty. he was sentenced to death and sent to san quentin to spend his remaining days. despite a seemingly clear-cut case, kenneth clair has always maintained his innocence. >> anybody and everybody who has looked at this race one of the things they ask me ...

You murdered a girl. >> you dont have to rub that in my mother [ muted ] soul. come on. dont make me mad. >> pauline flores had secretly recorded a damning conversation with kenneth clair. but just before the murder pauline suffered a traumatic accident that left her in a hospital for a week. >> me and pauline had left my moms house on bicycles. i was maybe five or ten feet from her and the back tire flipped over. and when she hit that ground it sounded like somebody had taken a watermelon and j...

Cut corners. and i put the right person in prison. and so what if things were a little messy. and meanwhile, were finding out 10, 15, 25, 30 years later, the corners that were cut are so vital to the interest of a fair trial that the jury didnt have all the accurate information, key information to convict somebody. >> despite questionable behavior by the o.c. d.a.s office, kenneth clair remained on death row. but in 2007 dna was finally run in the case and the result would point to someone other...

Clairs girlfriend, a woman named pauline flores, gave police the break they needed. >> pauline indicated that on the night of the murder she met with kenneth clair. he had blood on one of his hands. he had a bag with property in it. not only does she give that statement but she agreed to wear a wire to do a covert recording of a conversation that she might have with him. >> two weeks later pauline flores confronted kenneth clair about linda rodgers murder. >> i want to know what the [ muted ] ha...

Only staying for 10 to 15 minutes. >> linda rodgers called her mother up about a week before she was murdered and she said, i dont think im going to live to see my next birthday. why would she call her mom and tell her mom that? if she didnt know what was going on. she was in fear of her life. >> if the hessling home had been a drug house, then there would have been countless other suspects with a motive for lindas murder. scott moxley, an investigative reporter for the o.c. weekly, has written ...