Managing editor of the Clifton Record, W. Leon Smith, continued working both Judy Whitley and Mickey Bryan’s cases for years. In 1999, when ex-Clifton policeman Dennis Murry Dunlap was officially named Judy’s killer, Leon was almost certain Joe Bryan hadn’t murdered his wife Mickey but couldn’t find the evidence to exonerate him. A few years later, a Waco attorney began looking into Joe’s case and was appalled at the lack of evidence he was convicted on. It was this attorney’s student at Baylor University Law, Jessica Freud, however, that inarguably proved Joe Dale Bryan should not have been convicted. Still, an old school, old guard Texas judge wasn’t willing to write the wrong the state had made.

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Sources: innocencetexas.org, The Clifton Record and the reporting of W. Leon Smith, The Austin American-Statesman, The New York Times’ two-part series “Blood Will Tell” by Pamela Colloff, The Waco Tribune-Herald, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10172881/, court appeal documents, and 20/20 ABC.

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