Clarence Brandley

Clarence Lee Brandley (born September 24, 1951) is a black man who was wrongly convicted of the rape and murder of Cheryl Dee Fergeson in 1981. Brandley was working as a janitor at a high school in Conroe, Texas where Fergeson was a 16-year-old student. Brandley was held for nine years on death row. After lengthy legal proceedings and community outcry that eventually ended in the Supreme Court of the United States, Clarence Brandley was freed in 1990. After his release, Brandley was involved in further legal proceedings over child support payments that had accrued over his time in prison, and ultimately with an unsuccessful $120 million lawsuit against various agencies of the State of Texas.

Cheryl Dee Fergeson, a 16-year-old junior at Bellville High School, was murdered on August 23, 1980. Fergeson was part of a school volleyball team playing a match against another high school in Conroe, Texas. Her body was found in the loft above the school auditorium.

Suspicion immediately fell on two of the custodians, Brandley and Henry (Icky) Peace, who had found the body. During their joint interrogation — as Peace would recount — Texas Ranger Wesley Styles told them, "One of you is going to have to hang for this" and then, turning to Brandley, added, "Since you’re the nigger, you're elected."

The three claimed to have seen the victim enter a girls' restroom near the school gymnasium, and then to have seen Brandley walking toward the restroom with an armload of toilet paper. They claimed that they told Brandley there was a girl in the restroom, and that he replied that he was taking the toilet paper to the boys’ restroom. They did not see him again until about 45 minutes later, after a search had begun for the missing student. The fourth white custodian, Peace, subsequently added that Brandley was insistent on immediately searching the loft and, when they found the body, calmly checked for a pulse and then notified the authorities. And all four said that only Brandley had keys to the auditorium where the body was found.

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