Wayne Eugene DuMond (September 10, 1949 - August 31, 2005) was an American criminal, born in De Witt, Arkansas. He is buried in the Mt. Pleasant Cemetery of Ethel, Arkansas. ^[2]

Dumond had six children^[1] and three wives. His second wife, Dusty, staunchly supported him throughout his imprisonment,^[3] but died in a car crash around the time of his release. His final wife, Terry Sue,^[4] met him while he was in prison, visiting him as part of a church group which supported his pardon or parole. After he was widowed and his parole began, they married and lived together in Missouri, where he committed his final crimes.

Criminal history

A Vietnam-era military veteran, DuMond told reporters that he "helped slaughter a village of Cambodians."^[3]

In 1972, DuMond was connected to a beating death in Oklahoma. Prosecutors did not charge DuMond after he agreed to testify against two others, though he admitted in court that he was among those who attacked the murder victim with a claw hammer.

The following year, he was placed on probation for five years for molesting a teenage girl in the parking lot of a shopping center.

His most famous crimes are the sexual assaults on women in Arkansas and Missouri. One of the assaults led to murder, for which he was convicted. He died in prison before charges were finalized on the second death, which took place only the day before his arrest for the first one.

Arkansas Rape

DuMond received his second sexual assault conviction in Arkansas in 1984. The victim, a 17-year-old cheerleader, was a third cousin of then-Governor Bill Clinton.^[5]

In March 1985, after his arrest but before his trial DuMond claimed he was attacked in his home by two men and castrated. No arrests were made in the incident, and some evidence suggests the castration was self-inflicted. Later DuMond successfully sued the St. Francis County and the local sheriff who publicly displayed DuMond's severed testicles and later flushed them down the toilet. DuMond was sentenced to life plus twenty years in prison.^[3]

After Clinton was elected president, a right-wing campaign alleged that Clinton had framed an innocent man for rape.^[6][7] Prominent amongst those pushing for DuMond to be pardoned were Guy Reel, author of Unequal Justice: Wayne DuMond, Bill Clinton, and the Politics of Rape in Arkansas; Steve Dunleavy of the New York Post; and Jay Cole, Baptist pastor for the Mission Fellowship Bible Church in Fayetteville, who had championed the cause of Wayne DuMond for more than a decade on his radio show.^[8]

Many of the arguments advanced by DuMond's supporters have since been shown to be incorrect. Dunleavy claimed that DuMond was a "Vietnam veteran with no record" despite arrests for violent crime and previous rape charges going back to 1972; that DNA evidence had exonerated DuMond, although no such definitive evidence existed; and that Bill Clinton had personally intervened to keep DuMond in prison, despite the then Governor's explicitly recusing himself from the case due to his distant blood-ties to the 17 year-old victim.^[9] Dunleavy also referred to Ashley Stevens on the record as the "so-called victim," and asserted "That rape never happened."^[8]

At the time of the trial, only ABO blood typing evidence was presented, which indicated that DuMond, along with 28% of the population, could have produced the semen. In 1987 the victim’s jeans were given to an expert, Dr. Morris Schanfield. He tested a semen spot on the jeans. Dunleavy claimed Schanfield told him, "No way, zip, nada. No way DuMond was the donor of that sperm. Not in a million years." However, the court documents do not accord with that. In DuMond vs. Lockhart, the Court writes, "Dr. Schanfield had genetic allotyping performed on the semen found on the victim's pant leg. Schanfield concluded that based on the test, there was a ninety-nine plus percent probability that DuMond was not the rapist because the semen lacked a genetic marker which DuMond possessed. However, Dr. Schanfield's conclusion was based on the assumption that vaginal fluids were not mixed with the semen used for the test. If the semen was intermixed with vaginal secretions, Dr. Schanfield reported that the results would be inconclusive.”

The victim had testified that DuMond had vaginal intercourse with her, then oral intercourse during which time he ejaculated, then brief vaginal intercourse again. She had also testified that she spat the ejaculate from her mouth onto the ground, and that her jeans were underneath her body, not near her face.^[10]

Huckabee's advocacy

DuMond's case received nationwide publicity due to the alleged complicity of 2008 Presidential election candidate Mike Huckabee in securing his parole while Huckabee was governor of Arkansas.

When Mike Huckabee became governor, he supported the release of DuMond, with one state official stating "The problem with the governor is that he listens to Jay Cole and reads Steve Dunleavy and believes them ... without doing other substantiative work."^[8] Huckabee, addressing DuMond as "Dear Wayne," wrote to DuMond in January 1997: "My desire is that you be released from prison," and had to be persuaded not to commute his sentence in October 1996.^[11]

The details of how much assistance Huckabee provided to DuMond remain uncertain, in part because the governor met in "executive session" with the parole board to discuss the issue, and the administrator who normally took notes was removed from the room. This a violation of Arkansas law as such secret "executive" sessions are limited by statute to discussions regarding personnel decisions, specifically to avoid the appearance of undue influence from the Governor's office.

"The board’s executive session appears to have been a violation of the state’s Freedom of Information Act, which says state boards may meet privately only for the “specific purpose of considering employment, appointment, promotion, demotion, disciplining or resignation of any public officer or employee."^[8]

Although minutes would normally be kept of even executive sessions, the office administrator was asked to leave the room, and no record of that session was kept.

"Despite the fact that the meeting was closed, there still should have been a record of it, four former board members and a former staffer say. They say that Sharon Hansberry, the board’s office administrator, ordinarily attends the meeting and takes notes. It was also a common practice around that time, they say, for her to tape record the meetings as well, even though the tapes were often destroyed once the minutes were formalized. Former members of the board say that Hansberry was asked to leave the room when the board went into executive session. A spokesman for the board says that there is no record of what occurred in the executive session — no tape recording of the executive session, or notes, or minutes."^[8]

As of December, 2007, six of the seven board members involved were still living. Two have recently said no comment, or that they don't remember. One has not yet been contacted by the press. Three — Charles Chastain, Deborah Sutlar, and Ermer Pondexter — have stated on the record that Huckabee used the private session to strongly advocate DuMond's parole.^[12]Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page). A fourth parole board member confirmed this story anonymously in 2002 and has not yet been identified by name in the 2007 news cycle.^[8] Huckabee denies their version.^[13]

Missouri crimes

DuMond was paroled in 1999. In June 2001, DuMond was rearrested and charged with the September 2000 rape and murder of a woman in Missouri.^[8] DuMond was convicted of that murder in 2003.

He was found dead in his cell at the Crossroads Correctional Center in Cameron, Missouri in 2005 while prosecutors were preparing charges for the rape and murder of a second woman in Missouri on June 21, 2001, the day before his arrest for his first Missouri murder. He had been suffering from cancer of the vocal cords.

Timeline of the Parole

• 1992: Lieutenant Governor Jim Guy Tucker reduces DuMond's sentence from life plus 20 years to 39 years, making him eligible for parole.
• Aug. 29, 1996: the Arkansas parole board votes 4-1 to deny parole.
• Sept. 10, 1996: the board votes 5-0 not to not recommend commutation or pardon.
• Sept. 20, 1996: Governor Huckabee announces his intent to commute Wayne DuMond's sentence to time served.

This initiates a period of 30 to 120 days for comments on the decision, culminating on Jan 20th, 1997. The public reaction is not favorable.

• Oct. 31, 1996: Governor Huckabee enters executive session with the parole board. No record is kept.
• Nov. 29, 1996: Wayne DuMond submits a request for reconsideration. Normally this would allows a hearing no earlier than one year from the previous hearing, or Aug. 19, 1997, as the board only considers requests from specific prisons during specific times.
• Dec. 2, 1996: The Parole Board receives his Request for Reconsideration
• Dec. 19, 1996: Wayne DuMond is transferred from the Varner prison facility to the Tucker facility. The reasons given for this vary.
• Jan. 9, 1997: Wayne DuMond is interviewed at the Tucker facility.
• Jan. 16, 1997: the parole board votes 4-1 in favor of probation with the requirement that DuMond leave Arkansas.
• Jan. 20,1997: The comment period for commutation would have expired, had DuMond not already been paroled.
• Oct. 1999: DuMond is released.
• Aug. 2000: DuMond moves to Smithville, Missouri, and marries a member of a church group that visited him in prison and believed him to be innocent.
• Sept. 20, 2000: Carol Sue Shields is raped and murdered in her apartment.^[14]
• June 21, 2001: Sara Andrasek, newly pregnant, is raped and murdered in the apartment she shares with her husband.^[15]
• June. 22, 2001: DuMond is arrested after DNA evidence ties him to the murder of Carol Sue Shields.^[16]
• Summer, 2003: DuMond is convicted in the murder of Carol Sue Shields.^[17]
• Sept. 1, 2005, 7:03 AM: DuMond is pronounced dead of cancer. Charges against DuMond in the murder of Sara Andrasek are still pending.

References

External links

[7] "Documents Expose Huckabee's Role In Serial Rapist's Release", The Huffington Post, Murray Waas, December 4, 2007

[8]"Dumond case revisited", Arkansas Times, Sept 1, 2005.