Georgia men exonerated after 'Proof' podcast proves their innocence
'Proof' podcast hosts Jacinda Davis and Susan Simpson share why they took on the case of two imprisoned Georgia men convicted of a conspiracy to murder their friend and how they proved their innocence.
On Aug. 11, 1991, 21-year-old Anita Byington was beaten to death and left outside an Austin, Texas, apartment complex.
"Anita was funny, she had a great sense of humor. She was always full of laughter – that’s what I remember most about her," Anita's cousin, Kristina Byington, told Fox News Digital. "She was also extremely stylish and so beautiful.… She loved music, like most of us did back then. Even now, certain late ‘80s-early ’90s music can bring me to tears because they remind me of her."
Allen Andre Causey, who was imprisoned for 30 years after being convicted in Byington's murder in 1992, was released on parole in October of last year.
Causey's innocence claims
Causey began seeking exoneration last spring with help from the Innocence Project of Texas, a nonprofit that helps free wrongly convicted people, and the Travis County District Attorney's Office, saying he was coerced and intimidated into confessing to the crime by police officers over three decades ago.
Anita with her parents, Alfredo and Sarah Byington, who both died more than a decade ago. (Kristina Byington)
"Mr. Causey has endured more than three decades of incarceration – and now parole – for a crime he did not commit," the Innocence Project of Texas, which is leading Causey's exoneration efforts with help from Travis County District Attorney José Garza's office, told Fox News Digital in a statement.
"This is a profound injustice that we are attempting to correct."
The Innocence Project added that the organization has "no doubt as to Mr. Causey's innocence, which is supported by the discovery of compelling new evidence and a disturbing pattern of coercive interrogation tactics employed by officers involved in his case that resulted in several proven false confessions, including that of Chris Ochoa, who testified at the evidentiary hearing."
Byington, then a student at Southwest Texas State University, had spent the evening of Aug. 10, 1991, out on Sixth Street with two female friends, including her cousin, and two male friends. She left the area in her vehicle with one of her male friends, Kevin Harris, and was found dead the next morning near an apartment complex where neither she nor Harris lived.
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Harris, who was never charged in connection with Byington's murder but was considered a suspect, according to Garza's court filings, testified that he and Byington had consensual sexual relations that evening. The DA's office is pointing to him as a potential suspect in the case, citing new forensic evidence. Garza's office noted that Harris was "prosecuted" for assaulting a woman in a separate case in 1999.
"[A]dditional forensic DNA testing of biological evidence has now been performed which further implicates the alternative perpetrator, Marion Kevin Harris, and is exculpatory to Applicant. The testing shows that semen consistent with Harris's profile was found in various places on the victim's clothing," Assistant District Attorney Holly Taylor wrote in court documents. "Furthermore, Applicant's DNA profile was excluded from the biological samples tested."
Byington, then a student at Southwest Texas State University, had spent the evening of Aug. 10, 1991, out on Sixth Street with two female friends, including her cousin, and two male friends. (Kristina Byington)
Terry Keel, the original Travis County prosecutor assigned to Byington's case when Causey was convicted in 1991, told Fox News Digital it "makes no sense that Harris would have taken his date to a crowded apartment complex in which he did not live and murder her and there’s zero evidence Harris did that."
"Rather, the evidence in 1992 still strongly suggests that Harris took Anita Byington to the apartment complex, got in over his head in an attempted drug purchase, and was assaulted and fled from the scene, leaving Anita to be robbed and beaten to death by assailants who lived there," Keel said. Harris was never charged with any drug crimes stemming from the case, either.
Keel added that the "District Attorney’s attempt to suggest Harris as the assailant is solely a vehicle to bootstrap speculative circumstantial evidence as justification for granting relief to the real killer."
The former prosecutor filed a 60-page amicus brief last month explaining why the Byingtons believe Causey is not telling the truth and why Garza has taken steps to keep Causey's exoneration efforts a "secret" from Byington's family, which the DA's office denies. In court filings, Garza's office said it made multiple attempts to contact Byington's family in 2022 and will continue to do so.
In 1991, Causey, who had no prior criminal record, confessed to killing Byington with his now-wife's brother, Bobby Harrell, after Causey said she "beat him for some cocaine." An officer typed the confession, which Causey signed. Prosecutors would go on to drop the case against Harrell due to a lack of evidence, according to Texas Monthly.
The Innocence Project of Texas said it is "grateful to the Travis County District Attorney’s Office for their commitment to uncovering the true facts in this case," and while the organization does "recognize and respect the pain endured by the victim’s family," it is their "collective duty to pursue truth and justice." (The Innocence Project of Texas)
When Keel left the prosecutor's office in 1992 after Causey's conviction, "a decision was later made to dismiss [Harrell's] case, given that Causey at that time was refusing to testify against Harrell and the DA’s Office was hopeful the case could later be refiled," he said.
Harrell told the Austin-American Statesman after he was released in 1993 that authorities "just had to pin" Byington's murder "on somebody."
"Andre just signed the wrong paper, and they set him up," Harrell said.
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Causey has maintained that Hector Polanco, a former Austin cop nickanamed "The Boogeyman" for eliciting false confessions from criminal suspects in the early 1990s, intimidated him into confessing to the brutal crime. Polanco notoriously helped get two false confessions in the 1991 Yogurt Shop Murders, Texas Monthly reported.
The Innocence Project of Texas said it is "grateful to the Travis County District Attorney’s Office for their commitment to uncovering the true facts in this case," and while the organization does "recognize and respect the pain endured by the victim’s family," it is their "collective duty to pursue truth and justice."
Causey has maintained that Hector Polanco, a corrupt Austin cop notorious for getting false confessions from criminal suspects, intimidated him into confessing to the brutal crime, according to Texas Monthly. (Ralph Barrera-USA Today Network)
The nonprofit said Causey has been married for 33 years and renewed his vows with his wife over the summer.
Byington family's concerns
Both of Anita's parents died more than a decade ago, and since she was an only child, only extended family members are able to push back against Causey's claims, expressing their belief in court last month that he did beat the 21-year-old woman to death in the early morning hours of Aug. 11.
"When I got the notification that Causey was being paroled, it felt like a punch in the gut."
"I kept thinking that I was glad her parents aren’t alive to see this. It was an ugly, sick feeling, but I tried to tell myself that since there was nothing I could do about it, I should try not to think about it. And at least we got some justice, which is more than many families get," Kristina said.
When she found out he was pursuing exoneration, she got that same "sick feeling, but tenfold," she said. "I have a lot of anger toward Causey, of course, but also toward the Innocence Project of Texas and the Travis County DA’s office for how they’ve handled this case, and how they’ve treated the family throughout the process."
Kristina said in a witness statement read aloud in court on Nov. 27 that she believes the Innocence Project and the DA's Office appear to have an "agenda" that her family had been left out of.
"If you only have one side represented in a courtroom, they can pretty much do whatever they want."
Keel noted in his brief that the writ proceedings in Causey's reopened case "were kept secret for over a year, from October 3, 2022, until October 27, 2023," until the Byington family independently learned what was being stated in the sealed court documents.
Garza's office told Fox News Digital that "it should be noted that the person now representing the family who filed the brief in question was the original prosecutor on the case, and a District Court Judge has already found he did not turn over exculpatory evidence at the time of trial and that his failure to do so was material."
Anita Byington, left, and Kristina Byington on Christmas in 1971, when Anita was 2 years old. (Kristina Byington)
Keel called the DA's statement "false."
"I was not involved at all in the pretrial or discovery proceedings in 1992, nor am I referenced in any order in 2023, named or unnamed," he said.
"The press needs to know, when the DA’s Office says, ‘A District Court Judge has already found he did not turn over exculpatory evidence,’ they are referencing a non-specific preliminary ruling they obtained in secret in 2023, without a public hearing, and without another side being heard, saying there may merit to Causey's 2023 assertion that not all evidence was disclosed by the DA's Office in 1991-1992," Keel continued. "But when the full record is examined, it is obvious all exculpatory evidence was disclosed."
Causey's confession and appeal
In his brief, Keel notes that Causey testified during a pretrial hearing in 1991 that he was not coerced into confessing the crime. Causey also stated that he signed his written testimony because he could not read it and therefore did not understand what it was.
During his jury trial in 1992, however, Causey testified that he was in fact coerced and threatened into confessing. Keel is arguing that Causey only made the claim after Polanco's forced confessions received "publicity."
When Causey filed an appeal that same year, a Travis County jury upheld his conviction.
Terry Keel, the original Travis County prosecutor assigned to Anita's case when Causey was convicted in 1991, filed a 60-page amicus brief last month explaining why the Byingtons believe Causey is not telling the truth and why Travis County DA José Garza has taken steps to keep Causey's exoneration efforts a "secret" from Anita's family. (Kristina Byington)
The District Attorney's Office, Keel said in his court filings, "collaborated with Causey’s attorneys as a team for a desired outcome.… Causey confessed two separate times to two separate police investigators and his voluntary signature was witnessed by civilian employees."
Kristina said in a victim statement read aloud in court on Nov. 27 that although she has "been treated like an adversary in this matter," she has "only ever been interested in justice for Anita’s murder."
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"The District Attorney’s Office has claimed the same. However, if the DA’s Office is truly interested in justice, they seem to be doing a very poor job at seeking it," she said. "They, and The Innocence Project, are flat-out claiming that several police officers lied and fabricated the confession attributed to Causey. That’s an extremely bold claim."
Taylor, meanwhile, said in court documents that Garza has a job to ensure Causey was not wrongfully convicted in the 1990s.
"Though a prosecutor has an obligation to inform the victim's family of relevant proceedings – and he has done so here – it is not the job of prosecutor to blindly defend wrongful conviction," she wrote. "The District Attorney's actions in this case are consistent with his ‘primary duty not to convict, but to see that justice is done.’"
Funding
Kristina noted that the Innocence Project of Texas shared a photo of Causey on social media last year, prior to their writ investigation seeking exoneration for their client, asking followers for donations.
Terry Keel, who served as assistant district attorney for Travis County when Causey was convicted in 1991, filed a 60-page amicus brief last month explaining why the Byingtons believe Causey is not telling the truth and why Travis County DA José Garza has taken steps to keep Causey's exoneration efforts a "secret" from Anita's family. (Kristina Byintgon)
"The victim’s family was not notified of any details of this writ proceeding by the District Attorney’s Office until after the family, on its own, discovered fundraising activities associated with Causey placed on social media by the Innocence Project of Texas in the fall of 2022, touting his exoneration before this writ investigation had supposedly even begun," Keel wrote in the amicus brief. "Over the course of a year, the victim’s family were not briefed, were not consulted, and were not given warning by the District Attorney’s Office of its true posture in this case."
In September, the Travis County DA's Office proposed the "Confession Review Team: A Joint Venture between the Travis County District Attorney's Office and the Innocence Project of Texas" after "a 1992 joint task force between APD and the Travis County District Attorney's Office (TCDA) discovered six false confessions elicited during the scope of the homicide unit’s investigations." They are asking for nearly $600,000 in funding for the project.
Garza received funding from billionaire George Soros’ financial network during his 2020 campaign for DA.
Leading up to the DA election, Soros gave $652,000 to the Texas Justice & Public Safety PAC, which spent nearly $1 million on advertisements to help Garza's campaign, according to campaign finance records previously reported by Fox News Digital.
The DA's office addressed these concerns in court documents, stating, "District Attorney Garza is not statutorily disqualified from representing the State in these habeas proceedings and this Court cannot require prosecutor to recuse under Texas law.… Further, the District Attorney's CIU's actions in this habeas case are consistent with the obligation to see that justice is done and best practices for conviction integrity units."
Fox News' Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.
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