Man who cut baby from mother’s womb can argue he didn’t get fair trial
BY LAUREN FITZPATRICK Sun-Times Media lfitzpatrick@suntimes.com February 6, 2012 6:24PM
Fedell Caffey
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The man who cut a baby from his mother’s womb in 1995, hideously killing her and two of her children, will get a chance to argue that he was denied a fair trial, a federal judge has ruled.
Fedell Caffey, 39, is appealing his conviction in the 1995 murder of Debra Evans and her 10-year-old daughter, Samantha, in their Addison apartment. He also was convicted of the murder of Evans’ son Joshua, 7, who was initially spared but later killed because he wouldn’t stop talking about the murders.
Prosecutors said he slashed Evans’ abdomen to steal her baby boy because his girlfriend, Jacqueline “Annette” Williams, couldn’t conceive.
Caffey, though, contends he had no knowledge that Williams was faking her pregnancy, and she planned on her own to kidnap a baby.
Caffey was sentenced to death, but that sentence was commuted to life in prison in 2003 when Gov. George Ryan cleared Death Row. He’s imprisoned at the Menard Correctional Center, ineligible for parole.
The Illinois Supreme Court already denied his appeal.
U.S. District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly issued the order on Friday, agreeing to hear some of Caffey’s claims why he didn’t get a fair shake.
Among Caffey’s allegations are that his original trial judge in DuPage county excluded testimony from two witnesses who would have bolstered his defense that he didn’t commit the murders, nor did he know of Williams’ plot to feign a pregnancy and take a baby.
Williams was also sentenced to death for the crimes, only to also have her sentence commuted to life in prison.
A third person, Laverne Ward, also is serving life in prison for his role in the murders. He is the father of the baby boy cut from Evans’ womb‚ Elijah, and Evans’ son Jordan, who was 22 months old at the time of the murders and was unharmed.
The boys were raised by their mother’s father, Sam Evans, in downstate Bridgeport, Ill. He could not be reached Monday for comment.
The parties return to the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in Chicago on Feb. 15 to set a schedule for the hearing.
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