PORTLAND (AP) — A man serving two life sentences for the 1999 execution-style shooting deaths of his ex-girlfriend and the toddler she was babysitting is seeking to have DNA tests allowed into evidence he says might show somebody else committed the killings.
An attorney for 49-year-old Jeffrey Cookson is appearing before Maine’s supreme court today appealing a lower court ruling denying his motion for DNA testing on clothes worn by another man who claimed responsibility for the killings, but later recanted. Cookson denies killing 20-year-old Mindy Gould and 21-monthold Treven Cunningham in Dexter.
The lower-court judge said Cookson failed to demonstrate the necessary chain of custody.
Cookson says he provided evidence of a proper chain of custody and that he was held to a higher legal standard than required by statute.
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