Reginald Clemons murdered and raped Robin Kerry and Julie Kerry on April 4, 1991, and robbed their cousin Thomas Cummins, he admitted on Friday, December 18.
Clemons pled guilty before St. Louis Circuit Judge Rex Burlison as part of an agreement that reduced his murder charges from first to second degree and sentenced him to five consecutive life sentences. The agreement leaves Clemons eligible for parole.
Clemons and the state also agreed that “neither party shall seek a different disposition in this matter,” meaning Clemons can’t revoke his guilty plea.
That’s a crucial provision. Three days after the murders and rapes, Clemons confessed to St. Louis police detectives that he raped Robin Kerry, though not to raping Julie Kerry nor murdering either of the young women. He recanted the confession the next day, saying it was coerced by beatings, and has professed his innocence ever since.
Clemons’ plea deal closes that route for him in the future, as he agreed that “no person has, directly or indirectly, threatened or coerced him” to admit guilt to murder, rape and robbery.
This new admission of guilt – including, for the first time, to murder – comes when the state and Clemons were preparing for a new trial. His previous convictions for their murders in 1993 (he was never tried for rape) and death sentence were voided by the Missouri Supreme Court on November 24, 2015. The same court had gone so far as to set an execution date for Clemons (June 17, 2009) before issuing a stay of execution and opening a new evidence phase by appointing a special master to review the case.
The matter before the court that Judge Michael Manners, the special master appointed to the case, was asked to review was a Writ of Habeas Corpus. In the writ, Clemons claimed to have new evidence to prove his innocence and absolve him of the crimes for which he had been convicted. The writ also asked, alternately, to commute his death sentence in light of his age at the time of the crime, 19.
Robin Kerry was also 19 when the sisters were killed and raped; Julie Kerry was 20.
Clemons’ profession of innocence, expressed to The St. Louis American and his many advocates in the Justice for Reggie coalition, pinned the murders on the girls’ cousin. Thomas Cummins did confess to accidentally pushing one sister off the bridge after making a rebuffed romantic pass, then pushing the other sister off the bridge to eliminate the witness. But like Clemons’ confession to rape, Cummins immediately recanted his confession. He also said he was coerced by beatings from St. Louis police detectives, including some of the same detectives who interrogated Clemons. Cummins later settled a police brutality suit with the city for $150,000.
Manners’ report on Clemons’ writ – filed with the Missouri Supreme Court on September 25, 2013 – did nothing to support Clemons’ claims that Cummins was the murderer. Manners found Cummins the most reliable witness in what he described as “this forest of deceit.”
Moreover, Manners identified a murder motive for Clemons that had never been argued in court. It was buried in 1,400 pages that counsel for Clemons filed during an earlier appeals process, trying to establish ineffectiveness of his 1993 trial counsel because they did not call a psychologist during the penalty phase, when Clemons was sentenced to death.
In those 1,400 pages, Manners found a 46-page social history of Clemons prepared by Marie Clark, a psychologist, and verified as accurate by Vera Thomas, Clemons’ mother. In that document, a neighbor testified that the Kerry sisters frequently visited the Clemons family home because they knew one of the boys. Manners points out that this “could have provided a motive for murder” for Clemons, who alone in the group of four young men who allegedly raped the girls might have feared one of them could have identified him.
As for Clemons’ repeated claims that he was innocent and Cummins guilty, once Manners swore him in on the witness stand on September 19, 2012, Clemons had very little to say. He invoked his protection against self-incrimination enshrined in the 5th Amendment 32 times. Manners pointed out to Clemons that he had requested this hearing to prove his innocence, and the bench would draw an “adverse inference” from his pleading the 5th Amendment on crucial details about the rapes and murders.
After Manners gave Clemons 90 minutes to consult with counsel, Clemons returned to the witness stand, but only answered three of the 32 questions regarding minor details of the murders and rapes.
Clemons had told advocates he was innocent of all charges, but under oath he would only answer questions pertaining to the charges for which he had been convicted. In a personal conversation with The American from prison, Clemons claimed this was a legal strategy: Since he had not even been tried for rape, why testify about the rapes? It was a perverse legal strategy for someone who claimed to be utterly innocent yet, at the time, faced the death penalty.
Manners also found that Clemons’ right to due process had been violated in the state’s handling of his claim in 1991 that his confession was coerced. That was the Missouri Supreme Court’s basis for voiding his prior conviction and returning the case to the circuit attorney. Then-Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce referred the case to the Missouri attorney general, claiming limited resources with the office being in transition as a new prosecutor had just been elected. It was Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley who secured the plea agreement.
As for the Justice for Reggie coalition that advanced his alleged innocence for so long, Jamala Rogers, the coalition’s spearhead, said she learned of Clemons’ admitted guilt through the media
