Virginia Beach, Va. - A lie-detector test given by one of the nation's top experts shows accused killer Raymond Lewis Perry is telling the truth when he says he didn't shoot an off-duty Norfolk officer outside a Virginia Beach go-go bar in 2010.
Perry is charged with capital murder for robbing and shooting Victor Decker. Decker parted ways with friends when the Atlantis Gentlemen's Club closed, and he walked to his pickup truck. A passing driver spotted his body the next morning. He had been shot once in the head.
The case went nearly cold before a series of jailed felons told police Perry had bragged about the murder. Perry denies he told anyone he was involved, and denies that he killed the officer. He says the snitches are concocting stories to get them out of prison earlier.
In court, testimony has shown police have no fingerprints, DNA or other forensic evidence tying Perry to the crime. They also have no eyewitnesses to the killing, and they have not recovered the murder weapon or a pistol that was taken from Decker. Perry's attorneys have said this is "100 percent a snitch case."
Court records made public this week show that in July, a retired FBI agent who served three decades in the agency gave Perry a polygraph exam in the Virginia Beach jail. The results were filed this week.
According to Barry D. Colvert's resume, included with the court filing, he has conducted lie-detector tests in several high-profile cases, including exams of Congressman Gary Condit after his intern Chandra Levy was murdered, Guantamamo Bay terrorists, the Walker Family Spy ring, and Virginia inmate Thomas Haynesworth. Haynesworth was exonerated of a rape conviction after serving 27 years. According to the filing Colvert's results "demonstrate conclusively that the defendant was not present" at the club that night, "nor did he shoot anyone..." Colvert put the probability that Perry had tricked the examiner at one in a thousand.
In the court filing, Perry's attorneys concede that Virginia court rules ban lie-detector evidence. Although police routinely use the tool, its results -- positive or negative -- are not allowed in state courts. But in the filing, attorneys Jennifer Stanton and David Bouchard say they will challenge Virginia's blanked ban on lie-detector evidence.
"In a capital case such as this, both public policy and federal constitutional principles favor admitting polygraph evidence," the lawyers wrote. They said because the state is seeking death, the court should consider all evidence of innocence.
The filing says prosecutors are aware of the test results. Perry's lawyers say they will have Perry take a state-administered polygraph if prosecutors want, but the commonwealth has not yet responded to the offer.
Perry is scheduled for another hearing in two weeks.
Click here to read the court documents - Motion to Admit Polygraph Evidence (PDF)
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