LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Unless new evidence is found, the Jefferson Commonwealth's Attorney's office will not retry Percy Phillips for the murder of a Louisville gas station clerk in 1993, meaning Brenda Whitfield's death will likely remain unsolved.

Prosecutors have an eyewitness who said he saw Phillips running from the gas station after the Whitfield shooting and Phillips' DNA on a bottle he allegedly held before the shooting.

But the case was immediately botched by police when the witness' statement was lost, a detective recorded over store surveillance video of the shooting with a David Letterman episode and the wrong man was arrested and incarcerated for seven years.

In addition, the initial lead detective in the case, Mark Handy, was convicted of perjury for lying during trial testimony of the first defendant, Edwin Chandler. 

The case was dismissed Monday morning. 

While investigators believe they arrested the right man in 2009, a jury in April could not come to a unanimous decision and told Jefferson Circuit Court Judge Eric Haner they were hopelessly deadlocked.

Haner set a hearing for Monday to determine whether prosecutors would retry Phillips.

In a statement, Commonwealth's Attorney Director of Communications Erwin Roberts said, "a clear majority of the jurors voted to acquit" Phillips. 

Roberts said prosecutors had to consider the age of the case, the conviction of Handy, evidence being erased or unavailable and the previous wrongful incarceration of Edwin Chandler for the murder.

"Considering these issues, the Commonwealth is not seeking a retrial in this matter absent new evidence," Roberts wrote.

Attorney Julie Mudd, who represents Phillips said, "I think he is relieved that it is finally over."

Keith Whitfield, Brenda's son, said his family no longer wanted to discuss the case with the media or talk with the commonwealth's attorney office.

"We are sick of dealing with this," he said in a brief phone interview. "This is not a happy time for us, and we are tired of dealing with it."

Edwin Chandler, who sat in the courtroom watching the Percy Phillips trial, said he was disappointed, but not surprised. 

"I'm the only person who has been held to the full extent of the law for this and they know I didn't do anything," he said. 

Chandler said he believes too much time passed between his conviction, exoneration and Phillips' trial and that "a lot of people didn't want things to come to light in this case. ... After dealing with this for 30 yeas of my life, disappointed is the least word I can use."

Besides the myriad problems with the case, Mudd was able to throw more doubt at jurors as she noted there was a hair found in a hat worn by the killer that didn't match Phillips' DNA.

"Will there be someone in five to 10 years that matches DNA in that hat?" Mudd asked the all-white jury.

And she reminded them that the key evidence in the case against Phillips -- a fingerprint on a beer bottle allegedly left on the counter by the killer -- did not matter to investigators when it didn't match Chandler years earlier.

Mudd also questioned the accuracy of fingerprint analysis and argued investigators again had tunnel vision in the case, saying "confirmation bias" could be a factor in the positive match.

Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Mark Baker, as prosecutors did throughout the trial, acknowledged there were a series of police mistakes and illegal acts that put Chandler in prison, but that there was "no doubt" Phillips carried that bottle to the counter in his left hand before shooting Whitfield.

"The killer left his prints on the bottle," Baker told the jurors. "The prints belong to Percy Phillips. ... Consider the evidence and go back there and find him guilty."

Phillips, who was charged with the murder in 2009 immediately after Chandler was exonerated, turned down a plea agreement before trial that would have resulted in time-served from a separate assault case, meaning he could walk free.

He faced a possible sentence of life in prison.

The case has slowly moved through the court system over three decades, in part due to mistakes by police and Phillips repeatedly changing attorneys. 

Handy was convicted of perjury for lying during trial testimony of Chandler and also allegedly told Chandler if he didn't confess, police would arrest his sister for harboring a fugitive and take her kids away.

Even when a gas station witness saw Phillips years later and came back to police to tell them they had the wrong man in Chandler, he was ignored.

It wasn't until 2008 -- when the Kentucky Innocence Project got involved and former Louisville Metro Police Detective Denny Butler was asked by a commander to take a fresh look at the case -- that police realized Chandler was innocent.

New technology to analyze fingerprints matched Phillips with a print on the beer bottle.

During the subsequent investigation, a photo lineup that included Phillips was presented to the witness who was in the parking lot at the time of the murder. He identified Phillips as the person who walked out of the store after the shooting.

After his exoneration, Louisville Metro government eventually paid Chandler $8.5 million to settle a lawsuit.

Phillips was indicted in 2009 and had been awaiting trial since.

Mudd told jurors they don't have to pick between Phillips and Chandler as to who is the killer. She said their responsibility was to decide if there was reasonable doubt that Phillips committed the crime.

And she argued that witness testimony describing a smaller, skinnier person than Phillips as the killer along with the hair not matching was doubt enough.

"Percy Phillips didn't do this," she said.

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