The evidence about the rock and the conversation about his wife were challenged in Bloodsworth’s appeals, stating that the bloody rock was mentioned because the police showed him a rock during the interrogation, and the incident regarding his wife amounted to his failure to buy the food she had requested.
Moreover, the police failed to inform the defense that there may have been another suspect. Bloodsworth’s conviction was overturned by the appellate court two years after his original conviction and he was retried – this time, he was sentenced to two life terms instead of death row.
In the early 1990s, Bloodsworth learned about DNA testing and the opportunities it could provide to prove his innocence. The prosecution finally agreed to DNA testing for Bloodsworth’s case in 1992. The victim’s shorts and underwear, a stick found at the scene, and an autopsy slide were compared against DNA from the victim and Bloodsworth. The DNA lab determined that testing on the panties excluded Bloodsworth and replicate testing performed by the FBI yielded the same results.
Bloodsworth was released from prison in June 1993 and pardoned in December 1993. He had spent almost nine years in prison, two of those years facing execution. Innocence Project online article
BLUNDELL, BRADLEY: Killer Kids: The Murder of John Porage TV -
‘John’s put his hands in his pocket [at a petrol station] and then within one minute he was shot.’ Killer Kids: The Murder of John Porage, mother, Channel 5 Star 2019
‘These are kids: kids with guns.’ ibid. woman
Chelmsford in Essex was once a sleepy commuter town … In the early hours of 5th August 2017 after a night out in Chelmsford John and his friend Jamel pulled up at a BP garage a mile from the city centre. ibid.
A 16-year-old boy and another teenager are in custody awaiting trial. A third boy, 17-year-old Bradley Blundell, is on the run. ibid.
No-one was found culpable for John’s murder. ibid.
Bradley Blundell: Guilty. ibid.