Attorney for Raynella Dossett Leath talks about case, client's freedom

Whether reading a transcript, reviewing evidence or sitting across a prison table from the woman dubbed a black widow, defense attorney Joshua Hedrick said he became convinced of one thing - Raynella Dossett Leath is no killer.

"I have never seen anything other than a motherly figure," Hedrick said in an exclusive interview with USA TODAY NETWORK-Tennessee. "At her core she's a good person. She's had a lot of tragedy in her life. She's had a lot of sadness in her life."

Hedrick, attorney Rebecca LeGrand and investigator Tom Ham spent years trying to build a case that Leath, 68, was not only robbed of a fair trial - twice over - but was innocent of killing second husband, David Leath.

Their work would end in minutes with a stunning decision by Senior Judge Paul Summers last week to toss out the first-degree murder charge filed against Raynella Leath in that death just before a jury was to begin deliberating her fate.

Read more:

► A maverick and a drug addict led to freedom for Raynella Dossett Leath

► Death, violence haunt now-acquitted accused black widow

"I was just trying not to pass out on television," Hedrick joked of his reaction as he listened to Summers' monologue in Knox County Criminal Court, delivered before a crowd that included representatives of two national network news shows and a cable crime documentary series.

Building an alleged black widow

The decision set her free, but it has not removed the cloud of suspicion that has surrounded the former director of nursing for Parkwest Medical Center since the day in March 2003 when she phoned authorities to say she had found her second husband dead inside their Solway Road home.

David Leath, a popular West Knoxville barber, suffered a fatal shot to his forehead while in bed. But the gun - found next to him - had been fired twice more - once before the fatal shot and once after. Knox County Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Darinka Mileusnic-Polchan deemed it a homicide almost immediately.

The primary suspect was his wife, who denied any involvement and instead insisted her second husband had been depressed and showing signs of dementia. David Leath's adult daughter also blamed her stepmother, sued her and pushed for prosecution.

As a team of special prosecutors sought to build a case against her, they made a startling claim - this wasn't the first husband she had killed. Ed Dossett, Knox County's district attorney general and a man dying from cancer, had been found dead in his barn in 1992.

The death was ruled accidental, the result of a cattle trampling. Prosecutors insisted Raynella Leath gave him a fatal dose of  morphine and staged the trampling. They had little proof, though, and then-Knox County Criminal Court Judge Richard Baumgartner three times blocked a bid to exhume his body. She was charged, but that case was later dismissed by prosecutors.

Slamming shut the prison gate

She was tried in 2009 in David Leath's death with Baumgartner at the helm. A jury deadlocked. She was tried again in 2010, again with Baumgartner at the helm. This time, she was convicted. But this time, Baumgartner was guarding a secret of his own. He was addicted to opiates and high on them during her trial.

As Raynella Leath sat in prison, the scandal surrounding Baumgartner began to unfold. His last act in office was to deny her a new trial. All seemed lost - until her family reached out to LeGrand, a Washington, D.C., attorney, who, in turn, reached out to Hedrick, a Knox County native who began practicing criminal defense in 2006.

Hedrick read the trial transcripts and wondered, "How did she get convicted?"

There was no evidence tying her to the gun, other than general access to the home of her mother-in-law where the gun had been stored. There was no gunshot residue on her hands or clothing. She had an alibi for much of the time authorities surmised - time of death was never firmly established - he was killed. And, most important to Hedrick in the deaths of both husbands, there was no motive for Raynella Leath to kill either man.

"There's no reason for her to kill," Hedrick said. "(With Dossett), you're talking about a very sick man who had run out of treatment options. ... All of the people who testified (in David Leath's case), they all said (the couple) had a good relationship."

Upending a wrongful conviction

The first hurdle the defense faced was winning Raynella Leath a new trial. Most legal observers expected the attorneys to fail, but Hedrick said they were able to show Summers "concrete examples" of not only Baumgartner's intoxication on the bench but exactly how it robbed her of a fair trial. Last year, Summers overturned her conviction.

Hedrick and LeGrand then began building a case that David Leath wasn't murdered at all but committed suicide.

A new team of prosecutors took the helm, but Summers later opined that while they had presented enough proof to support a claim of homicide, they fell far short of proving Raynella Leath pulled the trigger. He said their case against her was built on "innuendoes."

"To say you were the last person to see him, so you must be the killer, is not enough," Hedrick said.

Remaking history and a woman's image

Hedrick has a theory about why so many people believe, without sufficient evidence, his client is an evil woman who deserves the label of black widow.

"She rose to a position of power and authority a long time ago (as nursing director)," Hedrick said. "She got there by being efficient and assertive. People think of women who are efficient and assertive as witches. ... Everybody has gossiped about her. That gossip was useful to the people who wanted to prosecute her."

Raynella Leath, who is declining all interviews, cannot be charged again in David Leath's death. The case involving Dossett could be, but the odds are slim. They have nothing more at this point than a toxicology report showing morphine in his system and an autopsy that deemed his death accidental.

Hedrick said Raynella Leath is looking forward to spending the rest of her days living a quiet life as a mother and a grandmother.

"It's very popular for people to talk about how the (judicial) system doesn't work," he said. "The proof just wasn't there. The system worked."