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Confession Frees Two Men for the 1997 Murder of Alfonso Aguilar

By Denise Grollmus in cold cases
Wednesday, October 28, 2009 at 10:00 am
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The Real Suspects: Alonzo Hardy and Don Anderson
​On April 7, 1997, Alfonso Aguilar and his wife, Celia Escobedo were sound asleep in their Dallas home when two men broke in, sexually assaulted Escobedo, and then shot Aguilar dead.

After the killing, Escobedo was brought into the Dallas Police Department to identify her husband's killers. On her way to view the lineup, Escobedo was led past a room where she noticed a bald, heavy-set black man in handcuffs. His name was Claude Simmons Jr. He'd been brought in on drug charges. Escobedo insisted he was her husband's killer...
 
In court, she pointed to Simmons, and, in a subsequent trial, to his friend, Christopher Scott. It didn't matter that both men had provided alibis or that another man, Don Anderson -- also heavy-set, bald, and black -- had already confessed to the crime. Escobedo's eyewitness testimony was enough for a jury to convict both Simmons and Scott of capital murder. In Simmons' case, the jury came back with its guilty verdict in less than six minutes. Each man was sentenced to life in prison. Unfortunately, they had the wrong men.

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Christopher Scott and Claude Simmons Jr. did 12 years for a murder-rape they didn't commit
​While Simmons and Scott were serving time, at least one of Aguilar's real killers remained at large. Then, in 2005, a group of students at the University of Texas's Innocence Network decided to take on the case. For three years, they scoured court records, police reports, lineups and evidence that was largely dismissed by authorities during the original investigation. Soon, the student group discovered that Alonzo Hardy and Don Michael Anderson -- who'd confessed to the murder back in 1997 -- were the real suspects. 

Finally, in 2008, the Innocence Network was able to convince the Dallas County district attorney's office to re-open the case. It just so happened that Hardy had been in prison since 1999, serving a 30-year sentence for an unrelated robbery conviction. Last summer, he was interviewed by authorities about the Aguilar murder. Hardy tearfully confessed to the crime when he realized that two innocent men were serving his time. He also implicated Anderson, who was later arrested at his Dallas home.

Last week, Simmons and Scott were finally released after serving over 12 years in prison for a crime that neither committed. Simmons, who is now 54, would have been 82-years-old before even being eligible for parole. They are still awaiting their formal exonerations. Until then, they are unable to collect damages for their wrongful convictions.

The real suspects -- Anderson and Hardy -- have been charged with capital murder and are now awaiting trial. Case closed... again.

Tags: Texas

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