State of Tennessee v. Charles W. "Charlie" Dunn

Nashville, Tennessee defendant was charged with murder and child sex abuse.



Charles W. "Charlie" Dunn was charged first-degree murder and aggravated rape.



According to the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals:



"

The victim was the [four-year-old] niece of Ms. Watkins. The child had been staying with Rosie Williams, another aunt, at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. On Friday evening, June 26, 1987, Ms. Williams called her sister, Ms. Watkins, and asked her to come to her home on the military reservation at Fort Campbell and pick up the child. She and Mr. Dunn left Nashville at approximately 10:30 P.M. and drove to Ms. Williams' residence, arriving about an hour later. At approximately 1:00 A.M. they left and returned to Ms. Watkins' home in Davidson County, stopping at a market to get the child a Sprite.



The following morning Ms. Watkins took her niece to the emergency room of Nashville Memorial Hospital shortly after 9:00 A.M. The child was unconscious and was bleeding from the vaginal area. Later that day, she was transferred to Vanderbilt University Medical Center for more specialized treatment. Although she was "brain dead," beginning about 3:45 or 4:45 P.M. that afternoon, she was maintained on life support equipment until the decision was made to remove the machines the next morning, at which time all vital signs ceased.



Dr. Mona Gretel Harlan, the Assistant Davidson County Medical Examiner, testified that the autopsy revealed that the child died as a result of bilateral subdural hematomas. She found the imprint of nine blows from human knuckles on the child's head. The force of the blows caused the veins and arteries on both sides of her brain to tear. In addition, there were multiple tears to the victim's hymen and also lacerations around her vagina extending back to the area around her anus. From her examination, she fixed the time that the injuries to the head and to the vagina occurred as some time after 1:35 A.M. on Saturday morning. . . .



The proof showed that from the time that she was picked up at Ms. Williams' home until she was taken to the emergency room at Memorial Hospital, the child was exclusively in the care, custody and control of Mr. Dunn and Ms. Watkins. Of course, Mr. Dunn was the only one of the appellants who had a penis. However, Dr. Harlan testified that the vaginal injuries could have been caused by any firm elongated object, and no traces of semen or sperm were found.



The appellants gave conflicting accounts as to what occurred. Furthermore, Ms. Watkins' stories conflicted as to the time they returned home, where she and the child slept, when she discovered the child was bleeding from the vagina, and when she called her sister (the child's grandmother) in Columbus, Georgia. According to her proof, she first called Columbus at about 2:00 or 2:30 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, which would have been 1:00 or 1:30 A.M. in Nashville (Central Daylight Time), stating that the child was real sick and had a pink substance in her panties. This, of course, was an attempt to establish that the child was injured prior to coming into the custody of the appellants. Mr. Dunn gave conflicting statements as to where they slept and when he learned that the child had been injured.



In addition to the conflicting statements, the proof showed that Ms. Watkins washed the sheets from the bed in the master bedroom on Saturday morning, prior to taking the child to the hospital. Furthermore, the victim's sandals were found in the master bedroom, where, according to Ms. Watkins' statements, Mr. Dunn slept alone. Ms. Watkins said she and the child slept in another room. According to Mr. Dunn, he and Ms. Watkins slept together in the master bedroom and the victim slept alone in another room.



There were no witnesses in the home except the appellants and the victim. Neither appellant testified and the victim's lips are sealed. Thus, this was a prosecution based entirely upon circumstantial evidence.



. . . .



. . . No defense at all was interposed by Mr. Dunn. Ms. Watkins presented only two witnesses, the husband of the child's grandmother to prove the time that she first called Columbus, Georgia, and a social worker from Madisonville, Kentucky, who formerly worked in the Fort Campbell area, to testify about a previous complaint of physical abuse to the victim at the hands of Rosie Williams. That witness testified that her investigation revealed no physical abuse and that there were not even allegations of sexual abuse.



The evidence at issue in this case is the trial testimony of Dr. Harlan relating to the time that the head and vaginal injuries occurred. From the defense perspective, the goal of the testimony was to show that the injuries were or could have been inflicted while the victim was staying in Kentucky with Ms. Williams before the petitioners picked her up.



Dr. Harlan testified at the trial that the scalp injuries occurred within forty-eight hours from the time the victim was pronounced dead, based upon the absence of color change. She placed the vaginal injuries within the same time frame. However, Dr. Harlan also testified that while waiting to testify that day, she read the nurses' notes from the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, which indicated that the victim was brain dead on Saturday afternoon, some sixteen hours before death was officially pronounced. She said that this was significant because she had found no histiocytic response(FN1) to the subdural hemorrhage clotting, a response that she said would occur within twelve to fourteen hours of trauma to the head. Dating back from the time that death was pronounced, this would mean that the trauma would have occurred while the victim was in the hospital. On the other hand, dating back from the time that the victim was considered to be brain dead, the time frame covered just the period of time that the petitioners had the victim with them in Nashville.



On cross-examination of Dr. Harlan, Mr. Dunn's attorney emphasized the absence of sperm or semen in the vaginal area and elicited the fact that a man or a woman could have caused the head trauma. Ms. Watkins' attorney questioned Dr. Harlan about the nurses' notes. Dr. Harlan said that she had received them when she talked with the attorney before trial but that she had not read them until minutes before testifying. The attorneys sought to emphasize that her opinion depended upon the accuracy of the nurses' observations and that, otherwise, the forty-eight-hour time frame was correct. Dr. Harlan's opinion remained that the injuries occurred within a twelve to fourteen-hour time frame. Neither petitioner's attorney called any medical expert to refute Dr. Harlan's testimony.



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The defense theory was that the injuries were inflicted upon the victim in Kentucky. However, the evidence shows that Ms. Williams, Ms. Fetterman and even Ms. Watkins stated that the victim appeared to be healthy when she left Kentucky. The next morning at the hospital, however, she had multiple bruises in the shape of knuckle marks on her head and had fresh blood in her vagina. Dr. Hill, who treated the victim when she first arrived at the hospital, testified that the victim's vaginal injury was fresh. His testimony both at trial and at the evidentiary hearing was that the vaginal injury was only hours old and that no blanching existed to indicate that the wound was any older. Finally, despite an independent investigation by the Kentucky Department of Human Services, as well as investigations made pursuant to this case, no evidence of either physical or sexual abuse was ever found in Kentucky."

Defendant was found guilty and was sentenced to life in prison in 1988.



His conviction was affirmed on appeal by the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals in 1990.



On January 12, 2022, more than 33 years later, the convictions were dismissed in Davidson County District Court when evidence gathered by the Tennessee Innocence Project and the Davidson District Attorney’s Conviction Review Unit showed they were convicted on medical testimony that was wrong and the prosecution had failed to disclose evidence that was favorable to the defense.



Watkins and Dunn then filed a petition for post-conviction relief was denied and the denial was affirmed on appeal.



Watkins the filed a petition for a write of habeas

Defendant was likely found guilty because of the admission of false or misleading forensic evidence, perjury, official misconduct and inadequate legal defense.