Inmate confesses to murder

The attorney for Thomas Douglas Arthur, who is scheduled to die Thursday by lethal injection, has filed another motion to stop the execution, this time with a signed confession from a St. Clair prison inmate who is serving life sentences.

Arthur is scheduled to be put to death at 6 p.m. for the contract killing of Troy Wicker Jr., who was shot to death in 1982 while he slept in his Muscle Shoals home. Wicker's widow, Judy, testified at trial that she paid Arthur $10,000 to kill her husband.

Arthur's attorney, Suhana Han, filed the motion Tuesday asking to stay the execution based on a statement by 43-year-old St. Clair prison inmate Bobby Ray Gilbert. Gilbert says that he and Judy Wicker had a sexual relationship before she paid him $2,000 to kill her husband.

Judy Wicker, through a statement released Tuesday by the attorney general's office, has denied the allegations in Gilbert's statement and says she doesn't know Gilbert. She reaffirms that she hired Arthur to kill her husband. She served 10 years in prison for her part in Troy Wicker's death.

"I was at (the Wicker residence) when Troy Wicker was shot to death and saw the individual who shot him," her affidavit states. "That individual was Thomas Arthur, not Bobby Gilbert."

Arthur at first confessed to killing Wicker but later said he made the confession to get a faster appeal. He has been trying to get DNA material from the crime scene tested to prove his innocence.

Gov. Bob Riley has been asked to stay Arthur's execution to give Arthur's attorney time to have the DNA tested.

Han said with Gilbert's claims, DNA testing of the crime scene material is imperative because the state potentially could execute an innocent person.

"Whether or not you believe the sworn affidavit provided by Bobby Gilbert, the pressing question right now is whether the state has done everything it can to ensure the guilty person is being put to death," she said. "And without DNA testing, the answer is 'no.' "

Han said there is DNA evidence from a rape kit taken on Judy Wicker that could be tested to confirm if Gilbert is telling the truth.

The rape evidence from Judy Wicker was taken because she initially claimed that a black man had attacked her before killing Troy Wicker. During Arthur's third and final trial resulting from the case, that claim was recanted when Judy Wicker testified that she hired Arthur to do the killing.

King said Arthur is "making a full-court press to defeat justice and deny Troy Wicker's family."

He said his attorneys met with Judy Wicker and got her statement after Gilbert's statement surfaced.

"I don't see any reason to believe this (confession)," King said. "What I know is there is a signed affidavit that she's never met this guy, there never was any kind of relationship with him; she paid Tommy Arthur to kill her husband and Tommy Arthur's daughter has offered money to recant the testimony."

King was referring to a claim in Judy Wicker's statement that Arthur's daughter, Sherrie Stone, once visited her and "pressured me to falsely" accuse another man of "committing Troy's murder." Wicker claims that Stone told her that by recanting her statement, Arthur could sue the state and collect damages. Stone offered Wicker 20 percent of any money awarded as the result of a lawsuit, Wicker said in her statement.

Stone reacted to the claim, saying Judy Wicker either lied at the first two trials or lied at the third.

"How can we believe anything she said?" Stone said.

"What I told her was if she would just tell the truth, if it's money she wanted, we'd try to help her," Stone said in a telephone interview. "She said it would jeopardize her freedom. She got out of prison on a deal."

Gilbert claims in his statement that he tried in 2007 to confess to the murder and that he is coming forward after learning he can't be executed for the crime because he was a minor when Troy Wicker was killed.

Former Sheffield Police Chief Doug Aycock and former Muscle Shoals police investigator Robert Hall worked on the Troy Wicker case. They said they had never heard the name Bobby Ray Gilbert.

"If (the name) did come up, it didn't attract any attention, and we never got any leads on it," Aycock said.

Hall pointed out some discrepancies in Gilbert's statement. In it, Gilbert said Judy Wicker had him to beat her.

"She was not beat up; she had been slapped," said Hall, who was the first investigator on the scene and the lead investigator on the case.

Another disputed claim in Gilbert's statement is his assertion that he and Judy Wicker had sex at the Wicker house sometime between 9 a.m. and noon on the day of the killing.

Judy Wicker, in her statement to the attorney general, said "Arthur killed Troy Wicker before 9 a.m., the house would have been full of police at the time Gilbert alleges that we were engaging in sexual intercourse."

Hall said Judy Wicker is accurate.

"We got the call shortly after 8 a.m., and we were in that house from before 9 a.m., and I didn't leave that night until 9 or 10 p.m. I locked the door when I left," Hall said.

"(My father) has always said he was innocent, and now we have a guy stepping forward and saying he did it and he will even show them where the gun is," Stone said.

She said Han has filed a motion seeking a new trial based on the information provided by Gilbert.

"To me, if you've got a confession, that's grounds for a stay (of execution) and a new trial," Stone said.

Arthur lost two chances for a stay in the past week, first by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta and on Tuesday by the Alabama Supreme Court.

Arthur was to be moved Tuesday to a holding area next to the execution chamber.

Tom Smith can be reached at 740-5757 or tom.smith@TimesDaily.com.

Dana Beyerle can be reached at (334) 264-6605 or dtb123@aol.com.