Man Serves Time, but Was He Guilty? : Murder Case Dropped After 15 Years

A man who served 15 years in prison for murder before a witness came forward to say he wasn’t the right man won’t be tried a second time, a Suffolk County prosecutor announced Friday.

“We can’t say that Bobby Joe Leaster did it and we can’t say that he didn’t,” Assistant Dist. Atty. Francis O’Meara told the court. “He served 15 years and it’s time to let it go.”

Leaster, 36, was freed last month after serving 15 years of a life sentence because a constable who read a newspaper article about the case said Leaster was not one of the two men he saw fleeing a Boston variety store after the 1970 shooting.

But O’Meara said that was not a major factor in the decision to drop the case, citing recent discovery of a weapon that could be tied to the killing and which cast doubt on Leaster’s involvement in the crime.

A decision on a second trial was to have been made Dec. 1, but Superior Court Judge Paul Chernoff postponed the ruling when O’Meara said there were still unanswered questions in the case.

O’Meara told the judge that Kathleen Whiteside, widow of slain shopkeeper Levi Whiteside, was “still 100% certain (Leaster) is the man who shot her husband” during a robbery.

Whiteside and another woman who was in the Talbot Avenue Variety Store during the crime identified Leaster as Whiteside’s killer. Leaster, who was arrested 90 minutes after the slaying, has maintained his innocence.

Constable Mark Johnson, 29, approached authorities with his story supporting Leaster’s claims after reading about the case in July.