Clearly, the nature of the investigation into the murders of Twila Busby and her two sons was stacked heavily against Hank Skinner. It is the contention of many that the catalyst for this blinkered and prejudicial approach was none other than the Gray County Sheriff himself, Randy Stubblefield. After examining affidavits and police reports, Steven C. Losch, Attorney at Law was able to swear in his writ of State Habeas Corpus that:

“On the night of the capital murder, Stubblefield was enraged that four recent attempts to execute warrants for Mr. Skinner’s arrest had failed. Stubblefield wanted Mr. Skinner in his jail during the holiday season, but he was still a free man when the new year arrived. Stubblefield’s gloom evaporated shortly after midnight when he heard on his police scanner that Twila Busby and her sons were murdered. He assumed that Mr. Skinner was the killer and rushed to the scene of the crime to prove it.”

“Stubblefield communicated his theory that Mr. Skinner was guilty to the officers who were involved in the investigation of the crime before they collected any evidence or interviewed a witness. Stubblefield tried to disguise the bias that he injected into the investigation by falsely stating in his first report that Police Officer Katie Gerhardt told him when he arrived at the crime scene that she had independently concluded that Mr. Skinner was a likely suspect. However, Gerhardt declared in her first report that when Stubblefield arrived at the crime scene he “stated that it was his understanding that the suspect might be hiding under the house. At that time I learned that the suspect was Henry Watkins Skinner””.

From that point on, Hank remained the sole suspect, and all evidence gathering was geared towards “proving” that theory. As Dr Glenn Larkin, MD (forensic pathologist) has stated: “Stubblefield’s mindset determined subsequent events ….”