The Football Pool Winner

New Orleans, Super Bowl Sunday, 29 January 1995. Murray Barnes won $1,000 in the football pool at Creola's Bar on Laussat Street in the Ninth Ward; the barmaid paid him in two envelopes of $500. Around midnight, as Barnes stood by his truck across from the bar, two hooded men ambushed him. The gunman shot him three times, twice in the back and once in the arm. Barnes ran round the truck into the bar, told the barmaid to call the police, collapsed, and died on the way to hospital. Police recovered only one envelope, already opened, holding $444 and change; the gun was never found. The State's case rested on Barnes's cousin, Freddie Thompson, who had been waiting in the truck and who picked Dan Bright out of a photo array 18 days later as the shooter, saying he had made eye contact with the gunman earlier that night. A woman who had spoken to Thompson near the bar, Christina Davis, was indicted alongside Bright. Bright was indicted for first-degree murder on the theory that the killing was committed during an armed robbery of the pool winnings. He presented alibi witnesses and attacked the identification: poor lighting, a witness who had been drinking, and inconsistencies with his appearance. There was no physical evidence connecting him to the shooting. The jury heard a capital case.