Nearly 70 years after his execution, Tommy Lee Walker was declared innocent on Wednesday by Dallas County officials in a case that prosecutors now say was riddled with racial bias, false evidence, and coercive interrogation by a police officer who was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Walker, a Black man, was executed in May 1956 for the rape and murder of Venice Parker, a 31-year-old store clerk killed on Sept. 30, 1953. Dallas County commissioners unanimously passed a resolution declaring his conviction and execution a “profound miscarriage of justice.”
The exoneration marks one of the longest delays in overturning a death-row conviction, revealing how systemic racial bias and procedural errors in the 1950s criminal justice system enabled an innocent man to be executed. The review that led to Walker’s exoneration involved the Dallas County Criminal District Attorney’s Office, the Innocence Project, and Northeastern University’s Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project.
The Case Against Tommy Lee Walker
On the evening of Sept. 30, 1953, Venice Parker, a 31-year-old store clerk, was attacked and killed in Dallas. Police claimed she had identified her attacker as a Black man, but witnesses told a different story. Multiple people said Parker was too severely wounded after the attack to communicate, convulsing and bleeding profusely.
The killing triggered panic in Dallas. Over the following months, authorities rounded up hundreds of Black men in a dragnet targeting the city’s Black community. Four months later, Tommy Lee Walker, then 19 years old, was arrested.
The Arrest, Interrogation, and Trial
Police subjected Walker to threatening and coercive interrogation. Will Fritz, a Dallas police captain and Ku Klux Klan member, led the interrogation, according to District Attorney John Creuzot.
Walker confessed. He later testified he did so because he was afraid for his life.
At trial, Walker’s lawyers presented 10 witnesses who testified that at the time of the murder, Walker and his girlfriend were at a local hospital where she was giving birth to their son, Edward Lee Smith.
“But this carried little weight in Jim Crow Dallas,” the Innocence Project said in a statement about the case.
Walker was convicted in 1954 by an all-white jury.
The Exoneration
After nearly seven decades, the Dallas County Criminal District Attorney’s Office, the Innocence Project of New York, and Northeastern University School of Law’s Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project conducted an extensive review of Walker’s conviction.
“The prosecution in this case presented misleading and inadmissible evidence,” Creuzot said at Wednesday’s commissioners meeting. “This case, while it has undeniable legal errors, was riddled with racial injustice during a time when prejudice and bigotry were woven throughout every aspect of society, including the criminal justice system.”
Creuzot credited journalist Mary Mapes, who had been investigating the case for 13 years. “He paid with his life for a crime he could not have committed,” Mapes told commissioners.
A Moment of Reconciliation
During the commissioners meeting, an unexpected moment emerged. Edward Lee Smith, Walker’s now 72-year-old son, and Joseph Parker, the victim’s son, embraced.
“I’m so sorry for what happened,” Joseph Parker told Smith.
“And I’m sorry for your loss,” Smith replied.
Smith told commissioners that his father’s wrongful execution had affected him and his mother throughout his life. “I’m 72 years old and I still miss my daddy,” he said, his voice breaking. He recounted what his mother had told him as a child: “She said, Baby, they give your father the electric chair for something he didn’t do.”
Joseph Parker told commissioners he hoped the exoneration would prevent future wrongful convictions. “If nothing else comes from this situation, it’s that we learn to try not to make the same mistake again,” he said. “The mistake being the injustice, the taking of an innocent life.”
Dallas County commissioners unanimously passed a symbolic resolution declaring that Walker was wrongfully convicted and executed and that what happened to him represented “a profound miscarriage of justice.”