A former gay porn star who was convicted of murdering his parents just had his latest appeal rejected by the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
31-year-old Brandon Dale Woodruff was convicted of murdering his parents in cold blood thirteen years ago.
Dennis and Norma Woodruff were found murdered in their home on October 16, 2005. They were discovered with multiple bullet and stab wounds to the face and neck. Woodruff was found guilty of the murders in 2009 after a 12-day trial and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
From the very beginning, he has maintained his innocence. Woodruff and his supporters claim rampant homophobia prevented investigators, prosecutors, the judge and the jury to give him fair trial.
OutSmart Magazine reports:
Prosecutors theorized that Woodruff, who had not publicly come out yet when arrested, was capable of lying about murdering his parents because he hid his sexual orientation from most people and led a secret life that included gay disco dancing and appearing in a couple of gay porn films produced by a Florida filmmaker. They also made much of his failing grades at Abilene Christian University where he was a 19-year-old freshman and of his high credit card debt as motivation for the murders.
Over the years, he has unsuccessfully appealed his ruling several times with different US courts, including to the Sixth District Court of Appeals and Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. In every instance, the courts have either affirmed his conviction or refused to hear his case over.
The latest ruling from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals means Woodruff’s next step is to appeal his case to the Supreme Court, which his lawyers say has a very slim chance of being considered.
But they’re still going to try.
The website FreeBrandon.org is working to raise public support and money to cover Woodruff’s legal expenses. And a change.org petition calling for his release has garnered about 650 signatures.
The petition states: “Brandon Woodruff was convicted in a small homophobic East Texas Courthouse led by corrupt prosecutors who willfully and intentionally violated his Constitutional rights.”
Woodruff is also the subject of an upcoming documentary by Scott Poggensee called Texas Justice: Brandon Woodruff.
In August, Woodruff posted a video message to his supporters, saying: “I did not commit this crime. I’m innocent. And I really hope that people that are watching this, if you will just know anything at all, I hope that you’ll know that I did not kill my parents.”
Related: Gay-for-pay adult star sentenced to life in prison for murdering wealthy older lover for his fortune
tham
I have to say, the case against him is extremely weak….I don’t know how any gay person would live in Texas.
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Terrycloth
Star ? Gay porn star ? He made a few not so memorable movies ..why is everyone who does porn a star ? Dont know if he killed his parents or not yet making a video announcement on YouTube dosemt make you sound credible
QueerTruth
LOL… People still say “porn star”…? He was never a star and that’s so dated…
He was a gay adult entertainer at best and seemingly a murder.
jdr11201
You hang in there Brandon, get you a new york city lawyer, you’ll be a millionaire ;p
Thad
Can we find the real killers? This murder is horrific.
Bryguyf69
If the authorities assume his guilt, then they obviously won’t waste any resources trying to find other killers. Being gay in a small Texas town doesn’t help. I don’t know if he’s guilty but similar situations existed for blacks before the 1970s, where they were already assumed guilty upon arrest.
inbama
OK, this guy is innocent.
You can instinctively tell who’s truthful and who’s not – unless you have been exposed to corrupt evangelical Christianity. People exposed to that warped religion can actually imagine that evil men like Franklin Graham, Pat Robertson, Falwell Jr., Tony Perkins, Vladmir Putin and Donald Trump are somehow godly.
DavidIntl
I don’t know the details of the case, and so have no idea whether he is guilty or not. But I have had personal experience with trying to get justice from socially-conservative Southern courts stacked with evangelical justices, and it is frankly shocking how much over-the-top, blatant homophobia is on display. I don’t think most Americans would believe how openly biased those courtrooms can be. So I am very much inclined to believe that he couldn’t possibly have received a fair trial in that context. And the courts of appeal are as bad, or worse, than the local courts.
Vince
Their whole case hinges on him being gay, the “gay disco dancing”..wtf and the pornography and keeping it hidden. Yeah, because all those “good” church folks are just going to welcome him with open arms. Eye roll.
daver01
In my younger days, I frequently said that “I could kill my parents” and I didn’t come out until I was 25. So if, God forbid, either or both of my late parents had been killed, I would now be languishing in a jail cell convicted of murder just because a bigoted small town cop (we don’t have rangers of this kind in the UK) and an equally bigoted, and by all accounts useless, defence attorney failed to do their jobs properly.
And this they call justice? Don’t make me f*cking laugh!
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He went into that courthouse guilty until proven innocent ..
russdog
I have not studied this case, but from the article, the prosecution’s logic is based on a faulty premise. He’s somehow likely to have lied about the murder because he was a closeted man who had yet to come out to conservative religious parents in small town? His gayness was so sinister that he’s capable of any subterfuge? Who passes the bar with this nonsense logic? Lying to cover up a crime is something criminals do which has nothing to do with sexual orientation. Heterosexuality makes straight people confess to murder apparently, thus so few trials of straight killers, I suppose.