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Cincinnati man seeks help from Innocence Project to overturn his murder conviction By Dan Yount The Cincinnati Herald      Cincinnatian Zachary Pettus, 40, has spent half of his life in California prisons for a crime he denies he committed. His family members, attorney, and other members of the legal profession who have reviewed the case also say they believe he is innocent.      An appeal made to the California Superior Court to retry the case shortly after Pettus was convicted in 1985 failed. However, Innocence Projects - an organization which represents prison inmates who claim they're innocent - is now taking a long and hard look at the case.      The former Hughes High School student left Cincinnati 20 years ago to stay with his sister in California. He soon found himself under arrest, and then convicted of the stabbing death of a strip mall shop owner. He languishes in a prison in Corcoran, Calif.      “I have always had a doubt that Zachary was involved in the murder,'' said his attorney, Milton Grimes, in a phone interview from Los Angeles. Grimes defended Rodney King in the famed beating of King by LA police during rioting there in April and May of 1992.   Growing up in Cincinnati:    Pettus was born and raised in Cincinnati, where he attended Hughes High School up to the 12th grade.      He was twice voted the most popular student at the school. He attended Bluffton College in central Ohio for a short time before leaving Cincinnati to live with his sister, Veronica Ingram, in Huntington Harbor, Calif., and attend Golden West College in adjacent Huntington Beach. He was earning credits at Marina High School in Huntington Beach in order to attend the college.        The 19-year-old apparently found California “too open'' and not to his liking, and he decided to return to Cincinnati and the structure of his family. He wanted to be with his family for Thanksgiving 1983, said a brother-in-law, Robert Humphries.  Humphries is an officer in the Hamilton County Juvenile Court and former producer and director of Black beauty pageants here. Pettus was ordered to stand trial for the murder of Hazboun at a preliminary hearing on Jan. 19, 1984.           According to a story in the Los Angeles Times that reported on Pettus's court appearance, his situation went from bad to worse. The Times reported that the high school student - Darci Belvin - had heard about the murder the same day and immediately told police Pettus had asked her to participate in a series of robberies. The classmate also reported she saw Pettus inside the store the day before the murder.      In a letter from prison in response to written questions from The Cincinnati Herald, Pettus denies making such a request. He adds that the day before the murder he had told Belvin he would not be able to go out with her. He had plans to date her friend, he wrote.      Also, a customer - Janice Schindler, 35 - had tried to enter the store the afternoon when Hazboun was murdered.      However, a man inside the store told her the owner was out for a while and would not let her inside, she reported.    Schindler said she thought she heard a moaning sound coming from inside the store. She returned to the store about 20 minutes later, but the door was locked.         Her description of the man as Black, good-looking and with a mustache also was tied to the arrest of Pettus, who relatives say does not fit the description of their family member.            Schindler identified Pettus as the man inside the store at the preliminary hearing only after he had stood in shackles in the courtroom.      A friend of Hazboun, who had come to the shop to mind the store for her for the rest of the afternoon, found Hazboun's body in the shop after 2 p.m. Job search leads to conviction:      About a month before Pettus was to return to Cincinnati, he went looking for temporary work, visiting several shops at Harbor Landing, a small shopping center in Huntington Beach.      He said he was looking for part-time work before returning to Cincinnati. “I was staying with my sister, and I was raised to carry my own, even if it is my family,'' he said.      One of the shops he visited was Somewhere in Time, a vintage clothing store in an isolated corner on the second floor of the shopping center, Grimes said. Pettus was in the shop about an hour and left his name and phone number, he said.      The following afternoon - Oct. 19, 1983 - the 37-year-old owner of the shop, Darlene Hazboun, was found bound, gagged and fatally stabbed in the corner of her shop, according to the Orange County Coroner's Office. Police said the store was ransacked, and there appeared to have been a struggle.      Hazboun had not been sexually molested. The cash box and her wallet had been stolen. Her pet cocker spaniel was found alone in the store when her body was discovered. The murder weapon was never found. A palm print said to have been left in the store by Pettus was later determined not to be his print, police said.      Seven hours later - at 8:20 p.m. on that same Wednesday - Pettus was taken into custody at his sister's home and booked on suspicion of murder in the death of Hazboun.  Authorities credited a tip from a fellow high school student for the arrest.   Pettus goes on trial:      Pettus was ordered to stand trial for the murder of Hazboun at a preliminary hearing on Jan. 19, 1984.       According to a story in the Los Angeles Times that reported on Pettus's court appearance, his situation went from bad to worse. The Times reported that the high school student - Darci Belvin - had heard about the murder the same day and immediately told police Pettus had asked her to participate in a series of robberies. The classmate also reported she saw Pettus inside the store the day before the murder.      In a letter from prison in response to written questions from The Cincinnati Herald, Pettus denies making such a request. He adds that the day before the murder he had told Belvin he would not be able to go out with her. He had plans to date her friend, he wrote.      Also, a customer - Janice Schindler, 35 - had tried to enter the store the afternoon when Hazboun was murdered.      However, a man inside the store told her the owner was out for a while and would not let her inside, she reported. Schindler said she thought she heard a moaning sound coming from inside the store. She returned to the store about 20 minutes later, but the door was locked. Her description of the man as Black, good-looking and with a mustache also was tied to the arrest of Pettus, who relatives say does not fit the description of their family member. Schindler identified Pettus as the man inside the store at the preliminary hearing only after he had stood in shackles in the courtroom.      A friend of Hazboun, who had come to the shop to mind the store for her for the rest of the afternoon, found Hazboun's body in the shop after 2 p.m.Jewelry mysteriously appears      In adding more damage to Pettus' case, a detective testified at the hearing that a pair of necklaces and three pendants that were from the store were discovered on a stereo in Pettus' bedroom during subsequent searches of his sister's apartment, which is two blocks from Hazboun's boutique.      The detective stated the discovery of the jewelry was at first not considered significant, but became significant after Hazboun's husband, Peter Hazboun, told police necklaces were missing from the shop. However, Ingrahm testified she never saw the jewelry in her brother's room after the first police search the day of the murder. She also never saw the jewelry on repeated visits to the room, even though she played a tape on the stereo, she said.      Grimes said neither he nor a private investigator saw the jewelry when Ingram called them to the home after Pettus was arrested. However, a deputy district attorney said a police photo taken the day of the search shows the jewelry on the stereo.      In his letter from prison, Pettus writes, “Dealing with the jewelry is the question of this case. Early on I asked myself how did the jewelry get there? Now I ask who put the jewelry there?'' Crime is out of character:      Pettus' arrest was reportedly a shock to students and teachers at Marina High School in California. He was well liked, had good grades, and had an excellent attendance record, school officials said.      Attorney Grimes described Pettus as a churchgoing man who neither smoke nor drank. “Of all the clients I've had, I've never had one so out of character with the crime he's accused of,'' Grimes said.      Three faculty members at Hughes High School - football coach and teacher Bobby Kelly, guidance specialist Joseph Prior, and teacher Anna Black - testified at Pettus' trial that he was nonviolent.   Mistaken identity becomes possibility:      Grimes said his former client was the victim of a case of mistaken identity. “He was remembered because not too many Blacks patronized the shopping center. But there was evidence several other Black men had been there earlier in the week. Grimes points out Schindler had picked Pettus from a photo array the day of the incident, but she was unable to identify Pettus as he sat in the audience during the pretrial hearing.   Points of reasonable doubt?      Some of the facts of the case seem to raise reasonable doubt as to Pettus' guilt:      1. The lack of evidence associated with a struggle and bloody stabbing. Investigators found no physical evidence on Pettus' clothing or scratches on his body that would lead one to believe he had any physical contact with Hazboun. Yet Hazboun was known to be a “scrappy'' woman and a struggle apparently occurred with her assailant.      Frederick Humphries, another brother-in-law who lives in nearby Cerritos, Calif., said, “They never put a knife in Zach's hand. He would have been extremely bloody when he came home, and no evidence that would have associated him with the crime was ever found although he was arrested within hours after the crime occurred.''      2. Pettus' activities during the hours the murder occurred. The murder occurred between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. A bank surveillance camera shows Pettus was in a nearby bank when the murder occurred, Grimes said.      Pettus made a cash deposit at a nearby by bank at 1:20 p.m. A neighbor had seen him near his apartment at 1:35 p.m.            Another neighbor had seen him wearing Levis and a polo shirt at 2:15 p.m.      In his letter, Pettus writes that on the day of the murder he had been to the post office and a Fotomat store. He also played with some of the kids at the apartment complex. He counts 10 people who saw him at the time the crime is said to have occurred.      3. What about the mysterious discovery of the jewelry? Grimes notes that an initial search of the apartment where Pettus was living turned up no physical evidence. Only after a search one week later was the victim's jewelry discovered in plain view on a stereo in Pettus' room. Pettus had been in jail since the evening of the murder. Had someone who had access to the store placed the jewelry in his room?      4. Other suspects were not considered. A shop owner near Hazboun's boutique stated she observed a handsome Black man wearing red shorts pass by her window about 1 p.m. Also, a police officer saw the same Black man walking east from the shopping center at 1:30 p.m. to 1:45 p.m. Was this the murderer?       The arrest was made too quickly, Robert Humphries said. There were other suspects who were not considered, he said. Hazboun was separated from her husband, who lived some distance away, and she was living with a Black boyfriend, he said.     Could the murder have been pre-meditated, he asks. “She was a fighter and would have put up a struggle and made some noise. My theory is that someone held a gun on her and then started stabbing her with a knife.''      5. One juror had doubts. The motion for a new trial that was filed in March 1985 states - among other discrepancies - juror Teresa Sites said she was pressured by other jurors to render a guilty verdict although she was not convinced Pettus was guilty. The same motion also reports a racist comment was made by a witness for the prosecution after she had left the courtroom.      Key players in the case - Deputy Dist. Atty. Pat Geary, who prosecuted the case; Darci Belvin, Pettus' friend who testified against him; a Detective Lockhart, who searched Pettus' apartment; and Teresa Sites, the juror who said she was pressured into making a decision - could not be reached for comments about the case.    “I trust the truth will come out''      Frederick Humphries said Grimes presented an excellent defense but the all-White jury overruled him. Pettus' conviction hinged on the testimony of the young friend who said Pettus was interested in committing robberies, Humphries said.      Robert Humphries said, “Zachary just happened to be a young man in the wrong place at the wrong time. I think the authorities there were thinking, 'Here's a young man from out of town. Accuse him and get it taken care of.' ''