But last month, Rudolph Holton was freed, in part, because his appeals attorney, Linda McDermott, pursued leads, which Durkin didn't follow, that point to another man as the possible killer. The case made national headlines over glaring discrepancies by key witnesses, investigators and prosecutors.

Despite the questions surrounding the case, Tampa police have yet to re-open the case. And even if they do, and charge another suspect, officials say, it would be hard to overcome a defense attorney's claim that Holton was the real killer.

``We looked under every stone we could have looked under,'' Durkin said.

McDermott found a report indicating that murder victim Katrina Graddy had been raped 10 days before her death. It took nine years for the rape report to be turned over by Tampa police to Holton's appeals team.

McDermott's work convinced the Florida Supreme Court that Holton, 49, deserved a new trial for the 1986 slaying of Graddy, a 17-year- old prostitute found strangled to death in a downtown crack house.

After State Attorney Mark Ober concluded last month there was not enough evidence to retry Holton, he declined to open an investigation into why it took years for Holton's team to get the rape report. He said Graddy used a fake last name, so police didn't know the murder victim and the rape victim were the same person. Withholding the rape report was not intentional, he and Hillsborough Circuit Judge Daniel Perry concluded. Perry also reviewed the Holton case.

McDermott says the victim's family deserves to have the investigation re-opened. She also says authorities should look into how the case was handled.

``Why aren't they concerned about the fact things were withheld from the defense at the trial? Why aren't they investigating that?'' McDermott said.

Standing By His Case

Durkin said he still believes Holton is guilty and he welcomes a review of how he handled the case. With the support of Judge Perry and Ober, it seems unlikely that Durkin, president of the Tampa Police Benevolent Association, will be investigated by his department, the state attorney's office or the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Ober said he has no intention of investigating how police handled the Graddy homicide.

``It's very apparent to me that the Tampa Police Department did the best they could with the information they had in 1986,'' Ober said. ``I don't fault the Tampa Police Department whatsoever for the final outcome of this case.''

Gov. Jeb Bush ordered the FDLE to investigate. But Bush's order on Jan. 28 directed FDLE to focus only on why two prosecution witnesses - Flemmie Birkins and Johnny Lee Newsome - changed their stories about Holton. Bush did not ask the FDLE to investigate how Durkin handled the investigation or why it took nine years for police to turn over the Graddy rape report.

``We do what the governor tells us,'' FDLE spokeswoman Jenny Khoen said.

Bush is also trying to eliminate the Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, the state agency that represents death row inmates. McDermott works for the agency.

Saving Holton

McDermott was right out of law school when she started working on Holton's death- row appeal in 1997. It didn't take long for her to find holes in the case, which was supervised in the homicide squad by Robert H. Price, who has since been promoted to captain.

Durkin didn't scrutinize another man who Graddy had accused of raping her before her slaying, McDermott said, though Holton's original defense attorney told Hillsborough Circuit Judge Harry Lee Coe and prosecutor Joe Episcopo that there was information Graddy had been anally raped by a man nicknamed ``Pine.'' Graddy was also anally raped by her killer.

McDermott also said Durkin didn't interrogate a man who went to the scene of the crime and said he heard how Graddy had been strangled, even though that information had not yet been made public.

Years later, that man, Donald Lemar Smith, would tell McDermott's investigators that the man who told him how Graddy died also confessed to killing the teenager. Smith said that man was David ``Pine'' Pearson, the same man Graddy had accused of raping her, according to court records.

And Durkin didn't scrutinize a flaw in Birkins' story. Birkins was facing life in prison on an unrelated charge and claimed Holton told him he killed Graddy, McDermott said. Birkins said Holton made the admission in jail at a time when homicide detectives later reported they were interrogating Holton at police headquarters, McDermott said.

Though prosecutors said they never offered Birkins a plea deal, he was later sentenced to five years probation on a felony charge that could have cost him a life sentence.

Just after the murder, Newsome told police he saw Holton and Graddy together the night of the murder. In 2001, he testified that he lied, then two years later, said his original account was true.

Durkin said there was plenty of proof to convict Holton.

Witness Cary Carson Nelson testified in Holton's trial in 1986 that she saw Holton climb out a window of the crack house hours before Graddy's body was discovered.

Carson has since died, but before her death, she told a friend that she had lied about seeing Holton, McDermott said.

Police also found Holton's fingerprint on a pack of Kool cigarettes in the crack house.

And perhaps most damning was Birkins' statement that Holton confessed. Birkins passed a lie detector test administered by Jack Evans Mehl, a state attorney investigator, records show.

In 2001, McDermott's investigators found Birkins, who told them he lied at Holton's trial because he was facing life in prison. In exchange for his testimony, Episcopo asked a judge to give Birkins probation.

Recently, Birkins told Ober he lied to McDermott and had told the truth at Holton's trial. Birkins is now at the center of the FDLE's investigation. But finding out why he changed his story may be difficult.

Reached last week, Birkins said he wasn't talking to reporters or investigators about the case.

Stephen Crawford, a former state and federal prosecutor, said Birkins could be charged with second-degree perjury if he lied at a death-penalty trial.

Case Might Get Another Look

Sgt. Jim Simonson, head of the Tampa Police Department's homicide squad, said he spoke to Durkin about the case. Durkin told him Holton was the killer and there were no other suspects. Simonson concluded there would be no reason to re-investigate the case.

But after a reporter told Simonson this week about evidence Holton's defense team had uncovered about Pearson - the man accused of raping Graddy before her death - Simonson said he would look at the case file and make a decision about re-opening the investigation.

But finding enough evidence to arrest Pearson or anyone else for the crime will be difficult, Ober and Durkin said.

The crack house that Graddy was killed in was destroyed shortly after the slaying in 1986. Pearson told police and prosecutors he did not kill Graddy. He volunteered for a DNA test, Ober said. But there was no physical evidence from the murder scene for a DNA comparison.

In 1986, investigators found hairs in Graddy's mouth. DNA tests were not available then, but Episcopo suggested to the jury that the hairs were Holton's. They weren't. They were Graddy's, a recent DNA test revealed.

But the most difficult hurdle to prosecute another suspect for Graddy's death is Holton's conviction. Any new suspect could point to Holton's conviction and say Holton was the real killer, Ober said. That would be enough for reasonable doubt and an acquittal, he said.

Barry Cohen, a Tampa defense attorney who recently won a $2.9 million settlement resulting from the botched prosecution of the parents of a missing infant, said Ober should investigate how the case was handled.

``I would want to know how this happened because it undermines people's trust in the system,'' Cohen said.

But E.J. Salcines, a Florida 2nd District Court of Appeal judge and former Hillsborough state attorney, believes Ober made the right decision.

To open an investigation, ``I would think [Ober] would want something more than the case fell apart because the police didn't follow a lead,'' Salcines said. ``I've got to assume the police acted in good faith.''

A LOOK BACK

JUNE 23, 1986: The body of Katrina Graddy, 17, is discovered in a crack house at 1236 E. Scott Street in downtown Tampa. A nylon cloth is tied around her neck. Her hands were bound and she was anally raped with a beer bottle. Her body was set on fire.

JUNE 23, 1986: Police interview two people who place Rudolph Holton at the scene of the murder. Holton denies he was at the scene. Police arrest him.

JULY 1, 1986: Detectives interview Flemmie Birkins, a jail trusty who said Holton confessed to killing Graddy.

JULY 8, 1986: Birkins passes a polygraph about his contention Holton admitted killing Graddy.

DEC. 5, 1986: A jury convicts Holton of 1st first-degree murder. Jurors recommend he be executed.

FEB. 12, 1987: Hillsborough Circuit Judge Harry Lee Coe III sentences Holton to death. 1996: Holton, in a letter, asks Gov. Lawton Chiles to execute him.

JANUARY 1997: Attorney Linda McDermott takes on Holton's death penalty appeal.

SOMETIME IN EARLY 2001: McDermott's investigators find Birkins homeless. He tells them he lied at the trial to avoid going to prison for life on his own charges.

NOV. 2, 2001: Hillsborough Circuit Judge Daniel Perry orders a new trial for Holton, based on evidence Graddy had been raped by another man and Birkins changing in his story.

DEC. 18, 2002: The Florida Supreme Court also orders a new trial for Holton.

JAN. 24, 2003: Hillsborough State Attorney Mark Ober decides there is not enough evidence to try Holton again. Prison officials set Holton free.

Reporter Joshua B. Good can be reached at (813) 259-7638.