| Sources |
- [S106] The Mountain Press, 14 Aug 2010.
Dewey Ernest Large obituary
- [S4] Knoxville News-Sentinel (Tennessee), 14 May 2005.
Annie Irene Owens Large obituary
- [S144] Phone Record.
Name Raynella L Dossett
Also Known As L Leath
2nd Also Known As Name Raynella D Leath
Residence Date 01 Aug 2000
Residence Place Knoxville, Tennessee, United States
Birth Date 25 Oct 1948
Address Knoxville, Tennessee 37920
Address Date 01 Aug 2000
2nd Address Knoxville, Tennessee 37931
2nd Address Date 11 Jun 1999
3rd Address Knoxville, Tennessee 37931
3rd Address Date 01 Jan 1993-01 Jan 2009
Possible Relatives David R Leath, Katie Dossett, Mayme N Leath, Nancy Dossett, Raynella D Leath, Robert H Leath, William E Dossett
Record Number 73552358
- [S4] Knoxville News-Sentinel (Tennessee), 10 May 2017.
Raynella Dossett Leath trial: Judge tosses first-degree murder case against accused black widow
Jamie Satterfield, Knoxville
Charges and legal battles involving Raynella Dossett Leath
Raynella Dossett Leath faced an extraordinary third trial in Knox County Criminal Court on the same charge for which she was tried twice before — that she killed her second husband, David Leath, in 2003 and staged it to look like a suicide.
Raynella Dossett Leath
(Photo: Jamie Satterfield/News Sentinel)
In an extraordinary move in a rare third trial for suspected black widow Raynella Dossett Leath, a special judge on Wednesday tossed out charges she killed her second husband without even allowing a jury to decide.
Special Judge Paul Summers waited until moments before a jury was to begin deliberations to announce that he found evidence of Leath’s guilt too lacking to even allow the jury to decide it.
“The record taken as a whole does not support a finding of sufficient evidence," Summers said. "The state has failed to meet its burden.”
It is rare in the state of Tennessee for judges to issue what is called a directed verdict in favor of a defendant. Summers said that although the state had put on proof David Leath was murdered, they offered nothing but “innuendoes” suggesting his wife was the killer.
Raynella Leath, 68, teared up as the judge made his ruling and hugged lead defense attorney Joshua Hedrick before leaving Knox County Criminal Court a free woman - 14 years after her second husband was found shot to death in March 2003 in the bed of the Solway Road home the couple shared.
"Raynella Leath and her family are grateful that justice has been done," Hedrick said. "She appreciates the hard work of the court and all involved."
Special prosecutors Stephen D. Crump and Shari Tayloe left the courtroom without comment as did David Leath's surviving daughter, Cindy Wilkerson.
Special judge makes bold ruling
Summers opined that the prosecutors had spent so much time proving David Leath did not kill himself, they failed to show she was even in the home when the three shots - one a miss, the second fatal and the third inexplicable - were fired.
There was nothing to tie Raynella Leath to the gun - a double action .38-caliber revolver. Authorities found no gunshot residue on her hands or blood on her clothes. Prosecutors could present no motive. They could not even show when David Leath died, let alone that his wife was there, Summers noted.
"The state has not established a time of death beyond a general time (frame)," Summers said. "Mrs. Leath's whereabouts that morning were established by the proof."
Raynella Leath establishes alibi
Raynella Leath called 911 to report finding her husband dead in their bed at 11:23 a.m. Her youngest daughter left the home at 8:20 a.m. Raynella Leath told now-retired Knox County Sheriff's Office Detective Perry Moyers she and her husband watched televangelist Joyce Meyer on television together, and she then prepared him breakfast. She said she loaded clothes into the dryer and turned it on before leaving the home.
At 9:50 a.m., Raynella Leath called Wilkerson, saying she was paying a visit to David Leath's ailing mother at Parkwest Medical Center and expressing worry her husband may have gone to a gym to work out without eating his breakfast. Hospital personnel confirmed she was at the hospital.
Soon after, her youngest daughter called her and asked her to bring medicine to Karns High School because she wasn't feeling well. School personnel confirmed Raynella Leath left the high school at 10:45 a.m. She stopped to talk to a neighbor as she drove onto the couple's driveway.
Testimony showed David Leath had been dead for some unknown period before his body was discovered. The blood had congealed, and the body showed signs of the settling of blood that takes place over time after death. But no time range of death was established.
Prosecutors argued Raynella Leath killed her husband soon after her daughter left the home, staged the suicide and then set out to establish an alibi by calling Wilkerson, visiting her mother-in-law and going to her daughter's high school.
Pointing at a timeline of Raynella Leath's movements, Crump told jurors, "There is nothing up there but opportunity for that woman to end the life of David Leath."
But Hedrick countered Raynella Leath would have had no idea her daughter would get sick at school or that her neighbor would be at his mailbox - if her intent was to craft a fake alibi.
"They want to villainize her," he told jurors in closing arguments. "There's nothing to connect her to this ... beyond a reasonable doubt."
Judge says someone killed David Leath, but who a mystery
Summers said he had no qualms with proof David Leath did not - as the defense alleged - kill himself. The defense argued he was showing signs of dementia and was too "proud" to be a "burden" on his family.
Key in Summers' conclusion the state had proven David Leath was slain at the hands of someone else was the order of shots fired and the impossibility of David Leath firing a third shot when every expert agreed he was dead after the second one.
The first shot struck the headboard above David Leath's head. The second struck him in the forehead as he raised up from the pillow. That shot severed his brain stem. The third shot was fired into the mattress. Prosecutors theorized his widow was trying to get gunshot residue on his hand. Residue was found on the back of his hand but not on his fingers or palm. The defense theorized his body convulsed with the gun still in his hand, causing it to fire.
David Leath was nude, his body partially covered with a quilt and sheets and a pillow tucked between his legs, something his wife said he always did when sleeping. His uneaten breakfast was on a tray next to the table.
Summers opined the weight of evidence supporting the notion that a sleeping David Leath was awakened by that first shot and slain with the second was strong. The prosecutors had spent the bulk of their efforts proving not that Raynella Leath was a killer but that David Leath didn't kill himself.
And that is where they failed, Summers said.
"I have studied the evidence and every shred of testimony just like you have," Summers told jurors in explaining why - after an eight-day trial - they would not get to decide the widow's fate. "The record taken as a whole does not support a finding of sufficient evidence Mrs. Leath was (the killer)."
David Leath was the second husband to die under questionable circumstances
Raynella Leath was once charged with the 1992 death of her first husband, Knox County District Attorney General Ed Dossett, but that charge was dismissed after she was convicted in a second trial of killing her second husband, who was Dossett's best friend. Prosecutors allege she gave Dossett a fatal overdose and staged the death to look like an accidental cattle trampling.
That case could be resurrected, but legal experts say it is unlikely since the proof in that case was even weaker than the evidence used to support a first-degree murder charge in the death of David Leath, a popular West Knoxville barber.
Raynella Leath was first tried in 2009 in the killing of her second husband. A jury deadlocked. She was convicted in a 2010 trial, but Summers overturned the conviction last year because the judge presiding over that trial - now disgraced Knox County Criminal Court Judge Richard Baumgartner - was high on painkillers during the proceeding.
- [S58] Marriage Certificate.
Event Type Marriage
Event Date 09 Jan 1993
Event Place Anderson, Tennessee, United States
Gender Female
Spouse's Name Robert David Leath
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1948 - (75 years)
, d. 13 Aug 2010, Ben Atchley Veterans’ Nursing facility, Knoxville, Knox County, Tennessee 
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