Admitted burglar Jeramie Davis, who looted a Spokane porn shop in 2008 as its slain owner lay dead on the floor,  will remain in jail while waiting for his rare second chance to try convincing a jury that he's not a killer -- just Spokane's unluckiest thief.

Davis insists porn shop owner John G. “Jack” Allen, 74, already was dead when he broke in after hours and carted off carloads of adult-oriented merchandise in several return trips. It was Davis himself who eventually called 911 -- at a relative's urging -- to report the corpse and while he readily admitted to burglarizing the place, he steadfastly disputed any connection to the homicide.

Neither his fingerprints nor his DNA were found on the bat that detectives concluded was the murder weapon. The only DNA, in fact, belonged to someone else, who detectives would later identify through lab tests and send to prison for the same murder Davis already had been convicted of.

Prosecutors say the emergence of a second killer does nothing to weaken their case against Davis, even though they argued in the first trial that Davis was the sole perpetrator and that his assertions of a second, unidentified intruder who was responsible for the murder were nonsense.

Here's a link to SR reporter Thomas Clouse's story on Davis losing his bid for release from jail while waiting for his new trial. Davis already has served the amount of time he was ordered to spend in prison for the burglary.

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