Attorney Requests Testing to Determine if Bullet Found Two Decades After Murder Vindicates his Client

A bullet found a year ago could free a man serving a life sentence for murdering his wife in one of Macomb County’s most infamous murder cases.

Defense attorney Joseph Kosmala plans to have the unspent shell –  found a year ago in the building that formerly housed the Clinton Township comic book store where Barbara George was shot and killed in 1990 – tested  for ballistics, fingerprints and DNA to determine if it is connected, the Detroit Free Press reports.

His client, Michael George, 53, is serving a life sentence for the murder of his wife, Barbara George. Michael George was tried and convicted twice in the slaying in a case that was featured on the NBC news magazine “Dateline.”

Kosmala admitted that it’s a “long shot” that tests will vindicate his client, who was convicted in 2008 after a cold-case investigation. The jury verdict was thrown out and George was convicted gain in a 2011 trial. The conviction was affirmed by the Court of Appeals last year, and just last week, the Michigan Supreme Court denied an application to appeal that decision.

In their response to Kosmala’s motion, Macomb County prosecutors said investigators didn’t find shell casings at the murder scene and shrapnel evidence is not sufficient to compare the bullet that killed Barbara George with the bullet  that was found last February near a water heater as the building was being remodeled.

Further, they argued, the area where the bullet was found was used exclusively by the owners – the Georges – and the store has changed ownership and occupancy several times since the 1990 murder.

But Assistant Prosecutor Steve Fox told the newspaper the prosecutor’s office is “not opposed to any testing.”