Walton told the police the gunman was named Thomas James or Tommy James. The armed intruder fatally shot Francis before both suspects escaped with a few hundred dollars in cash. Francis was in a bedroom when he heard the commotion and came downstairs, a police report says. Two men later came through the front door, one of them armed with a gun, according to police. On the day of the murder, Dorothy Walton, the daughter of McKinnon's wife, and her husband were visiting the couple. James was convicted in 1991 of the murder of Francis McKinnon in the Coconut Grove section of Miami on 17 January 1990. led to the defendant’s photograph being included in a lineup, and set in motion a mistaken identity.
In the motion, prosecutors said, “what appears to be a chance coincidence that the defendant, Thomas Raynard James, had the same name as a suspect named by witnesses and anonymous tipsters. The decision came after State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle filed a 90-page motion seeking to have James' sentence vacated after years of unsuccessful reviews of the case.
