State to conduct DNA tests 17 years later HOUSTON, July 5 (UPI) -- The Texas Attorney General's Office said it will accede to requests from a 17-year death row inmate to conduct more forensic testing that may clear his name. Henry Skinner was convicted of fatally beating Twila Busby with an axe handle and then stabbing her adult sons at a New Year's Eve party in 1993. Skinner's repeated demands for further forensic testing have prompted courts to stay his execution, despite resistance from the Attorney General's office, The Houston Chronicle reported. However, the Attorney General's Office has worked with Skinner's lawyers to compile a list of 40 items for high tech DNA testing. The operative piece of evidence is a bloodstained windbreaker found near Busby's body, which the state seems to have misplaced. "The state has a lot of explaining to do," said Rob Owen, a law professor at Northwestern University. That jacket is the key to everything. The windbreaker, Skinner contends, is not his, but instead belonged to Busby's uncle, Robert Donnell. Skinner said it was "eight sizes too big to fit me." Skinner believes Donnell raped Busby, and later killed her and her sons. Donnell was never considered as a suspect in the investigation, and died in a car accident in 1997. A neighbor said Donnell was once heard threatening his wife, saying "if she kept yakking her mouth, he would do the same thing to her that he had done to Twila and her sons."