Hulk Hogan Tweets Support for Rodney Reed, But Backtracks After Fans Lash Out

Rodney Reed is scheduled to be executed in Texas by lethal injection on Nov. 20. However, there is a growing list of individuals that want this punishment delayed until further evidence can be examined. Monday night, it appeared that Hulk Hogan had joined this group when he tweeted support for Reed.

In a since-deleted tweet, Hogan expressed his support for Reed. He later clarified his statement with a second post, writing that he wants everything to be examined before putting someone to death.

“All I ask is before we kill another human being please look hard at all the evidence thank u only loveHH,” Hogan wrote.

As it turns out, Hogan is not the only celebrity to show his support for Reed. Other prominent figures such as Rihanna, Dr. Phil and Kim Kardashian West have all sent messages to Texas governor Greg Abbott, asking him to “do the right thing.”

Back in 1998, prosecutors at the trial said that Reed encountered Stacey Stites on the road as she drove to work at a grocery store Bastrop, Texas. east of Austin. They said that she stopped for him, which led to Reed raping and strangling Stites with her own belt. At the time, the 19-year-old Stites was weeks away from getting married to a police officer named Jimmy Fennell.

This incident occurred on April 23, 1996, and prosecutors maintain that Reed was the one who murdered Stites.

According to the information provided by the prosecutors, semen was found inside Stites, which the police later matched to Reed’s DNA. Reed’s sperm had previously been collected during an unrelated sexual assault investigation.

Reed initially denied that he knew Stites during the investigation but he later explained why they discovered his DNA. As he said, he was having a consensual relationship with Stites, but they had to keep it hidden due to the taboo nature, as well as her impending marriage to Fennell.

Reed and his defense have long said that Fennell was actually the killer. His attorneys have even presented affidavits in support of this in recent weeks. One such affidavit was one by a former prison inmate who claimed that Fennell bragged about killing his fiancee in Stites. The inmate also said that Fennell referred to Reed by a racial slur. In addition, Reed’s lawyers have said that other recent affidavits corroborate the aforementioned clandestine relationship between Stites and Reed.

(Photo Credit: Jerrod Harris/Getty)