The editors of The Evidence Log strive to provide information to our readers and students regarding events and trends that affect law enforcement and the management of the property room.  We continually scan the environment for information that has some significant relationship to the long-term storage of property and evidence.

Over one hundred persons nationwide have been released from prisons during the past year [2000] because their convictions were overturned as a result of a post conviction appeal involving the use of DNA evidence.  Factually innocent people have been arrested, convicted and imprisoned for years because of a flawed criminal justice system.  DNA technology has changed the paradigm of what is now possible and our legislatures across the country are working diligently to ensure that a person is not convicted based upon reasoning deduced from inadequate evidence.  The headlines from newspapers nationwide are punctuated by DNA related stories and the attempt by legislators to keep pace with this rapidly changing technology.  The greatest challenge for us in law enforcement is how do we preserve the evidence, and how long?

Whenever our legislators enact legislation to ensure people are not wrongly convicted, such as increasing the time limitations of prosecution, we in the property and evidence function will feel that impact.  The Illinois legislature recently passed legislation that increased their prosecution limitations on certain sex crimes to twenty-five years.  Will this type of legislation affect your property room?  Illinois also increased the length of time homicide evidence must be kept to forever.  How long is forever?  Do you have room enough to keep evidence forever?  Obviously this type of legislation will impact our property rooms.

In California, the prosecution limitations for sex crimes has been increased from six and seven years to ten years.  Again this impacts the property and evidence function.  I.A.P.E. is not questioning the wisdom of this legislation, but only providing our readers and viewers with some of the issues that are changing the way we do business.  We will try to update you on our web page monthly regarding DNA related issues and let you be the judge if the story you read will impact your department or state statues.

The Innocence Project is a national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.

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HEADLINE: Exonerated man looks forward to marriage, rebuilding life

A 47-year-old man imprisoned 12 years for a rape he did not commit plans to travel to Georgia as soon as he is released to marry the woman he had been engaged to before his arrest.

"The first thing I am going to do is get to Atlanta to see Jeannette and marry her like I should have years ago," Ronald Gene Taylor told the Houston Chronicle in an interview at a Tennessee Colony prison. He told the newspaper that his fiancee, Jeannette Brown, has remained by his side since his arrest 14 years ago. 

"Knowing that she was there for me all this time was such a blessing," said Taylor, who had been serving a 60-year sentence.

Taylor was exonerated through new DNA testing of evidence this summer, which pointed to another man, Roosevelt Carroll, in the 1993 case. Carroll, convicted twice in other rapes, is serving a 15-year sentence for failing to register as a sex offender.

Because the statute of limitations has run out in the 1993 rape case, authorities cannot prosecute Carroll for the crime.

The new DNA testing was paid for by the Innocence Project, a New York-based legal clinic representing Taylor.

Taylor may be released on a personal recognizance bond Friday following a hearing in Houston.

Brown said she never once considered the possibility that Taylor was guilty.

"I know that man, and I know he is not capable of doing something that awful," Brown, a 51-year-old nursing assistant, told the newspaper in a telephone interview.

Taylor was accused of attacking a woman in her home, about a mile from where he then lived. Taylor's conviction hinged on the victim's identification. But the victim told authorities she only caught a glimpse of her attacker's face.

At his trial, an analyst with the Houston Police Department crime lab testified that she found no semen on a bedsheet, ruling out DNA testing.

But ReliaGene Technologies, Inc., a private lab in New Orleans, retested the bed sheet in July and found there was semen on it.

Taylor is the third inmate to be exonerated because of shoddy work by the troubled Houston crime lab.

The lab's DNA section was shut down in 2002 after an independent audit found inaccuracies in analysis procedures. Independent investigators have identified 180 blood-analysis cases from the 1980s and early 1990s that showed problems with HPD serology work.

Errors have also been found in the work of four other lab divisions, including those that test firearms and illegal drugs.

After Taylor is released, prosecutors will file paperwork to ask for a pardon for Taylor from Gov. Rick Perry's office. Taylor's attorneys also plan to ask the court to overturn his conviction.

If he is pardoned based on innocence, Taylor would be eligible for compensation of $50,000 per year of incarceration likely more than $600,000.

Taylor always maintained his innocence.

"I was so sure that the truth would come out that they knew it was not me that I told my lawyer not to even tell me if (prosecutors) offered a plea bargain," he said. "I did not want to hear it."

During his time in prison, Taylor worked jobs such as cooking breakfast "because you have to keep your mind distracted," and wrote daily letters to his family and fiancee.

After he leaves prison, Taylor said he will try to rebuild his life in Atlanta and "put away" the memories of prison. But he won't forget other unjustly imprisoned inamtes.

"I would almost bet my freedom that I could show you three or four guys who are in the same situation I was in," Taylor said. "But I wonder if anyone will ever help them."

Information from: Houston Chronicle, http://www.houstonchronicle.com

92 

HEADLINE: In 209th case, justice came 19 years too late

Ten days left in a 19-year stretch -- the exoneration of Frank Bostic was more cruel joke than justice.

Bostic, 51, had been trying for years to persuade the courts to test the old DNA evidence gathered in the 1988 rape case that put him behind bars. His latest handwritten plea finally got traction.

Tests were ordered. Results came back in August. No match. On Friday, Broward Circuit Judge Marc Gold vacated the rape conviction. And the truth became official. The 150-pound, 5-foot-7 Bostic, with no gold dental work, was not the rapist described by the victim as 200 pounds, six feet tall with gold-capped teeth. 

Bostic became U.S. inmate No. 209 found innocent after DNA tests exposed convictions that had been contrived with faulty eyewitness testimony or with coerced false confessions or extorted plea deals or lying jailhouse snitches or lousy lab work or police misconduct.

"They scared me up," said Bostic, explaining why he had pleaded guilty to a crime he didn't commit. 'My court-appointed lawyer told me that they had a witness who said it was me. And that if I were to lose, I'd get a life sentence. He told me that he believed I was innocent but he said, `If I was you, I'd take the plea.' "

TYPICAL DILEMMA

He calculated his chances in court if the victim, under oath, fingered him for the rape. He took the plea deal. His dilemma was typical of the wrongly convicted. The New York-based Innocence Project has found that 75 percent of defendants later cleared by DNA evidence had been convicted on the mistaken testimony of eyewitnesses.

"I don't blame the victim," Bostic said Friday. "I know the police coerced her into picking me out."

Bostic knows he was a convenient foil for cops wanting to clear out a pending case. He lived a couple blocks from the crime scene in Fort Lauderdale. He had a record, albeit for petty crimes. "They picked me because I had a few priors. So did my alibi witness." And Bostic was just a maintenance man. Nobody was going to make a fuss over the arrest of a maintenance man with a criminal record.

A guilty plea meant no legal way out of his conviction. Until last year, when the Legislature (led by Sen. Alex Villalobos of Miami and Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff of Fort Lauderdale) voted to broaden the right of convicted prisoners to have old DNA evidence tested. "Before 2006, this wouldn't have happened," said Sarah Sandler of the Broward Public Defender's Office.

10 DAYS OF FREEDOM

Exoneration didn't save Bostic from much of anything. "My release date would have been Oct. 1," he said, with a mirthless laugh. He compared those 10 days of freedom against 19 years of very hard time. "The other inmates don't like sex offenders," Bostic said, remembering the prison assaults, including one attack that left him with a broken jaw.

And Bostic talked about how those numbing years behind bars worked on his psyche. "I knew I didn't do it. But prison does something to your mind. After a while, you're not sure of anything."

At least Bostic got more out of exoneration than Frank Lee Smith, the hapless Fort Lauderdale man who died of cancer after spending 14 years on Death Row for a 1985 murder he didn't commit. In 2000, 10 months after his death, despite the prosecution's dogged opposition, the DNA evidence finally was tested. No match. Way too late.

Sandler talked Friday of her bittersweet victory, worth a piddling few days of freedom. And she wondered how many more innocent men had taken a plea deal because, "They scared me up."

91 

HEADLINE: Saving DNA evidence; 

Ritter is wise to pursue consensus on rewriting the law

Gov. Bill Ritter, a former prosecutor, seized the controls of what threatened to become a legislative runaway train when he announced Tuesday the formation of a 21-member task force to study how DNA evidence is preserved in Colorado, and how the law should be changed. 

The new working group includes people with differing opinions of the current law, from prosecutors and police to defense attorneys and lawmakers.

State Rep. Cheri Jahn, D-Wheat Ridge, has reportedly expressed interest in mandating preservation of genetic evidence for decades. Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey, another panel member, is decidedly more friendly toward the present law, which allows each police or sheriff's department to follow its own set of rules.

If the panel can come to consensus after examining the best practices of jurisdictions around the country, it's likely to involve a compromise sensitive both to the pursuit of justice and the realities of law enforcement.

The issue was highlighted recently in Rocky stories about Tim Masters, who is serving a life sentence in the 1987 murder of Peggy Hettrick of Fort Collins. In appealing his conviction, Masters' attorneys and some investigators say he may have been wrongly convicted, and bemoan the fact that some evidence in the case - evidence that might point to another suspect - has disappeared or been destroyed.

A uniform system of evidence preservation would be a good first step toward ensuring greater fairness for people like Masters.

For his part, Ritter has indicated he wants to emphasize access to evidence over penalizing officials who lose or destroy it. This is a sound approach; as Ritter pointed out, judges have wide latitude for discipline in such cases. Still, he said he's receptive to suggestions for penalties, and we hope he remains so.

Police and prosecutors are only human, after all. When there's nothing concrete to fear for doing one's job sloppily, a few will fail to be scrupulous about preserving evidence. More sinisterly, the loss of evidence can conveniently seal the fate of someone whom officials sincerely consider guilty but who continues to proclaim his innocence.

We don't dismiss concerns about the impact of a mandate on law-enforcement resources. Existing property rooms can hold only so much evidence and expanding them is not free. That's why it was important to have all sides at the table. But the present law, which explicitly rejects "a duty to preserve biological evidence" as well as any "liability on the part of a law enforcement agency for failing to preserve biological evidence" is increasingly hard to justify when such evidence is becoming more critical by the day.

Something needs to be set in stone, so prosecutors, judges - and the public - know what to expect after a strand of hair is collected at a crime scene.

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HEADLINE: Police move to widen DNA net;

POLICE want the power to take DNA from more suspects and keep it indefinitely, even in the absence of charges or convictions.

Under a Victoria Police proposal, samples could be taken from suspects even without crime scene material to match it to. 

And by widening the range of offences for which DNA could be taken, tens of thousands more samples would be added to the state's database.

DNA law reforms were promised by the Government during its election campaign last year.

NSW recently decided to allow its police to demand DNA from suspects arrested for any offence.

Victoria Police's preferred option is one of three alternatives in a report on proposed reforms.

The report says a recent meeting of the Government's justice statement advisory group and other interested parties resulted in majority support for:
 

Court statistics in the report suggest more than 25,000 extra samples could have been taken in the last three years if theft had been added to offences covered by DNA laws. Including deception and handling stolen goods would have added another 12,000.

Under existing law, such summary offences are not ''forensic sample crimes''. Police can only take samples from those they reasonably believe have committed a serious crime such as murder, sex offences, assault, armed robbery, burglary and drug offences.

There must also be relevant forensic crime scene material.

A court order is needed to retain a sample even after a finding of guilt, and samples must be destroyed within a month of an acquittal and within a year if the suspect is not charged.

The State Government pledged to broaden the range of ''forensic sample crimes'' to include most indictable offences, and to reduce the threshold test to a reasonable suspicion.

It also pledged to extend the period for retaining samples.

Police would also like the right to take DNA samples, photos and fingerprints from suspects at the same time to improve the quality and integrity of the database.

Victoria's database holds almost 18,000 known offender profiles and it will soon access more than 200,000 from interstate via a national database. More than 17,000 unmatched crime scene samples are also recorded.

Statistics from Britain, which has the world's biggest DNA database with more than 3.1 million samples, reveal that 25 per cent of adult males and 7 per cent of women will eventually be on it.

British police have had considerable success solving ''cold case'' murders and rapes through DNA.

Samples there can be held indefinitely, and figures show a 45 per cent chance that a crime scene sample will produce a match with a recorded profile.

A spokeswoman for Attorney-General Rob Hulls said the Government was resolved to make changes but could not say when.

89 

HEADLINE: DNA links inmate to two rapes

BYLINE: DAVID OVALLE, dovalle@MiamiHerald.com

DNA has linked the 1993 kidnappings and rapes of two teenage girls in North Miami-Dade to an imprisoned rapist named Solomon Gause, police said Wednesday.

Miami-Dade police charged him with armed sexual battery, armed robbery and kidnapping. 

"They're glad he was identified and are on board to prosecute," Miami-Dade Detective Bill Nadramia said of the now-adult victims.

According to police, on Feb. 28, 1993, a 13-year-old was walking near 66th Street and Northwest 19th Avenue when a man in a car pulled up at about 12:50 a.m. He pointed a gun at her, punched her in the mouth and forced her into his car. Then he drove her to a parking lot and raped her.

The rapist threatened to kill her -- then stole her two gold necklaces.

Then on April 13, 1993, a 15-year-old girl was leaving Northwestern High, 7007 NW 12th Ave., when a man pulled up in a car.

"If you don't get inside this car, I'm going to shoot [you]," he told her, according to police documents.

Like before, he pointed at what appeared to be a handgun in its pouch.

Semen samples were taken from both girls at the time.

In 1994, DNA hits linked the cases to the same man. But no sample on file at the time matched.

In November 2006, using updated DNA technology, a state database came back with a hit, Nadramia said.

Gause was charged after another DNA sample taken in prison came back positive.

Gause, 42, served five years after he was arrested for a rape and kidnapping later in 1993, records show. In 2002, he was convicted for sexually assaulting a minor younger than 12 years of age.

Nadramia, whose cold-case sexual battery squad is reviewing some 800 cases, conducted a prison interview with Gause, whose tattooes include the nicknames Mr. G, Mr. Cool and Superman. "He denied it," Nadramia said.

88 

HEADLINE: Free from prison, but still not free

NORFOLK -- For more than a year, Arthur Whitfield has been waiting to hear whether he will be pardoned.

He was released from prison in August 2004, after DNA testing showed he did not commit the crimes for which he was convicted. He had served nearly 22 years of a 63-year sentence for two rapes that happened in Ghent in 1981. The DNA evidence pointed to another man. 

Since then, Whitfield has struggled to clear his name. The Virginia Supreme Court refused to declare him innocent, saying it no longer had jurisdiction because Whitfield had already been released from prison. So Whitfield petitioned the governor . That was in December 2005.

Kevin Hall, a spokesman for Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, said he could not comment on pending pardon petitions.

The victims in the case identified Whitfield as their attacker at trial, and one still insists that he is the man who committed the crimes.

Now Whitfield's life remains stalled.

In October, police charged him with drug possession after finding cocaine in the car he was driving. A judge dismissed the charge in April when testimony showed someone else's identification was in the container where the drugs were found. Whitfield said he has never used drugs.

The arrest cost him his job.

"The employer said he didn't need me anymore because he didn't need a jailbird working for him," Whitfield said.  Other employers turn him away because of the felony convictions and the nature of the charges. He remains on the sex offender registry."I explain that I was exonerated," Whitfield said. "They say, 'It's still on your record.'\"

He is also hurt by a lack of experience. He's 52, and has spent most of his adult life in prison. He's five payments behind on his car, and he's moved back to his parents' home.

"This little house is only so big," Whitfield said. "You feel like you're intruding."

So he spends a lot of time walking.

Some days he walks from his parents' home on 38th Street to Ingleside, handing in job applications at stops along the way.

"It's a long way to be walking and come back empty," he said.

He helps his parents around the house, cuts the grass. But some facets of the modern world he can't get used to - he has yet to figure out how to run the DVD player.

In March, Whitfield's lawyer, Michael F. Fasanaro Jr., wrote to the secretary of the commonwealth, asking about the status of the pardon petition. They haven't heard back.

Whitfield appealed to Kaine to make a decision.

"I need to get my life back on track," he said. "He's the only one that can make that happen."

Record

After DNA evidence cleared Arthur Whitfield of two rapes he did not commit, he wants an official pardon to expunge his record.

Whitfield says his criminal record has cost him his job and keeps his name on the sex offender registry.

87 

HEADLINE: Man reunites with his family after 22 years in prison

Anthony Capozzi had the opportunity to hug his family Tuesday for the first time since the Reagan era.

His 1987 conviction on two rapes was thrown out Monday, based on recently discovered DNA evidence that linked the crimes to another man. 

Capozzi, 50, reunited with his family Tuesday in an undisclosed Buffalo-area mental-health facility where he will receive treatment in the short term. He suffers from the schizophrenia, which he developed in his late teens.

His parents, Albert and Mary; his three sisters, Kathleen Jeras, Sharyn Miller and Pam Guenther; and his younger brother, Albert Jr., all visited with him and posed for a long-awaited family picture.

Through their attorney, Thomas C. D'Agostino, the Capozzis asked that the reunion be private.

"They'd like to have today to be with him, spend time with him, get back together again," D'Agostino told The Buffalo News. "There are obviously things they need to discuss about Anthony's immediate future. There are conversations that need to take place."

D'Agostino has said he is prepared to sue the state for Capozzi's wrongful imprisonment as a way to ensure his future care.

"There's great anticipation and celebration for Anthony's freedom, especially for his mom and dad and his whole family," said Bill Miller, one of Capozzi's brothers-in-law. "He's exonerated, and his name is cleared, but it's tempered by the fact that we have a long road ahead."

Family members told The Buffalo News that said they hope Capozzi can start over with an independent life they were considering the possibility of an assisted-living apartment, where a mental-health agency would ensure he was receiving his clinical care, taking his medication and attending some day-treatment program or job.

Capozzi was found guilty of the rapes Feb. 6, 1987, and given a prison sentence of 11 to 35 years.

He has been denied parole five times since becoming eligible in 1997 because his refusal to admit the crimes made it impossible to complete a mandatory sex offender program, another of his lawyers, Norman Effman, said.

Though his attorney, parents and other relatives have never doubted Capozzi's innocence, it was the recent arrest of a suspect in a 25-year string of rapes and murders that ultimately proved them right.

Altemio Sanchez, 49, was arrested Jan. 15 after DNA evidence identified him as a serial criminal known as the Bike Path Rapist. After linking Sanchez to three murders and several rapes in parks and other secluded areas dating to 1981, investigators began to question whether the 1983 and 1984 attacks for which Capozzi was convicted which occurred in the same park as two of the rapes linked to Sanchez might also have been committed by the Bike Path Rapist.

DNA evidence collected after the rapes and kept by Erie County Medical Center proved the hunch correct, according to Clark, who last week announced the DNA matched that of Sanchez.

Sanchez is charged with murdering two women in the early 1990s and one woman last fall. He has pleaded innocent. He is not charged in any of the rape cases because the five-year statute of limitations has expired. There is no time limit for filing murder charges.

Information from: The Buffalo News

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HEADLINE: Oklahoma City agrees to $4M settlement with man exonerated by DNA evidence

A unanimous Oklahoma City Council Tuesday approved a $4 million settlement with Jeffrey Todd Pierce, who was released from prison in 2001 after being exonerated from a rape conviction by independent DNA evidence. Tests showed that Pierce could not have committed the rape for which he was convicted. He served 15 years of a 65-year prison sentence.

Kenneth Jordan, Oklahoma City municipal counselor, said the settlement will be paid out of sinking funds, made up of ad valorem tax collections. Jordan said a federal judge approved the case to go to a jury trial just before the settlement was worked out last week. Pierce was convicted partly due to forensic evidence presented by Joyce Gilchrist, then a chemist for the Oklahoma City Police Department. Gilchrist was terminated after criticism of her methods put the results of many cases in doubt. Pierce was convicted in 1986 for the rape of a woman who lived in an apartment building where he worked at one time.Pierce initially sought $75 million, including $50 million in punitive damages. Jordan said the latest demand letter from Pierce's attorneys asked for $29 million.. An attorney for Pierce was not immediately available for comment. Jordan could not say whether the settlement will require an increase in property taxes. He said judgments are paid over a three-year period, falling off the books as they are paid in full. "Each year, past judgments will fall off of that," Jordan said. He said it could take two to three weeks for the paperwork on the Pierce settlement to make it through the system. The settlement does not include the city admitting any type of wrongdoing, he added. 

This is the first DNA-generated prisoner-settlement for Oklahoma City, Jordan said. Last June, the city of Tulsa agreed to pay $12.25 million to Arvin McGee Jr. after DNA evidence showed he did not commit the October 1987 rape and kidnapping of a Tulsa woman for which he was convicted. In March of last year, a jury returned a $14.5 million verdict in McGee's favor. Gee spent 14 years in prison.

A series of Videos created over a five day period.  In addition to the videos be sure to click on the other links to view the additional Photo Galleries, Interactive graphics, and Articles.  There is a wealth of DNA information, past present and future available from this one link.

Identifying DNA Evidencechart
DNA Evidence Precautionschart
Postconviction DNA Testing: Recommendations for Handling Requestsreport
What Every Law Enforcement Officer Should Know About DNA Evidencepamphlet
 

HEADLINE: Convict proves he's no killer: DNA evidence IDs real murderer

A convicted murderer proved his innocence by investigating his own case from his cell at a maximum security prison and identifying the real killer. Roy Brown was Thursday night appearing before a judge to ask for a pardon after 16 years in jail for a crime he had proved conclusively that he did not commit. 

Brown had always protested his innocence, denying that he stabbed and strangled a female social worker to death at a farmhouse in upstate New York in 1991, and he managed to investigate and solve the crime from his prison cell. Five days after he wrote a letter to the local fireman he had identified as the real murderer, the man killed himself by lying in front of an oncoming train. "Witnesses can commit perjury, judges can be fooled and juries can make mistakes," wrote Brown. "When it comes to DNA testing, there's no mistakes. DNA is God's creation and God makes no mistakes." Yesterday he petitioned a judge for his freedom after DNA taken from bite marks on the victim's nightshirt confirmed his theory of the crime. 

Lawyers from the Innocence Project, a university-based law center that argued his case, were pushing for his immediate release. He is suffering from liver disease and awaiting a transplant. "Roy wrote to us, like thousands do every year," said Eric Ferrero of the Innocence Project, which has overturned 188 convictions with DNA evidence. "What is unusual is somebody sitting in his prison cell solving the case. This is the first time we have seen that." Sabina Kulakowski's naked body was found across the road from her home in the town of Aurelius in the early hours of May 23, 1991, when firemen responded to an arson blaze at the farmhouse. The wounds -- including bite marks on her red nightshirt found nearby -- suggested that Kulakowski, 49, had put up a struggle with her attacker. The murder appeared highly personal because there was no evidence of rape or burglary. Two days later Brown, who made a living selling magazine subscription in Syracuse, N.Y., was charged with her murder.

He had been released from prison just six days before the crime after serving an eight-month sentence for making threatening calls to another social worker, whose agency he blamed for ordering his 17-year-old daughter into foster care. He was convicted of the killing on the basis of expert testimony linking him to bite marks on Kulakowski's body, even though they showed indentations from six upper teeth and Brown had only four.

HEADLINE: Judge orders release of rape suspect after appeals court decision

A man whose arrests on rape charges is in jeopardy because of a recent state Court of Appeals decision has been ordered released by a Pima County Superior Court judge. In announcing his decision Friday, Judge Michael Cruikshank said he had no choice but to release Olin Gene Taylor. The Court of Appeals ruled last week that charges against Taylor and another suspect stemming from two unrelated 1994 rapes should be dismissed because the two weren't indicted until this year, long after the statute of limitations had run out. The men were linked to the crimes by DNA tests conducted late last year and early this year.  In ruling against the Pima County Attorney's Office, the Court of Appeals ruled the statute of limitations in nearly all felony cases begins to run as soon as a crime is committed not when a suspect is identified. At the time of the rapes, the statute of limitations for sexual assault and most other felonies was seven years. Although prosecutors will either ask the Court of Appeals to reconsider its decision or file an appeal with the Arizona Supreme Court, Cruikshank said it would be unfair to keep Taylor in jail until a final decision is made, because that could take months or years. 

Information from: Arizona Daily Star

HEADLINE: 'I'm free!' Livers yells Confession 'unreliable,' so man freed Evidence linked to Gregory Fester and Jessica Reid

PLATTSMOUTH, Neb.- Dave and Barbara Livers cried this morning when their son walked into the Cass County jail lobby wearing street clothes - a Husker ball cap, jeans and a black sweatshirt - for the first time in more than seven months.

"You're free! you're free!" his mother screamed.  "I'm free!" Matt Livers yelled back.

Livers immediately hugged his fiancee, Sarah Schneider, who had been waiting for Livers' release from custody.

Livers had been in jail since April 25, when he was charged with first-degree murder in the slayings of his aunt and uncle. Prosecutors dropped charges against Livers' cousin, Nick Sampson, in October.

"It's over!" Livers screamed, several seconds after tightly hugging Schneider.

"It's over now. I'm going home. Amen."

This morning was filled with emotions for Livers and others involved in the investigation of the April 17 shootings of Wayne and Sharmon Stock, a prominent Murdock farming couple.
At 10 a.m., Cass County Attorney Nathan Cox appeared in district court and asked. Cass County District Court Judge Randall Rehmeier to drop both murder charges against Livers. 
Cox held a press conference announcing that he now believes that Livers' April 25 admissions to the crimes are "unreliable."

During the past week, Cox had a prominent State of Nebraska psychologist review the case. That psychologist came to the same conclusion as an expert witness hired by Livers' attorneys months ago.

Dr. Scott Bresler of Ohio concluded that Livers ultimately gave detectives a false confession to the slayings after repeatedly denying involvement to a Nebraska State Patrol investigator and a Cass County sheriff's detective.

"My expert has come to the conclusion that, based on the information that we currently know, the statements of Matthew Livers are unreliable to the point of not being usable at this time," Cox said today. "Combined with a number of inconsistencies that I have not been able to reconcile as they relate to Matthew Livers' statements, I have determined that the only option is to dismiss the charges against Matthew Livers."

Livers' attorneys, Julie Bear and Susan Bazis, told reporters that Livers "h as survived the last seven months on faith and with an unwavering support of hi s parents and fiancée, whose belief in his innocence never faltered."

Livers' intellectual functioning places him well below 95 percent of the adult population, Bear said. This made him vulnerable to the coercion of police, s he said.

Prior to his arrest, Livers had no criminal history.

"He is low functioning and has been learning disabled all of his life," Bear said. "His initial exposure to the interrogation process was fraught with inexperience.

"Matt has always been respectful and trusting of law enforcement and he trusted the investigators when he volunteered to meet with them to help in any way h e could to solve a horrific crime," Bear said. Schneider said Monday that she "knew Matt was never involved. He was home with me in bed the entire night that this happened."

The Stocks were found shot to death in their upstairs bedroom. Eight days later, Livers and his cousin Sampson, 22, were charged in the killings. Weeks later, two teenagers from Wisconsin also were charged in the Stocks' deaths.

On Oct. 6, when Cox dropped murder charges against Sampson, he said he had sufficient evidence to try Livers in the slaying. Today was to have been the first of three days set aside to hear arguments on defense attorneys' contention that Livers gave a false, coerced confession.
Livers' attorneys said prosecutors intentionally withheld an April 26 videotape of an interview in which Livers recanted his day-old confession. The defense lawyers were not aware of the tape until Cox gave it to them on a computer disk in October.

On April 25, Livers told investigators more than 100 times that he had nothing to do with the slayings, but detectives refused to believe him. Hours later, Livers claimed that he had killed both relatives, with Sampson as his lone accomplice. In May, Cass County's case against the two Nebraska cousins began to unravel.

Evidence collected at the scene did not match Livers, Sampson or their friends.

Instead, much of it pointed to Gregory Fester, 19, and Jessica Reid, 17, two Wisconsin teens accused of killing the Stocks.

Cox filed first-degree murder charges against the boyfriend and girlfriend o n June 8 after DNA tests indicated they had been at the Stocks' home.

According to court documents, Reid and Fester, both of Horicon, Wis., have s aid that they entered the Stock farmhouse during a random burglary and that no else was involved.

Livers' statement made no mention of the two Wisconsin residents.

Before dropping Sampson's case, Cox argued that the Wisconsin teens must have teamed up with the Nebraska cousins to plot the slayings ahead of time.

"That scenario just never happened," Sampson's defense attorney Jerry Soucie said Monday. "I haven't thought there was any evidence against either Sampson n or Livers since roughly the middle of June. Any objective person looking at the case and the physical evidence would come to the same conclusion."

Evidence linked to Gregory Fester and Jessica Reid:

EVIDENCE: Marijuana pipe found in driveway
FINDINGS: DNA matches Reid and Fester

EVIDENCE: Gold ring found in kitchen
FINDINGS: DNA matches Reid and Fester; the pair admit taking the ring in
Wisconsin burglary

EVIDENCE: Spent 12-gauge shell found at Reid's apartment
FINDINGS: Identical to shell killing Sharmon Stock

EVIDENCE: Diary found at Reid's apartment
FINDINGS: In one entry, Reid admits to killing an older man

EVIDENCE: Red, Dodge Ram pickup truck
FINDINGS: Stolen April 15 from the rural Wisconsin home of Ryan Krenz, drive
1,500 miles including through Murdock, Neb., the teens admit, and abandoned
April 18 in Louisiana

EVIDENCE: .410 single-shot shotgun
FINDINGS: Stolen Easter Sunday from Gary Hines' Iowa farmhouse; remains missing

EVIDENCE: .410 spent shotgun shell found in Fester's jacket
FINDINGS: Linked to Wayne Stock's fatal head shot

EVIDENCE: Clothing in Krenz's abandoned truck
FINDINGS: Contained Wayne Stock's blood and DNA

EVIDENCE: U.S. Navy Seabee belt buckle found in Krenz truck
FINDINGS: Traced to Hines' Iowa farmhouse burglary

EVIDENCE: Three spent and one live 12-gauge shotgun shells found in farmhouse
FINDINGS: Identical to color, brands and models of shells stolen from Krenz
Residence

EVIDENCE: Fester's tennis shoes
FINDINGS: Contained Wayne Stock's blood; matched shoe print left at farmhouse

EVIDENCE: 12-gauge pump shotgun stolen from Krenz's house
FINDINGS: Remains missing

HEADLINE: Wrongful conviction amounts to $450,000;

Man cleared by DNA after 18 years is mum on what he'll do with cash

Arthur Mumphrey, who spent 18 years in prison on a wrongful conviction, is keeping his day job as steel foreman even though he will soon be nearly a half-million dollars richer.   Mumphrey, released from prison Jan. 26 after new DNA test results cleared his name, has been awarded $452,082 before taxes in restitution from the state.  He recently got his first lump sum of $226,041 and will get another lump sum in the same amount in August 2007, according to the Texas Comptroller Office.  He will have to report the compensation to the Internal Revenue Service and tax officials will decide if and how much he will pay in taxes, said a comptroller official.

Mumphrey, who did not respond to a request for an interview, has been mum about his compensation. Not even his wife, Angela, or his attorney, Eric Davis, know what he plans to do with his money.  "That's his business," said Angela Mumphrey, who described her husband as a quiet "homebody" since his release nine months ago.

A jury convicted Mumphrey of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl in a wooded area of Conroe on Feb. 28, 1986, partly based on blood tests that could not rule him out as one of the two attackers.  A Montgomery County judge later ordered Mumphrey released from prison based on new test results using technology not available in the 1980s. The tests proved he was not responsible for the attack. Gov. Rick Perry signed a pardon based on innocence for Mumphrey on March 17, expunging the conviction from his record and making him eligible for compensation. Busy on the job

Mumphrey received his first payment in August, but the windfall hasn't changed his priorities.   The Conroe native still spends most of his time working. His first job after his release was at a Houston glass company. The past seven months he has worked at a Houston steel company, where he was promoted to foreman last month, his wife said. When he's not working 14 to 16 hours, six days a week, Mumphrey relaxes at his Houston home, watching football and basketball.  "On Sundays, he plays dominoes with my dad, and he talks on the phone with his sisters every weekend," Angela Mumphrey said.

Davis, who reopened the case in 2005, described Mumphrey as "hardworking and industrious." "He's a good success story in making the transition" from prison to the real world, Davis said.   Mumphrey gained his freedom thanks to the persistence of Davis, who spent months tracking down the original DNA in the case.  Davis found the evidence at the Texas Department of Public Safety's Houston crime lab, but when prosecutors inquired about the DNA, lab officials said they did not have it.  Stunned by the reversal, Davis kept digging until he reached a lab supervisor who found the samples stored in a refrigerator.  Prosecutors now think Mumphrey's younger brother, Charles, might be one of the attackers in the case. Statute of limitations is up

Just days before Arthur Mumphrey was released, Charles Mumphrey, 35, confessed to an investigator for the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office during a jail interview, said Assistant District Attorney Marc Brumburger, who handles post-conviction and appeal cases.   No criminal charges will be filed against Charles Mumphrey because the statute of limitations has expired.   But his DNA has been submitted to the state crime lab to be compared with evidence from the case.   Brumburger said he has not received any information about the evidence since submitting it about nine months ago.  Charles Mumphrey, like his brother, is now free. He completed his one-year sentence for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and was released April 21, according to Texas Department of Criminal Justice records.  He could not be reached for comment.

COMPENSATION

State law: A person pardoned based on innocence is eligible for up to $25,000 for each year in prison. The state caps it at $500,000

HEADLINE: DNA EXONERATES SOME PRISONERS

Since its discovery in 1985, genetic fingerprinting, or DNA testing, has helped solve crimes and freed dozens of innocent people who had been wrongfully imprisoned. In 2002, Ray Krone walked out of the Arizona State Prison at Yuma, freed by DNA evidence after serving 10 years and facing the death penalty for a murder he didn't commit. Arizona is among 23 states that require convicted criminals to submit a DNA sample for inclusion in a national database called the Combined DNA Index System. The system contains about 3.5 million entries and provides a basis for comparing unknown DNA taken at crime scenes with that of known criminals. 

As of June, Arizona had submitted 87,650 samples to the national database and reported that 1,127 investigations had been aided by the information. A $1 billion federal initiative to process about 350,000 DNA samples piling up in police labs around the country is driving growth of the database and has provided a huge boost to the industry. Arizona law enforcement agencies have received millions of dollars in federal funds that are being used to beef up crime labs and pay private labs to process samples." It's created an industry," said Vladimir Bolin, chief executive officer of Chromosomal Laboratories Inc., a forensic DNA lab in Phoenix. During the past two years, the Phoenix Police Department has paid more than $1 million to outside labs such as Bolin's to process more than 1,000 DNA samples that jam the department's evidence room. The department just received $250,000 to process 200 samples.

Seven out of ten of the headlines below are related to people being cleared of crimes after they had been convicted and sentenced.

Alleged Kansas City Rapist Charged With 12th Attack
Boston Man Awarded $3.2 Million - Spent Over 6 yrs in Prison - Wrongful Conviction
Convicted Killer Freed From Prison on DNA Evidence in New York
DNA Clears Connecticut Man of Rape After 18 Years in Prison
DNA Clears Man of 1981 Rape Conviction
DNA Links Georgia Man to Connecticut Serial Killings
Family DNA Helps Cops Catch Criminals
Judge Releases Man Jailed for 25 Years for Wrongful Rape Conviction
Lawyers for Man Blamed for 2 Dozen Murders Ask for DNA Tests
Man Imprisoned for 23 Years Freed After DNA Exonerates Him of Rape
 

HEADLINE: WEARSIDE JACK IN BID TO CUT JAIL TERM

THE man jailed after being unmasked as the notorious Yorkshire Ripper hoaxer will this month bid to have his eight-year sentence reduced.

John Humble, who claimed to be responsible for 13 murders and seven attempted murders, will have his case heard at the Court of Appeal, in London on October 24.

The 50-year-old - known as Wearside Jack for his infamous hoax - was jailed at Leeds Crown Court in March after admitting four counts of perverting the course of justice.

In the late 1970s, the former labourer from Sunderland, sent letters and a tape recording to police chiefs and newspapers, claiming to be the man behind the killing spree in West Yorkshire.

Detectives moved the focus of their inquiry to the Northeast, while the real killer, Peter Sutcliffe, now serving life, went on to claim more victims.

Humble was arrested at his home in Flodden Road, on the Ford Estate, on October 18, last year, after an investigation into the hoax spanning four decades. The breakthrough came when detectives carrying out a cold case review matched DNA samples from the envelopes in which the letters were sent to a man in Sunderland who had been arrested or drink-driving.  At his trial, Sutcliffe said of the hoax: "I thought it was a diversion so I could be left to carry on. It served to take a great deal of the investigation away."

Humble's motives for the hoax - which sparked an inquiry that cost (GBP) 6m- is said to have come from a hatred of the police, because he had been jailed in 1975 for kicking an off-duty officer in the head.

The alcoholic was also said to have been fascinated with the Victorian murderer Jack the Ripper and based parts of his hoaxes on similar taunting letters sent to police in the 19th Century.

His solicitor, David Taylor, said the appeal had been lodged because the sentence was regarded as "manifestly excessive and too severe".

HEADLINE: WIS. INMATE IS CHARGED IN ANOTHER LOCAL SLAYING

James Anthony Frederick's short stints of freedom were bloody. He shot a customer who tried to stop him from robbing a West Milwaukee bar in 1995.   He killed a mother and daughter in a Lantana apartment in 1992.   And the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office now says he's responsible for the death of Palm Beach County clerk employee Martin Gatto, a friend of his who was found bound, gagged and stabbed in Gatto's Lantana home on Dec. 9, 1991.

Frederick, 46, was indicted on a charge of first-degree murder after cold-case detectives identified his DNA on a cigarette butt left at the scene, sheriff's Sgt. Bill Springer said. The 1992 murder of Rita Bado and the rape and murder of her 20-year-old daughter Lisa were solved years later the same way: In 2003, his DNA was found on three cigarette butts at the Bado home.  Frederick's criminal record spans four states and three decades. He spent much of his adult life in prison.

Frederick lived in Palm Beach County for only about two years. He had family in the area. He was on parole when he moved here in 1991 and worked as a handyman and tree trimmer. He was arrested on charges of buying cocaine and resisting arrest while he was here. The murder charges came years after he left.

He is already slated to spend the rest of his life behind bars. He is scheduled for release from the Wisconsin prison system in 2065. If he finishes that term, he has two consecutive life sentences waiting for him for the deaths of the Lantana women.

Frederick will be extradited to Palm Beach County to face the new murder charge. If convicted of Gatto's murder, he will likely be returned to Wisconsin afterward unless he gets the death penalty, Springer said.   According to the sheriff's office, Gatto went to the West Palm Beach bar Rooster's on the night of Dec. 8, 1991. The 40-year-old was found dead the next day. Springer said there were no signs of forced entry, and a few items were taken, including the television. Springer said detectives were not aware of a motive for the killing.

This is the second cold case that has been reported solved by DNA this week.  The sheriff's office also arrested Robert Van Heartsong in the September 2000 beating and stabbing death of his wife after new DNA evidence put him at the scene.

HEADLINE: Arrest made in 1979 San Jose killing: 

STATE INMATE ABOUT TO BE RELEASED CHARGED ON DNA EVIDENCE

Sep. 30--Just hours before completing a five-month sentence for a parole violation, Timothy William Brown rolled into the interview room at Corcoran State Prison and looked up from his wheelchair.  "We need to talk to you about a murder that occurred in Santa Clara County in 1979," Ron Breuss, a cold-case detective from Santa Clara County told the inmate this week.

"I'm outta here," Brown replied, as he backed his wheelchair out of the room, chuckling.  Things quickly got much less funny. Days before Brown's release, DNA tests linked him to the brutal rape and murder 27 years ago of Virginia Correa, whose body was found on an East San Jose lovers' lane. Brown promptly found himself named in an arrest warrant, charged with murder and the special circumstance of rape, which makes his case eligible for the death penalty.

Late Monday, Santa Clara County authorities told the prison to hold onto Brown, and not a moment too soon: If another 15 hours had passed, he would have walked out a free man.  The razor's edge timing, Breuss said Friday afternoon, "was completely and totally coincidental." Here's what the detective calls the "long story short":

Correa, an electronics technician and single mother of two whose passion was singing with mariachi bands, goes missing early the morning of Jan. 15, 1979, after spending Sunday evening with a friend, visiting a couple of nightclubs where she sang with the band.  After dropping off her friend, she disappears. Raped, battered and stabbed, her body is later found dumped along Sierra Road by a passing motorist. Decades go by with no arrests. Several years back, thanks to new forensic technology, cold-case detectives gets a DNA sample from a semen stain on the victim's clothes. Finally, on Thursday, Sept. 21, the state's criminal DNA database gets a "hit" -- Brown, now 54.  "We found out from the lab late that afternoon," says Breuss. "Everyone's gone home. Friday (Sept. 22) I start working it. At 3:30 Friday afternoon we get through to Corcoran State and they tell us he's being released on Tuesday.  So we head down Monday to talk."

Breuss calls Brown "Mister X," and here's why: In every murder case he looks at, "even if I believe the husband did it, I always leave room for the total random stranger.  "That's what he thinks Brown was to Virginia Correa -- "no known connection I can find, not in the same social circles . . . so we have a truly random offender here. Thank God we have DNA.  "Police at the time of the crime said the same thing: "We have no idea how" they crossed paths, said Sgt. Gary Meeker. "It may have happened when she stopped for a traffic light."

Correa's daughter, Emily, couldn't be reached by the Mercury News on Friday. But Breuss was able to deliver the good news to her earlier this week.  "Her daughter said that next to her children, mariachi music was her mother's greatest love," he said. "She'd go to where the bands were playing and she'd using along, kind of like karaoke of the '70s. But the daughter speaks lovingly of her mother's singing. She was a human being, and human beings love to sing.  "Correa's daughter told the detective she had mixed feelings about Brown's arrest. "She wants to see the individual suffer the consequences of what he did but this also now puts a face on this evil person who's been out there in her world all these years. She's happy and unhappy, too, because this arrest has really dredged up some bad memories."

HEADLINE: Parolee charged in 1979 slaying: San Jose

Santa Clara County prosecutors have charged a parolee with murder in the 1979 slaying of a San Jose woman after DNA testing linked him to the crime, sheriff's officials said Friday.   Virginia Correa, 42, a mother of two, was raped and stabbed numerous times after dropping off a friend in the early morning hours of Jan. 15, 1979. The two had gone to hear a live broadcast of mariachi music in downtown San Jose, Detective Ron Breuss said.   Correa had planned to stop for cigarettes and then head home. She never made it. A motorist found her body on the side of a rural road in unincorporated

East San Jose around 6:30 a.m., Breuss said.  A DNA profile of the suspect, obtained from semen at the scene, sat dormant in a state database until last week, when Santa Clara County sheriff's detectives were notified that it matched a sample from 54-year-old Timothy William Brown, Breuss said.

Brown has a "long and varied criminal history" dating back to the 1970s, including some violent offenses, but he had no known contact with Correa and was never considered a suspect, Breuss said.   "She is truly what you would consider to be an innocent victim," he said.. "She happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time in a chance encounter."

Prosecutors filed murder charges Monday against Brown, who was serving the last day of a five-month sentence for a parole violation at Corcoran State Prison, sheriff's officials said.   Brown, a longtime resident of Santa Clara County, was arrested at the prison and transferred to the county jail, authorities said. He was on parole for a drug-related crime and violated parole when he was involved in a domestic violence incident, Breuss said.

It was the third South Bay arrest in a cold-case killing in the last two months.   On Aug. 23, Scott B. Schultz was arrested in Colorado in the 1978 killing of his former girlfriend Laura Beyerly, who disappeared after attending her first-period class at Los Altos High School.

Last week, San Jose police said DNA tests linked Melvin Forte to the slaying of Ines Sailer, 23, a San Francisco resident who was raped and shot to death on New Year's Day 1981. Her body was found the next day in a San Jose carport. Forte, 60, is currently in prison for a 1982 murder.

HEADLINE: Man charged in 1991 killing: 

DNA evidence is used to accuse suspect in prison

Sep. 30--DNA evidence has again linked James Anthony Frederick to a killing, authorities say.  Sheriff's Office detectives announced a murder charge against him Friday in the slaying of Martin Gatto, 40, a courthouse clerk who was found stabbed to death in his home in December 1991.

Frederick is already serving time in a Wisconsin prison and set to serve two life sentences in Florida for killing two women near Lantana in 1992.  Frederick, 46, is serving a 97-year sentence on armed robbery, possession of a firearm by a felon and reckless injury charges.  A Palm Beach County grand jury indicted him in August and he will be extradited to Florida to face the first-degree murder charge, Sgt. William Springer said.  Though Frederick knew Gatto, he told authorities he did not, detectives said.  "He basically denied knowing the victim and denied ever being inside his apartment," said Detective Paige McCann, who interviewed Frederick in prison. "I 'm not sure if he was surprised or not."

To tie Frederick to the Gatto killing, detectives collected 90 samples from 38 pieces of evidence. Gatto was stabbed to death in his one-bedroom condominium in what detectives at the time thought was a burglary turned violent.  "He's been incarcerated the majority of his life," McCoy said, from petty crimes and arson to murder.  Frederick killed Rita Bado, 45, and her daughter, Lisa, 20, in August 1992 after he made his way into their apartment.  He then shot and strangled them, authorities said. He was convicted in November 2005 from his DNA in hair and cigarette butts in their apartment, though he denied it.

The Gatto family was happy to hear someone was charged in the killing, McCann said.  "They're very supportive and they're just waiting for justice to be served," she said.  After winning a federal grant last year, detectives formed a new cold case unit and have been having success in six cases.  On Tuesday, detectives announced the arrest of Robert Van Heartsong in his wife's 2000 stabbing death outside her Jupiter Farms home. Last month, detectives linked Lacantrice Pitts, 29, to the killing of Eurnice Moree, who was shot multiple times in 2000 in Pahokee. Pitts is awaiting trial in a West Palm Beach attempted murder case.  The cases are among 60 the Sheriff's Office is reviewing with the National Institute of Justice grant.

HEADLINE: Suspect in rape, slayings identified; DNA links Fayette man to crimes

Lexington police yesterday identified a man they say killed three women and raped another.  Robert Franklin Smallwood Jr., 32, is charged with crimes spanning 13 years and linked by DNA. Smallwood has been in prison on another charge since July.  Police announced in August that they had linked the three slayings but said they had not linked the DNA evidence to a specific killer. Police would not  specify yesterday how they linked Smallwood's DNA to the crimes, but indicated it happened in the past few days.The victims -- Doris Ann Roberts, Sonora Lynn Allen and Erica C. Butler were killed over a span of seven years, beginning with Roberts in 1999.  Butler was slain in April.  Police also announced yesterday that DNA linked Smallwood to the previously unsolved 1993 rape of Viola J. Greene, 83, a retired schoolteacher who died in 1998 of natural causes.

Smallwood is in state prison in La Grange after violating probation this summer from a drug conviction.  Any connection among the victims remains unclear.  Roberts was found dead in her East Fourth Street apartment, apparently from strangulation and suffocation, according to the Fayette County coroner's office.  Allen also died of strangulation and was found dumped in a Fortune Drive parking lot. Butler appeared to die of injuries caused by blunt trauma; she was found inside her home on Kenton Street.

Previously, authorities had said the three murder victims led "a high-risk lifestyle" but declined to elaborate then and again yesterday. The women accrued a mix of drug and alcohol charges, and Butler had prostitution charges, according to court records and interviews.  However, that wasn't the case with Greene, Lt. James Curless said.  Greene's home was broken into early one morning in 1993 and she was raped and sodomized, Curless said.

Smallwood was later indicted for the 1998 rape and sodomy of another Lexington woman, but was found not guilty by a jury, according to court records.  The only thing that connected the other four cases was matching DNA, Curless said.

"Evidence collected from each of these crimes linked him to these four cases, " he said.  A month ago, police announced that DNA evidence found at the crime scene of the three homicides pointed to the same man, possibly Lexington's first serial killer. However, at the time, they did not know that person's identity. Police had sought profiler assistance from the FBI. Authorities distributed a composite sketch and held a press conference.

Smallwood had been in prison since July.  Curless and Chief Anthony Beatty declined to discuss how Smallwood's DNA was matched to the crimes or when he was identified as the suspect. They declined to discuss many details of the investigation, saying the cases against Smallwood were still considered open.  DNA information for violent crimes and sex crimes is entered into a database to compare with cold cases, said Whitney Collins, a DNA casework supervisor at the state crime lab, who spoke at the press conference. She also didn't say how the rape and murders were linked, but said the connection was made during "routine casework."

Some family members of victims met with police and others on a cold case homicide task force before the press conference.  Beatty hailed the Kentucky State Police crime lab and its growing DNA database. He said most states require all of their felons to submit DNA samples. Kentucky requires DNA collection for those who commit sex offenses and some violent crimes, but not all felons.  "I think it's time Kentucky take a look at making a law that felons as well as registered sex offenders submit their DNA to a database to assist in these types of investigations."

In 2003, DNA helped police charge Dennis Ray Bullens with the rape and murder of Carla Gill. Bullens was sentenced to life in prison earlier this year.  In August, DNA matches helped link a Georgetown man to four Central Kentucky rapes in the 1990s.  Curless said police continue to look at unsolved cases and will continue to request assistance from the KSP crime lab.  The sister of one of the victims said she thought all the victims' families would be relieved by the news.

"I hope he's the right one, and I hope he gets what he deserves," said Delsie Jenkins, Roberts' youngest sister.  Leroy Allen, 57, of Lexington, said recent events and media attention have drained the family emotionally and physically. But they are looking forward to closing this chapter of their lives.  "We're just glad we got some closure behind us, and I'm glad they caught him before he killed somebody else," Allen said. "It's pretty hard on the young kids.  "Sonora Allen left behind four daughters and two sons who are being raised by Leroy Allen and his wife, Vanita Allen.  Valerie Butler, mother of Erica Butler, said she was trying yesterday to get her "thoughts and feeling and emotions together."

An arrest doesn't mean closure, she said. That might come after the trial.  "It's just overwhelming; I'm just trying to take it all in," Butler said.  The suspect's wife, Neisha Smallwood, said she was separated from him and no longer spoke with him. She declined to comment further.  Ari Lane said she grew up with Smallwood and had known him for years. She said he was great at cooking barbecue.  "It's crazy. Somebody you never suspect would do something like that. The kind of person he is, you never think he'd start killing people," Lane said.

HEADLINE: INNOCENTS FREED IN RAPES TELL ALL TO AL

BYLINE: BY CHRISENA COLEMAN DAILY NEWS BRONX BUREAU

IT WAS as if Alan Newton and Kharey Wise had known each other forever, but they met for the first time yesterday.

Both men were released from prison with the help of DNA testing after spending large chunks of their lives behind bars for rapes they did not commit.

Yesterday, they were guests on the Rev. Al Sharpton's "Keeping It Real" syndicated radio show.

Newton, 44, was released from prison last week after serving 21 years for a 1984 rape he didn't commit. Wise, 33, is one of five young men exonerated in 2002 for the Central Park Jogger rape case. He spent nearly 12 years in jail for one of the most wrenching and racially divisive crimes in city history, even though he didn't do it.

They hugged each other during the hour-long radio segment at the WABC radio studio in Manhattan. They were moved to tears as they discussed their wrongful imprisonment, life behind bars and how their close ties to family got them through their ordeals.

"The process was flawed," said Newton, who had tried unsuccessfully for 12 years to have the rape kit in his case tested for his DNA. "I knew I was innocent and I was determined to stand up for myself. I lost a lot of time, but I cleared my name."

Wise, who works for Sharpton's National Action Network, said he faced physical and mental abuse from white prison guards and prisoners when word spread that he was convicted in the Central Park Jogger rape case.

"I got my a-- whupped for the rape while I was in jail," said Wise, whose mother sat next to him in the studio. "Those were hard years, but having my mom and visitors kept me alive."

Wise's mother, De-Loris, said she prayed her way through her son's sentence, but her husband "drank himself to death" because he couldn't do anything to help his son. De-Loris Wise said she prayed for her son, and told Newton his mom. who died while he was in prison, was smiling down on him.

Newton's attorney, Vanessa Potkin from the Innocence Project, also was interviewed. She said there are thousands of innocent men in jail.

Sharpton said the Newton and Wise cases are reminders that "this could have been you or me" because the men did nothing wrong.

ccoleman@nydailynews.com

GRAPHIC: ANDREW SAVULICH DAILY NEWS The Rev. Al Sharpton is flanked by Kharey Wise (l.) and Alan Newton at his Manhattan radio studio yesterday. Both men served years for rapes before they were exonerated following DNA tests.

HEADLINE: MAN CLEARED OF RAPE BY DNA BACK IN COURT IN DOMESTIC FRAYS

BYLINE: GABRIELLE BANKS, PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE

Thomas Doswell yesterday was granted a protection-from-abuse order against one former girlfriend, but a judge denied a PFA against a second ex-girlfriend.

The East Hills man was released from prison in August after serving 18 years on a rape conviction. DNA tests cleared him.

In recent months, Mr. Doswell has been involved in two domestic disputes..

Allegheny County Judge Kathleen Mulligan yesterday granted Mr. Doswell's request for a PFA against Zsaneen Sidney of Homewood. He testified that she made threatening calls in June after he ended their relationship. Ms. Sidney was not present at the hearing.

Ms. Sidney, 35, said last night that she didn't attend because a woman came to her door around 11:30 p.m. Monday and cautioned her against appearing at the hearing. She said the woman, whom she could not identify, told her there would be "problems" if she went to court. The woman told her that there would be "more trouble with the Doswell family if you go down there," Ms. Sidney said.

"Whoever she was she got her message across," said Ms. Sidney, who is a single parent of a 16-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son.

She said they had a brief relationship that ended after Mr. Doswell stood her up one evening.

"I weigh 110 pounds. Why would you need a PFA for me?" she asked. "There is no way that if you look at Tommy Doswell and look at me that you would ever need a PFA against me."

The judge denied a permanent PFA against Adrienne Young, a crime victim advocate from Garfield.

Ms. Young and Mr. Doswell had an eight- to 10-month romantic relationship, said attorney John Elash. His client said Ms. Young harassed him after he ended the relationship June 23.

But Ms. Young's lawyer replayed phone messages she said he left on the 24th and 26th declaring he loved her.

She said he choked her June 29 because she wanted to remove him from her insurance policy for a used car he had just purchased.

Last week, Mr. Doswell was held for trial on an assault charge in connection with the June 29 incident.

He told Judge Mulligan he grabbed Ms. Young by the wrists that day because she scratched him and ripped his shirt. Ms. Young said she did this because he was choking her.

The judge said there was not enough evidence to issue an order against Ms. Young, but she strongly suggested the two stay away from each other.

Lawyer Lee Rothman said yesterday's ruling vindicated his client. "She was very upset because she said this was a falsified protection from abuse. He was attempting to use the Family Division of courts as a sword to assist him in his defense of the criminal case."

NOTES: Gabrielle Banks can be reached at gbanks@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1370.

Copyright 2006 P.G. Publishing Co., Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pennsylvania)
 
 

SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS

HEADLINE: Girl's sex assault case solved 21 years later: Dallas: Police program
that uses new DNA technology is credited

BYLINE: Holly Yan, The Dallas Morning News

Apr. 6--For the past 21 years, Lavinia Masters has been terrified that the man who raped her would track her down and kill her.

She was 13 when he climbed through a window of her family's West Dallas home and sexually assaulted her at knifepoint.

"He said he would come back and kill me if I said anything," said Ms. Masters, now 34. "Not knowing who he was, not knowing if he was still out there, I didn't know if it was true."

Last week, a Dallas police sergeant set her fears at ease. He called to tell her the case was solved and the man who attacked her was already in prison.

"I said, 'You've got to be kidding me.' I didn't know what to say," she said.

The Dallas Morning News generally does not identify victims of sexual assaults, but Ms. Masters said she wanted to be identified and speak out to help other victims.

Ms. Masters' case is the first success story of the Dallas Police Department 's sexual assault cold case program, also known as SECAP. Dallas police Sgt. Pat Welch started the program in May because he thought new DNA technology could help solve old cases.

"We had gotten calls from victims from that time period, and we had solved some cases," Sgt. Welch said. "We realized there were probably a lot more."

Ms. Masters was assaulted on a hot summer night in 1985. She was sleeping on her family's sofa; her sister, brother and two cousins were asleep on the floor.

She said at around 2 or 3 in the morning, a man moved a fan from a front window and climbed in. He worked his way around the children on the floor. "He didn't care about waking them up," Ms. Masters said.

The man held a knife to her throat and put his hand over her mouth. None of the other children woke up during the assault.

Afterward, he threatened her life if she told anyone and walked out the back. Ms. Masters was so traumatized that her mother let her move out and live with her aunt.

Ms. Masters is one of 13 victims who have had cases re-examined by SECAP. Hers was solved with the help of the Combined DNA Index System, which stores DNA samples of all convicted felons in Texas.

Investigators can submit DNA evidence from victims or crime scenes for possible matches in the databank. That evidence stays in the system, so if the unknown suspect is later convicted of a felony, the link will still be available.

Ms. Masters' attacker is serving a life sentence for an unrelated sexual assault, robbery and auto theft, police said. Ms. Masters identified her attacker as Kevin Glen Turner. But police said they could not release the suspect's name because he was 16 years old at the time of Ms. Masters' assault.

The man can't be prosecuted in Ms. Masters' case because of the statute of limitations, Sgt. Welch said.

Before 1996, the statute of limitations for sexual assault specified that cases must be brought within five years. Now there is no time limit for prosecuting sexual assaults if DNA evidence from the unknown suspect was collected. If no DNA evidence was collected, the statute of limitations is set at 10 years.

Ms. Masters said she is disappointed that her attacker won't be charged in her case, but she hopes letters from her and the Police Department to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice will influence the man's parole hearing in May 2007.

And she says she intends to write her attacker a letter, too.

"I want to let him know I know who he is," Ms. Masters said. "The joy he probably had is no longer there. He needs to live with the guilt and the shame."

Ms. Masters said she hopes other victims will follow her example by speaking out.

"It's not their fault. They shouldn't be ashamed," she said. "I want them to know how important it is to come forward. One of the problems with rape is most victims don't come forward. But if they do and they find the suspect, they'll feel vindicated."

Victims of sexual assault who would like their cases reopened can call 214-671-3584.

E-mail hyan@dallasnews.com

SECTION: NEWS ; ZONE C;  ACROSS THE NATION ; Pg. 20

HEADLINE: DNA evidence exonerates inmate in rape

BYLINE: Items compiled from Tribune news services.

DATELINE: CONROE, TEXAS

A man who spent nearly two decades in prison for sexual assault was freed Thursday after DNA evidence exonerated him, and his brother admitted responsibility for the attack.

DNA testing was not available at Arthur Mumphrey's 1986 trial for the rape of a 13-year-old girl, but recent tests requested by his attorney showed Mumphrey's blood and saliva samples did not match stains on the victim and her clothes.

Mumphrey, 42, had been sentenced to 35 years in prison.

Prosecutor Marc Brumberger apologized to Mumphrey. "We feel terrible about what happened to you," he said.

Mumphrey's brother, Charles, confessed to the rape this week while serving time in jail for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.

He is unlikely to face charges in the sexual assault because the statute of limitations has expired.

SECTION: Pg. 3

HEADLINE: DNA traps hostel rapist

BYLINE: Matthew Cooper

A serial sex offender who brutally raped a 17-year-old girl in 1991 has been jailed for seven years after being identified through advances in DNA technology.

Adrian John Fleurs, who was already serving life for a horrific sex offense in Scotland, showed no emotion as he was sentenced at Worcester Crown Court to a seven-year concurrent term.

The court was told that Fleurs (39) committed the knifepoint rape after breaking into a women's hostel in Kidderminster, in September 1991.

Andrew Wallace, prosecuting, revealed that Fleurs selected the hostel because it was an "easy target" which contained no men.

"This offense goes back to 1991 and DNA advances since that date have led to this defendant," the prosecutor said. Fleurs had broken into the hostel at 4.30am with the specific intention of committing rape, taking an eight-inch knife from the kitchen before waking his victim in her bed.

"He pressed the knife against her neck and told her not to scream," the lawyer added.

Investigations in 1991 drew a blank, but the defendant was arrested on August 3 last year after a cold case review.

Fleurs confessed when interviewed by police, saying that he had made a conscious decision to target a girl at the hostel.

The rapist, who grew up in Kidderminster, has a history of offending dating back to 1978 and is currently in jail in Peterhead.

The court heard that he was given borstal training at Worcester Crown Court in 1983 for an indecent assault in Redditch and was convicted of the same offense at Hereford Crown Court in 1994, when he was jailed for nine months..

He was then handed a life sentence at Dundee High Court in 1997 after accosting two 18-year-old girls.

The court heard that he launched a horrific knifepoint attack on one of the women, attempting to rape her after forcing her to a driveway.

Michael Aspinall, defending, said his client had been given a six-year tariff by the Dundee court, but had been refused parole twice.

"Mr. Fleurs, nearly 15 years on, has recognized how terrible his behavior was in 1991," Mr. Aspinall submitted.

Judge Michael Mott said Fleurs would probably have been given life for the offense in Kidderminster had he not already been serving an inde-terminate sentence in Scotland.

West Mercia Police said the Kidderminster case was solved after modern technology was used to match a DNA sample to Fleurs, whose profile was being held on the national DNA database.

Detective Chief Inspector Sheila Thornes said recent advances in forensic science had enabled the review of many unsolved cases.

The work is part of a national initiative codenamed Operation Advance, which was initiated by the Home Office's Police Standards Unit and the Forensic Science Service.

Speaking outside court, Det Chief Insp Thornes said: "In this particular case the victim has shown an admirable bravery and determination to see justice done."

In a statement, the victim, who was not in court, said: "I had given up all expectation of this case being solved.

"I tried to put the rape behind me and get on with my life, but of course I never forgot it and I am delighted justice has finally been done.

"I hope this conviction will give hope to other victims of unsolved crimes that no matter how many years ago they happened, modern technology can sometimes provide that vital breakthrough that leads to them being solved," she added..

CAPTION(S):
Adrian John Fleurs - jailed for seven years

SECTION: Pg. 1A

HEADLINE: Significant crimes made news around the Lakeshore in 2005

BYLINE: KEVIN BRALEYKEVIN BRALEY

MANITOWOC -- Stabbings, homicide, conspiracy and drug busts made crime news in Manitowoc County in 2005:

Avery arrested

On Nov. 15, Steven Avery, a man who made headlines in 2003 for being released from prison after DNA proved he didn't commit a crime in 1985, was charged in Manitowoc County Circuit Court with first-degree intentional homicide in the disappearance of a 25-year-old photographer.

Teresa M. Halbach, of St. John, was reported missing by her mother, Karen, on Nov. 3. Volunteer searchers found Halbach's Toyota RAV4 sport utility vehicle partially hidden at Avery's Auto Salvage, just west of Mishicot.

The subsequent investigation turned up bone fragments and teeth in a burn pit behind Avery's residence, the key to Halbach's vehicle in Avery's bedroom and blood in the cargo and ignition area of Halbach's vehicle, according to authorities.

DNA analysis of the blood in the cargo area matched Halbach while the DNA from blood in the ignition area matched Avery, according to authorities.

Avery has denied his involvement, saying he is being targeted because of his $36 million lawsuit against Manitowoc County officials for the wrongful conviction that sent him to prison for 18 years. A Jan. 17 arraignment has been set. Avery faces life in prison if convicted of the homicide.

Kevin Braley: 920-686-2105 or kbraley@htrnews.com

SECTION: NEWS

HEADLINE: Jailed 14 years after sex attack

BYLINE: Linda Piper

DATELINE: This Is Local London

A serial sex attacker who assaulted a woman as her baby slept next to her has
been jailed 14 years after the attack.

Christopher Cleary, aged 51, of Bexton Place, Northumberland Heath, was
caught thanks to a "cold case" review of his attack on Fion Gunn in 1991.

DNA linked him with the crime.

Miss Gunn, then aged 32, was asleep in bed with her 14-month-old baby while her partner drove their babysitter home, when Cleary (pictured) broke into her flat in Balham, south London.

He hit her in the face and demanded sex.

Cleary also threatened to kill the baby and Miss Gunn's other child.

He escaped after assaulting her but despite a large media appeal he was never caught.

The Inner London Crown Court heard a sample of his DNA had been tested as part of the Met Police's Sapphire cold case investigation team's work and it matched with swabs taken from the attack scene.

Six weeks after assaulting Miss Gunn, Cleary was arrested for assaulting a 14-year-old girl.

He was also jailed for five other sex assaults between 1978 and 1996.

Cleary claimed in court he could not remember the attack on Miss Gunn as he was drunk.

But in the face of the scientific evidence he pleaded guilty to indecent assault and making threats to kill and was jailed for 10 years.

After the case, Miss Gunn, an artist now aged 46, said: "I think it is very good somebody that dangerous has been jailed for a number of years."

Miss Gunn waived her right to anonymity because she wanted to raise awareness about sexual assaults.

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 1A

HEADLINE: Push to solve cold cases has benefits -- and costs;
DNA identification of suspects in rapes unsolved for years can reopen wounds for the victims

BYLINE: Richard Willing

Orlando police Detective Michael Moreschi cracks unsolved rape cases with 21st-century technology and old-fashioned pluck.

In 2003, Moreschi caught a rapist who had tried to avoid leaving evidence at a crime scene 1 1/2 years earlier by wearing two condoms and gloves, and by forcing his victim to bathe in a swimming pool after he attacked her. Moreschi ordered DNA tests on a condom package found at the crime scene.

The detective's hunch -- that the rapist had opened the package with his teeth -- was correct. Inside a barely visible tooth print, analysts found a DNA sample from dried saliva that matched Sonny Brooks, 31, a burglar whose genetic profile was in Florida's database of convicted criminals' DNA.

The rape victim was thrilled to hear the news, Moreschi says. But she told Moreschi that she did not want to be involved in prosecuting Brooks. Testifying in court "would have brought back the nightmare of her rape all over again," Moreschi says.

That led prosecutors to pursue a plea bargain, rather than take the case to trial. Last year, Brooks pleaded guilty and agreed to a 25-year sentence. If he had been convicted at a trial, he could have received a life sentence.

The Brooks case illustrates both the opportunities and the drawbacks of DNA testing in long-unsolved rape cases at a time when the Bush administration is pushing a five-year, $755 million DNA initiative aimed at clearing tens of thousands of cold cases involving rapes, homicides and kidnappings. The plan aims to bring justice to victims, take violent criminals off the streets and identify cases in which a person may have been wrongly convicted.

DNA gives authorities unprecedented power to identify predators, but it also can awaken frightening memories, some decades old, in victims and their families. Testifying at a rape trial means that a victim's friends, family members and co-workers could learn for the first time that she was raped.

Even when victims are willing to testify, prosecutions can be blocked if statutes of limitation for filing charges -- often six years after the crime -- have expired. That can place a rape survivor in a painful position: learning that DNA testing has identified the name and criminal record of the man who raped her, and then watching helplessly as he goes unpunished.

"DNA is a wonderful thing, but the reality of what it does for victims is complex," says Susan Vickers, executive director of the Victim Rights Law Center in Boston. The non-profit group has represented several rape victims in cases solved by DNA testing. "It comes with costs as well as benefits."

Working mostly with local funds, Florida and Virginia, two leaders in DNA testing, have solved nearly 1,000 rape cases by comparing genetic evidence from crime scenes with the DNA profiles of convicted criminals in databases kept by all 50 states and the U.S. government. The databases are linked by computer, allowing evidence from crimes in Kansas, for example, to be compared with profiles of convicts from Washington state.

The federal initiative takes aim at rape cases across the USA -- about 169,000, according to a 2003 study by Washington State University -- in which crime scene evidence has not been tested for DNA and compared with the databases. Some case files were less than a year old and some went back 20 years, but all had this in common: They languished in crime labs and evidence rooms after detectives failed to identify a suspect.

Vickers and other advocates for victims say the issues raised by DNA testing are likely to become more prominent as $91 million in federal DNA testing grants -- the first installment of the Bush administration's plan -- begins to reach state and local crime laboratories in 2006.

Rape survivor Debbie Smith was among those who lobbied Congress for the DNA testing funds.

Smith, the wife of a police detective, was abducted from her Williamsburg, Va., home in 1989 and raped in nearby woods. Six years later, biological evidence from that rape matched the DNA profile of Norman Jimmerson, a James City, Va., man who was in the state's database of criminals' DNA because he had been convicted of abducting and robbing two other women.

At the time of the match, Jimmerson would have been eligible for parole in about two years. Smith agreed to testify at Jimmerson's trial. The decision, she recalled in an interview, was not easy.

Having her case solved, she says, churned up feelings she had gone through at the time of the rape: anger, guilt, depression and an "overwhelming sense of fear."

Her attacker "kept saying, 'I know where you live,'" Smith says. "I remembered that."

Jimmerson's trial tested Smith's commitment to the case. Among other things, Jimmerson's attorneys unsuccessfully challenged the scientific basis for DNA identification. The judge granted several motions that delayed the case.

Prosecutors, Smith says, suggested they might drop the rape charge and focus on an abduction charge, which they said would be easier to prove. At Smith's insistence, the rape charge wasn't dropped. And after 2 1/2 years of legal maneuvering, Jimmerson was convicted and received two life sentences -- one for the rape and another for the abduction -- plus 25 years in prison.

Smith says she has spoken with and e-mailed dozens of rape victims. Many, she says, ask her whether they should help police pursue their unsolved cases or decline to cooperate.

"For me, I had to (pursue Jimmerson's case), because he was going to get out, " she says. "I couldn't ever have gotten over the fear that he would come back. But for everyone, it's their own decision."

Elation and disappointment

For Kellie Greene, badgering police to perform DNA tests on evidence from her rape helped catch her assailant -- but produced a bittersweet result.

Greene, of Orlando, was raped in 1994. She read up on DNA and says she made herself a "huge nuisance" to police by constantly requesting tests. However, because they often are short on funds and lab capacity, police departments in Florida and elsewhere typically used DNA testing only to confirm the validity of evidence against a known suspect, rather than to search DNA databases for leads to unknown suspects. President Bush's DNA initiative is intended to change that.

In 1997, DNA from Greene's rape was compared with the genetic profiles in Florida's database of convicted criminals. It matched David Shaw, who was serving a 25-year sentence for beating and raping another Florida woman six weeks before Greene was attacked.

Greene was elated. But three years later, while researching court records, she learned that Shaw had been allowed to plead guilty to her rape and serve his 22-year sentence at the same time as his first rape sentence. The plea agreement meant Shaw received no extra prison time for raping Greene.

Danielle Tavernier, spokeswoman for the Orlando prosecutor's office, did not return several calls seeking an explanation for the deal.

Greene remains troubled by the decision, which she says was like being "slapped in the face." She now campaigns for state laws that would ban such concurrent sentences. Florida adopted such a law in 2000.

Debbie Shaw, who was raped in 1986, had a different problem when DNA solved her case: the statute of limitations.

She was working as a volunteer for the Dallas Police Department in 2002 when she learned that the department still had the evidence kit from her unsolved rape. She says she had been told by hospital workers years earlier that the evidence had been lost.

Shaw was in luck. Dallas police had just begun a program to analyze evidence from unsolved rapes. They identified unknown rapists' genetic profiles and added them to Texas' database of felons' DNA.

Last February, authorities found a match to the DNA from the Shaw case: Johnny Ray Patton, whose genetic profile had just been entered into the database when he was convicted of burglary. More than 18 years had passed since Shaw had been attacked in her Dallas duplex.

Shaw got a letter from police, a copy of Patton's criminal record and his mug shot. Because her face had been covered during the rape, she says, it was the first time she had seen what her alleged assailant looked like.

Then came disappointment. Because Shaw's rape had occurred in 1986, Patton could not be prosecuted. A Texas statute of limitations prevents rapes from being charged, in most cases, if more than six years have passed since the crimes occurred.

Shaw says she was devastated. Pursuing the case, she says, had led her to confront bad memories she had believed were forgotten.

"Getting myself to the point where I could go through with (DNA testing), that was difficult," she says. "But it kept nagging me. I needed to know. Then to see him, to learn his name, and not be able to go forward ... it's hard to describe."

Since 2000, Texas and 24 other states have extended or eliminated the statute of limitations for sexual assaults and other crimes in cases in which DNA evidence is involved, says Lisa Hurst, researcher for DNAResource.com. The website tracks DNA's use by law enforcement in the USA and abroad.

However, rapists and others identified by the DNA databases continue to slip through the cracks. In October, Dallas police watched helplessly as a former Texan matched by DNA to two 1986 rapes was released from prison in Colorado after he served a one-year sentence for drunken driving.

"It's real bad," says Patrick Welsh, a Dallas police sergeant who specializes in sex-crime cases. "We can't even put it on his (criminal record)."

DNA gets convictions

When long-unsolved rape cases with new DNA evidence are prosecuted, they usually end with a conviction. A cold case unit begun by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau in 2000 has obtained convictions in 58 of 64 cases with DNA evidence. Charges are pending in the other six. In Orlando, prosecutors have won 16 of the 17 old rape cases based on DNA that have been brought since 2001.

Meanwhile, changes in the legal definition of rape have made it easier to prosecute old cases, says Martha Bashford, a prosecutor in the Manhattan unit. To prove they were raped, victims once had to convince jurors that they put up an "earnest resistance" and that the rape could be corroborated by independent evidence such as abrasions, she says.

In New York, those requirements were removed by the state Legislature in 1982. Since the mid-1970s, all 50 states have adopted laws that keep an alleged rape victim's sexual history from being used against her on the witness stand, says Susan Howley, public policy director at the National Center for Victims of Crime in Washington, D.C.

"It's never pleasant to have to testify about being raped," Bashford says. Now, she says, it is less likely that the victim essentially will be "put on trial."

Kathleen Ham's case shows how things have changed. Ham, now 58, was raped in New York City in 1973 by an intruder who crawled through her window one night. She never saw his face.

Clarence Williams was captured nearby with items from Ham's home, and he was wearing clothes she had described to police. Jurors deadlocked at Williams' 1974 trial after his attorney asked pointed questions about Ham's sexual history and suggested that the rape actually was a transaction between a prostitute and her pimp. Ham was a tourist staying in a friend's apartment, not a prostitute.

Williams fled before he could be retried, and he wasn't captured until last February, 31 years later. At his retrial in November, DNA evidence linked Williams, now known as Fletcher Worrell, to the rape. Worrell, who also has been linked to 24 other rapes in Maryland and New Jersey through the DNA database system, was found guilty and sentenced to 46 years in prison.

The contrast between the two trials was dramatic, Ham says.

"In the original, it was just attack, just attack me," she says. "This one, (the defense lawyer) was almost polite. He spent most of his time trying to convince the jury not that this wasn't a real rape but that the DNA (match) was some kind of terrible mistake."

Ham, who had not heard from police since 1974, says she was stunned to learn of the match earlier this year. At first, she says, she was "terrified" to testify.

Now she's glad she did. "You can't help feeling a lot more confident when DNA (evidence) is there," she says. "DNA changes everything."

GRAPHIC: 
PHOTO, Color
PHOTO, Color, H. Darr Beiser, USA TODAY
PHOTO, B/W, Preston C. Mack for USA TODAY

SECTION: MAIN; Pg. A3

HEADLINE: DNA evidence helps man win acquittal in retrial

MINEOLA - A man released from prison due to DNA evidence in the 1984 rape and murder of a 16-year-old Lynbrook girl was found not guilty Wednesday in a retrial.

Acting State Supreme Court Justice Victor Ort handed down the verdict in favor of John Kogut, who faced two murder charges and one rape charge.

The ruling came two years after Kogut's earlier conviction was vacated when newly found DNA evidence could not link him to the crime. Prosecutors decided to retry Kogut, who had served 17 years in prison - a decision based partly on a confession he allegedly made after being arrested.

SECTION: DOMESTIC NEWS

HEADLINE: DNA Clears Man in Mother-In-Law's Murder

BYLINE: JOHN McCARTHY, Associated Press Writer

DATELINE: COLUMBUS Ohio

DNA evidence from a cigarette butt cleared a man imprisoned for seven years in the rape and murder of his mother-in-law, and the charges against him were dropped Thursday.

Clarence Elkins, 42, should be released from prison later in the day, prisons system spokeswoman Andrea Dean said.

Elkins, who was serving a life sentence and would not have been eligible for parole until 2054, was convicted in the 1998 rape and murder of Judith Johnson, 58, as well as the rape of her then 6-year-old granddaughter.

DNA evidence showed he could not have committed the crimes, said Bill Canterbury, spokesman for the Summit County prosecutor's office, which tried the case in 1998.

Elkins learned of his impending release from his wife, Melinda Elkins: "I said, 'Pack your bags, you're coming home baby.'"

He said he "was just overwhelmed with joy and tears of joy. I was amazed it was so soon. I thought it was going to drag out," Elkins said by phone from Mansfield Correctional Institution.

Elkins helped secure the DNA sample of the investigation's current focus fellow inmate Earl Gene Mann by retrieving a cigarette butt Mann had used.

Mann, 32, is serving a seven-year sentence for raping three girls. He has not been officially linked to the crimes for which Elkins was convicted but Canterbury said he recently failed five polygraph tests about his role in the crimes.

Mann had a relationship with a woman who lived near one of the victims, Canterbury said.

SECTION: FRONT PAGE; Pg. A1

HEADLINE: Police: Suspect Raped Elderly In N.M., Mont.

BYLINE: T.J. WILHAM, Journal Staff Writer

Police say the suspect in the rape of a 95-yearold Albuquerque woman is a serial rapist who targeted elderly women in two states.

National fingerprint and DNA databases have made Michael Anthony Silva a suspect in nine sexual assaults in Albuquerque and Great Falls, Mont.

"Early indication is that he is what our society would consider to be a serial rapist," said John Walsh, an APD spokesman. "When a vicious assailant such as this is captured, it gives me and other law enforcement a sigh of relief."

Of the nine attacks between 1993 and 2001, eight of the victims were between the ages of 52 and 95 and one was 17.

In 1999, in an attempt to save six sexual assault cases from falling to the state's statute of limitations law, Cascade County Attorney Brant Light filed rape charges against "John Doe," knowing only his DNA profile.

Silva's name surfaced as a rape suspect in late August when the FBI contacted Albuquerque police and told them that a fingerprint taken from the rape of a 95-year-old West Side woman in 2001 matched his.

APD used DNA from that case and compared it with two other rapes that occurred in the same neighborhood within a seven-month span in 2001. Those victims were 59 and 72. The results also pointed to Silva, police said.

After the DNA was entered into a national database, Light replaced John Doe with Silva's name.

According to court records, DNA taken from six victims sexually assaulted during an 18-month period in 1993 and 1994 in Great Falls matched Silva's.

All of the women were sleeping when a masked man broke into their homes, tied them up, covered their faces and sexually assaulted them.

Silva took the victims' telephones and told them he would not hurt them and that he would not be back, court records state.

On Nov. 16, U.S. Marshals arrested Silva outside of a homeless shelter in Phoenix. He was extradited to Albuquerque on Dec. 2.

Light said the rape cases were the first in Montana in which charges were filed against a no-name defendant using DNA.

In Albuquerque, Silva has been charged in Metropolitan Court with two counts of sexual penetration, aggravated burglary and larceny in connection with the rape of the 95-year-old woman.

Judge James F. Blackmer set his bond at $20 million cash only. He has yet to be charged in connection with the other Albuquerque rapes.

Light said he hasn't had an opportunity to speak with the Bernalillo County District Attorney's Office about where Silva will be tried.

Light did say he wants to make sure Silva is placed behind bars for the rest of his life.

"If Albuquerque can't make sure that he is off the streets, we will," he said in a telephone interview Wednesday. "All I care about is that he is behind bars, whether it is here or in New Mexico."

Police said all of the sexual assaults were extremely violent.

Police said the most violent was the attack on the 95-yearold woman.

Investigators said her injuries were some of the most brutal they have seen.

The woman later died of unrelated causes.

Walsh said he wished the woman would have known that a suspect has been arrested.

"The pain that went through this victim's body and mind was hideous and brutal," said Walsh, a former rape detective. "I can't believe that she had survived, and I am taken back by her will to live. As you can see, a case is never closed."

GRAPHIC: SILVA: Fingerprints, DNA test linked him to nine rapes

SECTION: State and Regional

HEADLINE: Lab review of old DNA samples reveals two men wrongly convicted

BYLINE: KRISTEN GELINEAU, Associated Press Writer

DATELINE: RICHMOND, Va.

A lab's review of certain biological samples saved by a now-deceased forensic scientist whose habit of squirreling away evidence led to the exoneration of three men has found that two additional men have been wrongly convicted, the governor's office said Wednesday.

Both men served time for sexual assault but have already been released from  prison, Gov. Mark R. Warner said in a news release.

The prosecutors in Norfolk and Alexandria, where the cases were investigated, have asked that Warner grant absolute pardons to both men. Warner has asked that their petitions go through the normal review process, but in an expedited manner.

Both men have requested that their names not be released, Warner said in the release.

As a result of the findings, all samples saved by the late Mary Jane Burton will be reviewed, Warner said.

Bode Technology Group, an independent lab in Springfield, tested nearly 300 samples saved by Burton in 31 separate criminal cases at the request of Warner, who wanted to determine whether current DNA tests that were not available when the crimes were committed would reveal additional wrongful convictions.

Since 2001, three men who were convicted of crimes they didn't commit have been freed thanks to Burton, who had an unusual habit of saving pieces of the evidence she handled, even before DNA testing had been invented.

Burton, who died in 1999, worked in the Virginia state crime lab from 1974 to 1988. Over the years, she took tiny bits of evidence she tested - cotton swabs and clothing fragments smeared with blood, semen and saliva - and inserted them into their case files, which eventually landed in a storage facility. Few people knew of Burton's habit and the samples were forgotten until 2001, when Paul Ferrara, director of the state Division of Forensic Science, discovered a case file with an old cotton swab.

Marvin Anderson, Arthur Lee Whitfield and Julius Ruffin, who were all wrongfully convicted of separate rapes in the 1980s, were freed after Burton's samples were found in their case files and DNA testing revealed they were not the perpetrators. They served a combined 59 years behind bars.

In September 2004, Warner ordered the Department of Forensic Science to hunt through the 150,000 files in the storage facility for more samples Burton saved and have them tested by an independent lab. Lab workers selected 10 percent of the boxes from the time frame in which Burton worked at the lab and chose 31 cases in which Burton had saved a sample from the suspect, where there was no DNA analysis completed and in which the suspect was convicted.

The DNA testing in the Alexandria case eliminated the person convicted and resulted in a "cold hit" in Virginia's DNA data bank, Warner said in the release.

The review ordered as a result of the latest findings will include all samples saved by Burton that meet the criteria in the initial review.

"Any math we do to try to calculate the possible impact of this new full-scale review is simply guesswork," Ferrara said in the release. "That being said, as many as 300 or more cases may meet the testing criteria. One could apply the same ratio of exonerations - two out of 31 - but again, that is unlikely to be statistically valid."

Warner applauded the Department of Forensic Science for its approach to the review.

"The powerful crime-fighting tool of DNA has helped add certainty to our justice system for many years now," Warner said. "I believe a look back at these retained case files is the only morally acceptable course, and what truth they can bring only bolsters confidence in our system."

GRAPHIC: AP Photos

HEADLINE: Destroyed evidence at heart of clemency plea

BYLINE: LARRY O'DELL, Associated Press Writer

RICHMOND, Va. -- Unless Gov. Mark R. Warner intervenes, a man convicted of fatally stabbing