Location |
Defendant(s) |
Date of Alleged Crime |
Comparative Bullet Lead Analysis |
Okaloosa County, FL |
Jimmy Ates |
June 2, 1991 |
“Jimmy Ates was wrongly convicted in 1998 of murdering his wife based on an
FBI lab technicians comparative bullet lead analysis (CBLA) testimony. He
was sentenced to life in prison. Based on the FBI's repudiation of a
scientific basis for CBLA, Ates filed a motion for a new trial. On December
17, 2008 Ates conviction was overturned and he was released with the
agreement of the prosecution. Ates had been imprisoned for 10 years.” –
FJDB |
Orange County, CA |
Earl Rhoney |
Jan 20, 1994
(Irvine) |
Earl Henry Rhoney IV was convicted of the murder of 46-year-old Patricia Lea Pratt.
Pratt was
beaten and strangled during a burglary at her home in the upscale Turtle Rock
neighborhood of
Irvine, CA. Rhoney had committed a burglary with six other teenagers
about a mile from the Pratt residence more than a week prior to the murder.
He was arrested for it two weeks after the murder. Eight months later, police followed Rhoney with a bloodhound upon Rhoney's
release from juvenile hall for the prior burglary. Police had given
the bloodhound, named Duchess, material extracted from Pratt's sweatshirt to sniff and
videotaped the dog allegedly tracking the scent of Pratt's killer. The
scent material was removed from the sweatshirt using a Dustbuster type
device that was called a Scent Machine. This device was patented by
the dog's handler, Larry Harris.
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Orange County,
CA |
James Ochoa |
May 22, 2005 |
James
Ochoa was
accused of a robbing two victims of $600 and stealing their Volkswagen Jetta
after a bloodhound followed a scent from a swab of the perpetrator's
baseball cap to his front door. The victims also identified Ochoa. Ochoa
had five family members to confirm his alibi. Nevertheless, against his
attorney's advice, he pleaded guilty to the crime in exchange for a two-year
sentence after Judge Robert Fitzgerald threatened him with a life sentence if a jury found
him guilty. DNA tests exonerated him and implicated an unknown male. Ochoa
was released after a DNA match was found in Oct 2006 to a man entering the
Los Angeles County Jail on an unrelated carjacking charge. After Ochoa
applied for compensation for his wrongful conviction under California law,
the state attorney general opposed Ochoa's claim, by stating that Ochoa
contributed to the wrongful conviction by voluntarily pleading guilty. (IP)
(LA
Times) |
Brevard County, FL |
William Dillon |
Aug 17, 1981 |
William Dillon was convicted of the murder of James Dvorak. Dvorak was found
murdered at Canova Beach. He had been beaten to death and left in a
wooded area, an apparent homosexual meeting place near the beach. A
motorist, John Parker, had picked up a hitchhiker near the
scene of the crime and drove him to a tavern three miles away. Along
the way, Parker stopped his truck and performed oral sex on the hitchhiker.
After dropping off the hitchhiker, Parker found that his passenger had left behind a bloody yellow
T-shirt
which he disposed of in a trash can near a grocery store. After he saw a news story about the murder, he called police, and police
recovered the T-shirt.
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|
Brevard
County, FL |
Wilton Dedge |
Dec 8, 1981 (Sharpes) |
Wilton
Dedge was
convicted of raping a 17-year-old girl and sentenced to life plus 30 years.
The victim identified Dedge in court, but she originally told police that
her assailant was 6 feet tall, weighed 200 lbs. and had a receding hairline.
Dedge is 5 feet 6 inches tall, weighed 125 lbs., and still has a full head
of hair. In addition, a prison informant testified that Dedge had confessed
to the crime. In exchange for his testimony, the informant got a 120-year
reduction in his sentence and his wife got a truck that was confiscated by
the state. The conviction was also based on microscopic hair analysis, and
scent identification by a dog that performed a scent lineup. Six defense
witnesses testified that Dedge, an auto mechanic, was working at a garage
nearly 45 minutes away at the time of the crime. DNA tests exonerated Dedge
in 2004. In Dec. 2005, the Florida legislature awarded Dedge $2 million for
22 years of wrongful imprisonment. (IP)
(JD30
p31) [10/05] |
Brevard
County, FL |
Juan Ramos |
Apr 23, 1982 (Cocoa) |
Juan Florencio Ramos was
convicted and sentenced to death for the rape and murder of 27-year-old Mary Sue Cobb.
A bloodhound, which had been given the opportunity to smell Ramos's scent,
was put into a room with five knives and five blouses. The dog stopped at
the knife and blouse that had been involved in the crime. Later it was
learned that only the knife and blouse involved in the crime had blood on
them, proving only that the bloodhound was drawn to blood. In addition,
five days after the initial identification, the dog failed to replicate the
identification. The prosecution also presented a jailhouse informant who
for his testimony was allowed to serve two years on a conviction for which
he faced up to 70 years. The Florida Supreme Court overturned Ramos's
conviction after ruling that the bloodhound evidence was thoroughly
unreliable. On retrial, Ramos was acquitted of all charges. (PC) (FLCC) [7/05] |
Clark County,
WA |
David Kunze |
Dec 16, 1994 |
David Wayne
Kunze was
convicted of murdering his ex-wife's fiancé, James W. McCann. Kunze was convicted solely on
the basis of an alleged ear print left on a door in the victim's house. In
1999 an appeals court reversed his conviction because of the unreliability
of ear print evidence. After Kunze was released on $500,000 bail in Aug
2000, Kunze's second trial ended in a mistrial, and prosecutors declined to
retry him a third time because of a lack of evidence. (State
v. Kunze) [10/05] |
England (Leeds CC) |
Mark Dallagher |
May 7, 1996 |
Mark Dallagher was convicted of the murder of 94-year-old Dorothy Wood.
Wood was found dead at her home on Whitby Avenue in Huddersfield. She
had been smothered with a pillow. A burglar had entered the home
through a transom window above her bed. Wood was profoundly deaf and slept downstairs because of a heart condition.
Ear prints were found on the glass immediately below the transom. West
Yorkshire police sent these prints along with prints of Dallagher's ears to Cornelis Van der Lugt, an alleged ear print
expert. Police suspected Dallagher might be the culprit because he was a small-time burglar who
lived in the area. Van der Lugt was Dutch police officer for 27 years
and a lecturer at the Dutch Police College. He had no formal
qualifications, but he had become interested in ear print identification and
read what was available on that topic. He had built up a portfolio of
about 600 photographs and 300 ear prints.
At trial, Van der Lugt testified that he was
“absolutely convinced that
the prints of [Dallagher's] left ear were identical with the prints of the
left ear on the window.” Another Crown expert, Peter Vanezis,
considered Van der Lugt to be the ear print expert in the world, and
testified that “it was very likely that it was this defendant who made those
prints,” although he could not be one hundred percent certain. Vanezis
was Regius Professor of Forensic Medicine and Science at the University of
Glasgow.
Following Dallagher's conviction, two other criminal convictions that
relied on ear print evidence were overturned, one in the
U.S. (David Kunze), and another in the Netherlands. Both relied on Van
der Lugt's testimony. In 2002, an
appeals court also overturned Dallagher's conviction because it found fault with
the manner in which the experts expressed their opinion of Dallagher's
guilt. Following the reversal, an initial report given by Van der Lugt
surfaced in which he stated that the ear prints found on
Wood's window were definitely not those of Dallagher. The words
“definitely not” were underlined twice.
A retrial for Dallagher began in 2003, but it was halted after 10 days
as the prosecution sought to gather additional evidence. However,
additional evidence was not forthcoming and DNA tests of the ear prints
showed they did not belong to Dallagher. As a result, charges against Dallagher were
dropped in 2004. He was released from imprisonment after serving seven years
of a life sentence. (Innocent) (Forensic-Evidence)
[11/09]
|
Ontario, Canada |
Dimitre Dimitrov |
Feb 21, 1996 (Vanier) |
Dimitre Dimitrov was convicted in 1999 of murdering his friend and landlord,
Hristo Veltchev, 37. Veltchev's body was found in a public parking
lot, stuffed in the trunk of his car. Evidence indicated that he had
been bludgeoned to death in the garage of his house. Dimitrov's
conviction was based on expert testimony that his feet matched
impressions found inside a pair of bloody boots at the victim's house.
The boots were found in a front hall closet in the house. The closet was used by
all the boarders of the house including Dimitrov. Apart from the
expert's testimony, there was no evidence Dimitrov owned or had worn the boots. A retrial was ordered in 2003 after a court
ruled that the
impression evidence was inadmissible to establish positive
identification unless it was accompanied by corroborating evidence. At retrial in 2004, DNA test results
were presented, which showed
that the blood on the boots belonged neither to the victim, nor to Dimitrov,
nor to anyone else known to have entered the house. Dimitrov was
acquitted. He had spent 4 1/2 years imprisoned. (JD30:08)
[5/08] |
Fulton County, GA |
William Broughton |
Feb 22, 1900 |
(Federal Case) After receiving a letter he
considered obscene, the City Solicitor of Atlanta, Nash R. Broyles, turned
it over to Federal Authorities. The letter reflected pointedly on Broyles'
moral character. It was signed Grant Jackson, so a man named Grant Jackson
was arrested as well as William Broughton who was considered by authorities
to be a close friend of Jackson and of necessity involved in whatever
mischief Jackson might be involved. Broyles had sent both Jackson and
Broughton to jail at various times for a variety of misdemeanors. Both
Jackson and Broughton denied writing the letter or having any knowledge of
it.
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|
New York County, NY |
Oscar Krueger |
Dec 10, 1910 |
(Federal Case)
Oscar Krueger was convicted of sending an obscene letter based in part on
handwriting analysis. Following his conviction and his letters of protest
to various officials, an Assistant United States Attorney reinvestigated the
case and concluded Kreuger was innocent. Based on the attorney's
recommendations, U.S. President Taft pardoned Kreuger and he was released
after serving nearly a year of imprisonment. (CTI)
[10/08] |
Pickaway County, OH |
Paul Freshour |
Feb 1983 (Circleville) |
Paul Freshour was convicted of the attempted murder of his sister-in-law,
Mary Gillispie, a school bus driver. In 1976 Mary received a letter
in the mail telling her that the letter writer was aware that she was having
an affair with the superintendent of schools and that it had better stop.
The letter also contained the threat, “I know where you live. I've
been observing your house and know you have children. This is no joke.
Please take it serious.” The envelope was postmarked Columbus, Ohio.
There was no return address, no signature inside, no way to tell who sent
it.
Read More
by Clicking Here |
Kane County, IL |
Lavelle Davis |
Dec 18, 1993 (Elgin) |
Lavelle L. Davis was convicted of murdering Patrick
“Pall Mall” Ferguson.
Ferguson was killed outside an Elgin apartment complex with a single shotgun
blast at close range. Davis's first trial ended in a mistrial after a
key eyewitness said she was backing off testimony she gave at the earlier
trial of a co-defendant. At Davis's second trial, the woman said she was
finally coming forward with the truth--that she saw him shoot Ferguson.
Even Prosecutor Alice Tracy called the woman “an admitted liar” during
the second trial. A crime lab examiner, Stephen McKasson, testified
that Davis's lips matched lip prints left on duct tape found near the scene
of the slaying. The prosecution theorized that Davis left his lip prints on
the sticky side of the tape while demonstrating to others what he was going
to do if Ferguson started to scream.
For some jurors in Davis's trial,
including Doris Gonzalez, the lip print evidence was convincing--much more
than the witnesses called by both sides who she said “were not
very truthful people.” However, following conviction, other forensic
experts of weighed in. Andre Moenssens, the author of a book on forensics said the use
of lip print evidence amounted to “pure speculation and unadulterated
conjecture.” Ronald Singer, the president of the AAFS, the nations chief forensic
society said, “At this stage of the game, you can put ear prints and lip
prints and nose prints and elbow prints all in the same category--unverified
and unvalidated.” In Mar. 2006, Davis's conviction was overturned and
he was granted a new trial. Charges against Davis were dropped in
2009. (Chicago
Tribune) (Forensic-Evidence)
[3/08] |
Santa Clara County, CA |
Michael Hutchinson |
Oct 25, 1998 (Milpitas) |
Michael Hutchinson was convicted of the
robbery of a Milpitas 7-Eleven store. After the robbery, the clerk who was
on duty told the store manager that his friend had robbed the store. With a
local police officer, the store manager reviewed a video/audio surveillance tape of the
robbery. The manager expressed surprise that the robber appeared to be
Michael Hutchinson. The officer agreed that the robber appeared to be
Hutchinson. Both had known Hutchinson since childhood. The robber wore a
stocking mask, so it is not clear what basis the two men used to recognize
him. The clerk identified Hutchinson in a photo lineup and at trial. At
trial, the manager and the officer identified Hutchinson from the
surveillance tape, although the officer expressed uncertainty. Hutchinson
was sentenced to 11 years in prison.
Hutchinson's
appeals attorney thought the robber on the surveillance tape was too small
to be Hutchinson. In 2001, he sought funds from an appeals court to
scientifically analyze the tape but was denied. However, the San Jose
Mercury News had the tape analyzed and the analyst concluded that the actual
robber is several inches shorter than Hutchinson. A frame photo of the
robber leaving the store with a height overlay added to the door clearly
shows that the robber could not be more than 5'8" tall.
He could not be Hutchinson
as Hutchinson is 6' tall.
In 2006, a
federal court overturned Hutchinson's conviction. The prosecution
planned to retry him using his apparently hostile ex-wife as a identification
witness. Rather than face retrial, in 2007 Hutchinson pleaded to
a time-served deal. (Tainted
Trials (with robber photo)) (Mercury
News) [1/08] |
Wayne County,
MI |
Dominique Brim |
Apr 15, 2002 (Lincoln Park) |
A security guard at the Sears store in Lincoln Park stopped a woman leaving
the store on April 15, 2002 with $1,300 in unpaid merchandise. In an
attempt to get away, the woman severely bit the guard. After being
arrested, the woman was taken to a police station where she told police her
address, her phone number, that she was 15-years-old, and that her name was
Dominique Brim. She was allowed to leave without being booked.
Two weeks later, 15-year-old Dominique Brim was charged with
retail fraud and felony assault. She claimed she had not been at the store
on April 15 and that she had not been arrested. In court, several Sears
employees, including the security guard, identified her as the person who
was apprehended and who bit the guard. The judge did not believe Brim's
mistaken identity defense and convicted her on both counts.
However, Brim's vehement claim that she was the wrong person did impress
Sears officials enough to review their store videotape of the April 15
incident. They discovered that Brim was not the person who was involved in
the incident. After the prosecutor and Brim's lawyer were contacted, the
judge vacated her conviction before she was sentenced. The woman on the
tape was later identified as Chalaunda Latham. She was not 15-years-old,
she was 25. Latham was able to pass herself off as Brim because she was a
friend of Brim's sister. Prosecutors decided not to charge Latham because
the Sears employees had already given sworn testimony that Brim was
responsible for the theft and security guard assault. (JD29) [3/07] |
Bexar County, TX |
Kia Johnson |
Oct 29, 1993 (Balcones Hts) |
Kia Levoy Johnson was sentenced
to death for the shooting murder of William Matthew Rains. Rains, a
store clerk was shot during a 2:45 a.m. robbery of a Stop 'N Go convenience
store at 3309 Hillcrest Dr. in Balcones Heights, Texas. The assailant
was unable to open the cash register and took it with him. The
details of the crime were captured on video by a store security camera.
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|
Jamaica |
Dixon & Sangster |
Sept 18, 1996 |
“Randall Dixon and Mark Sangster were wrongly convicted on July 9, 1998 of
murdering a policeman during the robbery of a a Western Union branch in
Spanish Town, Jamaica of $18 million in September 1996. Their convictions
were based on their identification in a line-up by two policemen who
witnessed the robbery. Sangster was sentenced to life for non-capital
murder, and Dixon was sentenced to death by hanging for capital murder.
After their convictions the men learned that the prosecution had failed to
disclose to them that they did not appear on the film of the robbers
recorded by a security camera in the Western Union branch. Eyewitnesses saw
four robbers, and neither man was among the four robbers captured by the
security camera. The men appealed their convictions to the Privy Council in
London, which is the highest court of appeal for Jamaica, and on October 7,
2002, their convictions were set aside and their sentences were quashed. On
October 8, 2003, Jamaica's Court of Appeal ordered judgments of acquittal
for both men and they were released after seven years of wrongful
imprisonment. In 2005 the men sued the government of Jamaica for false
imprisonment, malicious prosecution, breach of their constitutional rights
and for exemplary and aggravated damages. In October 2007 Mark Sangster was
awarded $13,450,500, and Randal Dixon was awarded $13,192,500. [$71
Jamaican = $1 U.S. in 2007]” –
FJDB (Jamaica
Observer) |
England (Luton CC) |
Nico Bento |
Dec 13, 2005 (Bedford) |
Amilton Nicolas Bento (aka Nico),
a Portuguese immigrant, was convicted of the murder of his 26-year-old
Polish girlfriend, Kamila Garsztka. The alleged crime occurred in Bedford, England
in or near the River Great Ouse. A CCTV security camera caught Garsztka
walking alone on the embankment of the river toward Priory Lake which adjoined the river. Garsztka's
coat, scarf, and shoes were found by the river bank about an hour later.
Bento reported Garsztka missing and pestered police to step up their search
for her and keep him informed. He told police Garsztka had left her
handbag in his apartment, which police later retrieved. Seven weeks
after she went missing, canoeists found her body floating in Priory Lake.
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