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N0KFQ > TODAY 24.07.10 17:31l 51 Lines 2205 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - Jul 24
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Sent: 100724/1518Z @:N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA #:12799 [Branson] FBB7.00i $:12799_N
From: N0KFQ@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
To : TODAY@WW
Jul 24, 1984:
A nine-year-old's murder puts an innocent man in jail
The body of nine-year-old Dawn Hamilton is found in a wooded
area of Rosedale, Maryland, near her home. The young girl had
been raped and beaten to death with a rock. Unfortunately,
Hamilton and her family were not the only ones to suffer because
of this terrible crime.
After witnesses saw a suspicious man in the area of the murder
scene, a police sketch was publicized on television and in
newspapers. Two weeks later, an anonymous caller identified Kirk
Bloodsworth, a 23-year-old ex-Marine, as the man in the sketch.
Bloodsworth, who had been in Baltimore (which is close to
Rosedale) at the time of Hamilton's murder, later returned to
his home in Cambridge and told friends that he had done
something that would harm his marriage.
Prosecutors, with little evidence other than this, accused
Bloodsworth of murder. During the trial in 1985, the defense
presented several witnesses who said that they were with
Bloodsworth at the time of the murder. Disregarding his alibi,
the jury convicted Bloodsworth and sent him to death row.
For the next seven years, Bloodsworth maintained his innocence
while in prison. In the meantime, forensic DNA testing had come
of age. On Dawn Hamilton's underwear, police had a spot of
semen, smaller than a dime, and science had finally progressed
to the point where this small amount of physical evidence could
be tested. When Bloodsworth's attorneys were eventually granted
permission to test the semen spot, Forensic Science Associates,
a private California laboratory, found that it did not match
Bloodsworth's DNA.
After the FBI's crime lab confirmed this test, prosecutors in
Baltimore County had no choice but to release Bloodsworth (but
pointedly refused to apologize). On June 28, 1993, nine years
after first going to jail, Kirk Bloodsworth was released. He was
officially pardoned later in the year.
Since the advent of forensic DNA testing, as many as 50
prisoners have been found innocent of crimes for which they had
been convicted.
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