Finally Vindicated

If you’re like me and know little about how law enforcement actually functions, then I’m sure this true crime will blow your mind as much as it did mine.

Let’s start with an old case, from 1984. A young woman was found strangled, stabbed and left for dead near a beach community. When DNA entered the scene enabling law enforcement to process evidence from old cases, they started solving cold cases.

Many years after the tragic death of the young woman, analysts at the police department’s crime lab linked DNA found on the young woman's body to a man who had an extensive criminal past, but he was deceased.

DNA from a criminalist who retired after twenty years of service for the police department’s crime lab was also linked to the young woman’s murder case. His wife described him as a nice, gentle, quiet man. He did not know he was under investigation for participating in the heinous crime until investigators showed up at his home with a search warrant.

Later it would be learned that false evidence had been presented to the judge who issued the search warrant.

The quiet man feared he would be wrongly convicted of a crime he hadn’t committed. The thought of going to prison pushed him to the point he committed suicide. At the time, a representative of the law enforcement agency said, “Unfortunately, he [the quiet man] committed suicide before we could take him into custody.”

After his death, his wife said he was a nice, quiet, gentle man they [police dept.] pushed over the edge. She hired an attorney and filed a lawsuit against the police department.

Her lawsuit largely stood on there being zero direct evidence that her husband had any connection to the criminal whose DNA was found on the murdered woman’s body other than her husband’s semen was found associated with the case but not found on the woman. Confusing, right?

Back then, the police department’s crime lab investigating the murder used employees’ blood and semen to cross check samples (a standard practice at the time). After this case, the lab changed their policy and began purchasing donor samples.

A jury of two women and five men agreed with the wife that her husband was innocent and awarded her $6 million for seizing personal property outside the scope of the warrant, pain and suffering for the family, and for the loss of her husband’s companionship.

After the case concluded, she said about her husband,

“He was finally vindicated.”

Source: Supreme Court of the United States, People, Courthouse News Service

All data and information provided is for information and research purposes only and not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, or individual. Appeals or overturned verdicts may have occurred in criminal cases since I researched them. All information is provided on an as-is basis.