The Crime Book

242

I WAS ON DEATH

ROW, AND I WAS

INNOCENT

KIRK BLOODSWORTH, 1984

I

n 1984, 23-year-old former

US Marine Kirk Bloodsworth

was arrested and charged

with the sexual assault, rape,

and murder of nine-year-old Dawn

Hamilton. The girl’s body was

found in a wooded area of a park in

Rosedale, Maryland, near her home.

Bloodsworth was arrested

based on the testimony of an

anonymous caller, who told police

that she saw him with the victim.

Two other witnesses made positive

identifications during a line-up.

However, they had been instructed

not to watch television – news

Kirk Bloodsworth holds a photograph

of Dawn Hamilton, the young girl he

was wrongly convicted of sexually

assaulting, raping, and murdering

in August 1984.

IN CONTEXT

LOCATION

Rosedale, Maryland, US

THEME

Wrongful conviction

BEFORE

1950 Briton Timothy John

Evans is convicted of the

murders of his wife and

daughter and is hanged. An

inquiry held 15 years later

determines that the killer was,

in fact, Evans’s co-tenant,

John Reginald Halliday.

AFTER

1987 High school sophomore

Tim Masters is convicted

of killing Peggy Hettrick

from Fort Collins, Colorado.

A judge orders that Masters

be released immediately when

DNA evidence implicates

the victim’s boyfriend.

The Innocence Project

Founded in New York in 1992

by two civil rights lawyers, the

Innocence Project is a not-for-

profit legal organization that

works to exonerate wrongly

convicted prisoners through the

application of DNA testing. The

Innocence Project also works to

advocate for major reform of the

criminal justice system.

Despite the name of the

group, self-confessed innocence

is not in itself a legal basis upon

which to overturn a conviction.

Instead, it is normally necessary

for new evidence – such as a

successful DNA test – to back

up the victim’s claim that there

was a miscarriage of justice.

DNA testing was first

introduced as a crime-fighting

technique in 1989. As of early

2016, 340 people convicted of

serious crimes in the US have

been exonerated through DNA

testing and about half of them

have received some financial

compensation for the time they

spent in prison. Twenty of the

inmates whose convictions were

ultimately overturned had been

sentenced to death.

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243

See also: Colin Pitchfork 294–97

MURDER CASES

reports about Bloodsworth featured

widely at that time – because it

could affect their ability to recall

exactly who they had seen. They

did not listen, and both witnesses

saw Bloodsworth on television

before the line-up. Although no

direct evidence connected him

to the crime, Bloodsworth was

convicted of rape and first-degree

murder and sentenced to death.

In 1986, the Maryland Court of

Appeals overturned Bloodsworth’s

conviction, finding that the

prosecution had illegally withheld

evidence that might have cleared

him from the defence. They ordered

a retrial, but Bloodsworth was

convicted again and sentenced to

two life terms.

Working in the prison library,

Bloodsworth spent the next seven

years trying to prove his innocence.

In 1992, he read about a new

technique – DNA fingerprinting.

Hoping that DNA found at the

crime scene might rule him out

as the killer, Bloodsworth motioned

the court. His tactic worked. In

1993, test results proved that the

DNA evidence did not match

Bloodsworth’s genetic profile and

he was set free. ■

If it could happen to me, it

could happen to anybody.

Kirk Bloodsworth

July 1984 – The body of nine-year-old Dawn Hamilton is found in

a park in Rosedale, Maryland.

July 1986 – Maryland Court of Appeals overturns the conviction,

stating that prosecutors withheld evidence. They order a retrial.

May 1993 – A California lab reports that a semen stain on the

victim’s underwear could not have come from Bloodsworth.

August 1984 – Police arrest and charge Kirk Bloodsworth,

a former US marine.

April 1987 – A second jury convicts Bloodsworth of murder.

He is sentenced to two life terms in prison.

25 June 1993 – The FBI accepts that the semen found on the

underpants could not have been produced by Bloodsworth.

March 1985 – A jury convicts Kirk Bloodsworth of

Dawn Hamilton’s murder. He is sentenced to death.

April 1992 – Baltimore County prosecutors release evidence from

Bloodsworth’s trial for sophisticated new DNA testing.

28 June 1993 – Kirk Bloodsworth walks out of the

House of Correction in Jessup, a free man.

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