DNA said to clear pair after 19 years

Two Baltimore men imprisoned for two decades for the rape and murder of a young woman in her rowhouse have proved their innocence through new DNA testing, their attorneys say.

The attorneys, who called the case the state's first double exoneration, plan to file motions today seeking new trials for James Owens Jr., 41, and James Thompson Jr., 47.

This is the second time in recent months that fresh testing has shown that DNA collected at a Baltimore crime scene does not belong to a person convicted in the case.

"When he heard about the results, he sat down in his cell and cried," said Owens' attorney, Stephen Mercer. "He really believed he had just been forgotten about in the system."

"I've been hoping for years this would happen," said James Thompson Sr., who is 70. "I didn't know if he would get out before I die."

Prosecutors say they need time to analyze the DNA results and that it is too soon to call the men innocent or exonerated.

Owens and Thompson were convicted in 1988 of stabbing and strangling Colleen Williar in her Southeast Baltimore rowhouse, during what police and prosecutors described as a burglary that became a rape and murder. The men are serving life sentences, Owens without chance of parole.

Semen was recovered from the woman's body and kept by the medical examiner's office. In May 2006, about two years after defense attorneys made their first request and with city prosecutors expressing opposition, the DNA slide was released for testing.

Late last month, the results became final: Testing shows that the semen belonged to neither of the men convicted. It is not clear whose it is.

Public defenders with the state's Innocence Project, joined later by private attorney Mercer, wound through numerous court filings and hearings as they tried to persuade a Baltimore circuit judge to order a DNA test.

The Sun first documented the Owens-Thompson case last November. Days later, the judge decided to allow testing.

As a result of DNA testing in another Baltimore case, Robert C. Griffin, 71, was freed from his life sentence in August after spending 20 years in prison. Griffin says he did not kill his girlfriend, Annie Cruse, 20, but agreed to a plea deal because he was unwilling to wait for a new trial.

Griffin's plea agreement ended his case with a question mark. The Owens-Thompson case could be much more clear-cut, with the men eventually being exonerated and becoming eligible for state restitution for being wrongfully convicted.

Prosecutors said yesterday that it would be premature to comment on their next step, which could range from opposing the defense motion for a new trial to joining it.

The DNA testing was conducted by ReliaGene Technologies, based in New Orleans. The laboratory, accredited by the American Society of Crime Lab Directors, was selected by the defense attorneys. Prosecutors did not oppose the choice, defense attorneys said.

The DNA sample was so small that no further testing can be done.

"Everything hinges on the professionalism and accuracy of the testing of one fraction of a sample taken decades ago," said Margaret T. Burns, a spokeswoman for the Baltimore state's attorney's office.

Prosecutors are having their own experts analyze the results and review the lab's standards and procedures, Burns said.

At the time of the Williar killing, Owens, a worker in a corrugated box factory, was on probation for robbery and, his attorney said, "probably not the most popular guy in the neighborhood."

Thompson was married, worked at a gas station and had a minor criminal record, said his attorney, Suzanne Drouet. A serious accident in the 1970s left Thompson with impaired mental abilities, his family and the lawyer said.

The pair - friends for years - became wrapped up in the high-profile Williar case when Thompson claimed to have found the murder weapon.

From there, the police investigation picked up steam, the attorneys said, and Owens and Thompson were swept into it as the only suspects. By the end of the second trial, Thompson's, factors common in wrongful convictions would emerge: jailhouse snitches, questionable confessions and overstated scientific evidence.

"Once you get entangled in the criminal justice system, they're not going to let go of you," said Drouet. "It's a tragedy. These two guys made mistakes in judgment, but this is a heavy price to pay for that."

Williar, 24, was a phone company worker and Baltimore community college student, according to news accounts at the time of her death. She was found nude in her O'Donnell Heights rowhouse on Aug. 2, 1987, with a sock tied around her neck. A jewelry box and jewelry were missing, and prosecutors said there was evidence of rape.

Police offered a $1,000 reward for information in the case, Drouet said, and her client was lured by the promise of what he thought would be easy money.

Thompson gave police a switchblade knife that he said was the murder weapon. Police pressed him for details on how he found the weapon and eventually accused him of taking part in the crime, Drouet said.

To save himself, Thompson named Owens as the killer, Drouet said. Working from that information, police arrested Owens, and in March 1988, he stood trial in Baltimore Circuit Court for rape and murder.

In a Perry Mason-like moment, while testifying against Owens, Thompson confessed that he, too, was at the scene of the crime. He said he masturbated as he watched Owens rape and kill Williar.

Sam Brave, who prosecuted Owens and elicited the witness stand confession from Thompson, remembers the case well.

"Twelve people with no dog in the race were sitting in court listening to [Thompson] confess," he said, referring to the jury.

Brave was quoted in news accounts at the time of Owens' trial as saying, "For the first time, the whole thing came together. What really happened is they broke in. They raped her, and they killed her."

Contacted yesterday, Brave, who is now retired, said that even if the new DNA results are accurate, he is "absolutely convinced" that the right people are behind bars. He repeatedly referred to Thompson's testimony as evidence of the pair's guilt, saying that there could be an as-yet-unknown explanation for the finding of a third man's DNA.

But no prosecutor involved in the case has ever argued the theory of a third man.

Owens was convicted of felony murder but acquitted of the rape charge. He was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.

Mercer, his current attorney, said there was no forensic evidence connecting Owens to Williar. He said testimony came from Thompson and from a jailhouse snitch whose statement did not mesh with the facts in the case.

"This case was from start to finish manufactured," Mercer said.

During Thompson's trial, prosecutors said a pubic hair found at the scene matched Thompson's and that his blue jeans were stained with the victim's blood. He was convicted of rape and murder and sentenced to life in prison.

But Michele Nethercott, co-chairwoman of the forensic committee for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and a Maryland public defender who worked on the Owens-Thompson case, said it is not possible to determine a hair "match."

"That's a science that has largely been discredited," Nethercott said.

Drouet said about one-third of the first 70 DNA exonerations around the country involved faulty hair evidence.

Public defenders recently had Thompson's jeans retested, and a laboratory found that the blood stain was from a man, not a woman, making it impossible for it to have been the victim's.

Drouet and Mercer said the social science behind making a false confession also has become more plain in recent years. Each noted John Mark Karr's recent self-proclamation as the killer of child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey, now believed to be untrue.

Drouet said she believes police and prosecutors pressured Thompson to confess by telling him that they had evidence against him and promising that he would not be punished. Thompson's father points to his son's head injury as another reason he might have confessed: "Half the time, he doesn't know what he's saying."

Among the crimes on Thompson's short record before his arrest in the Williar case, one stuck out, Drouet said - a conviction for making a false statement to a police officer.