For police, OC's unsolved murders have life of their own
By Steve Eddy, The Orange
The vast majority of murder cases are solved almost immediately.
In fact, homicide detectives say that the guilty party in 90 percent of the 100 or so murders in
"The first 24 hours are critical," said Lt. Pete DePaola, head of the Anaheim Police Department's homicide bureau. "At that point, everything's `hot' -- you've got a fresh crime scene, and it's usually easy to put the facts together and sort out the players."
Those are the easy ones.
Then there are the other cases, the remaining 10 percent, the ones detectives must dog for months, even years. They are unsolved, but not unsolvable, detectives say. Many will be cleared eventually through one means or another.
But in the meantime, such cases bring detectives sleepless nights and gray hair.
In some cases, the motive is a mystery, or there may not be enough information available to trace a victim's last hours or days -- the time in which he or she might have met the killer.
But since there is no statute of limitations on murder in
"Even when cases are considered inactive, a detective is always assigned to them. They are never forgotten," La Habra Police Capt. John Reese said.
And though other trails dead-end, detectives continually review teletypes about crimes in other jurisdictions in which the modus operandi, or mode of operation, matches their case, Reese said.
"No matter what, you just keep digging,"
In
"Sometimes it might just be a matter of having a fresh pair of eyes look at the same reports and material and starting from square one," Wright said. "Sometimes you get so close to a case, it's like you can't see the forest for the trees."
There also may be technological solutions to old cases. In 1984, a re-examination of a fingerprint led to the arrest of a security guard in the 1979 slaying of an
The most exotic recent breakthrough in crime-solving technology is the Cal-ID fingerprint system, a statewide computer network that allows for almost instant comparison of latent prints against those of jail inmates.
That system helped identify Richard Ramirez as the suspect in the "night stalker" killings.
At Orange County Sheriff's Department headquarters last year, a technician was demonstrating how the system works and inadvertently matched up a latent fingerprint found at the scene of a 1985 bludgeoning death of a 61-year-old
Meanwhile, a tiny percentage of murder cases exist in a sort of nether world, where there are far more questions than answers.
Cases such as these:
Patricia and Amanda Dixon
It was a sight veteran
Lying nude next to the bed in a motel room within walking distance of Disneyland was Patricia Ann Dixon, 25, of
In bed was the pajama-clad body of her 5-year-old daughter, Amanda. The little girl was clutching a Minnie Mouse doll.
Both had been shot several times in the head early March 28, 1984, only a few hours after returning from the amusement park.
There was no sign of forced entry into the room of the
While numerous gunshots were fired, no one reported hearing any.
Neither victim was sexually attacked.
Police investigated leads and suspects in
"We just recently had another lead come up, within the past few months," DePaola said. "It was in another state. We checked it all the way through. It didn't pan out. The case is still open."
Sharon Duncan
"Senseless."
That's how
On a Friday afternoon, a bicyclist riding through a parking lot at
Robbery apparently was not the motive; her purse, containing about $100, was found in the car. And there was no evidence of sexual assault.
Her brother guessed that she went to the beach to study and sunbathe.
Investigators say there never was much progress in the case.
"It was the off-season, but it wasn't a cloudy day," Olson said. "There must have been people out there who saw something -- somebody loitering, or hiding. This investigation is very frustrating, because we essentially have run up against a brick wall.
"It all seemed so senseless. To this day, we believe someone out there must have seen something," Olson said.
Patricia Lopez
The little girl they found down by the river on a sweltering summer afternoon had been beaten to death.
On June 3, 1987, 9-year-old Patricia Lopez walked out of her third-grade class in Room 26 at
The pretty, dark-haired youngster was never seen alive again.
Two days later, her battered body was found in the
Initial police reports indicated the girl had been abducted on or near the school grounds. But a week after the slaying, police concluded that no one had seen anything unusual and that Patricia "either voluntarily walked to the riverbed or was transported there part of the way."
Police said witnesses saw the girl alone in the riverbed, and a burly Hispanic man in his 30s also was seen nearby. Adding to the puzzle were reports that a late-model gray mini-truck was seen parked on
Police believe the driver might have seen something pivotal to the case. He has not been located.
Although police never said the girl was sexually molested, investigators say they have "looked at" 6,000 registered
"They were all screened in one way or another," said
In some cases, the men's previous crimes did not fit the circumstances of the Lopez slaying. Some were in jail at the time she was killed. Some were dead. Some had ironclad alibis.
The detectives on the Lopez case won't give up, she said.
"It is being actively investigated. In fact, I would say the investigators are quite passionate about it, although I can't say right now that there are any new leads."
Marie Malmgreen
"I'll pick you up. Remember, I'll be a little late."
Those were the last words Marie Malmgreen of
She was never seen alive again. A week later, her blue Cadillac was found parked behind a
In the backseat was her strangled, decomposing body. The wife of a
The case remains as mysterious as ever.
Investigation initially centered on transients who sleep in
Two young men were arrested in connection with the murder. One of them, Scott Katzin, described as a mentally deficient transient, claimed on a police videotape to possess specific knowledge of what happened.
But his information never could be confirmed. And although he was charged twice with the killing, the charges were thrown out of court. The other suspect also was released.
Sgt. Roger White once commented sullenly: "If we didn't have bad luck in this case, we wouldn't have had any at all."
CUTLINE: Patrly assaulted
Police Still Seeking Leads in '79 Bludgeon Killings
By ERIC HEALY,
Sitting at his desk, Costa Mesa Police Sgt. Sam Cordeiro browses through four bundles of police reports. He is looking for a killer.
He admits that the intensity of his search has waned somewhat and that the prospects are bleak for catching the "Bludgeon Killer," who in 1979 sexually assaulted and beat four Costa Mesa women, three of them fatally.
"We're going to have to get lucky to solve this one," he said.
So far, there have been no case-cracking leads.
All of the victims lived within blocks of the intersection of
The only woman to survive an attack by the Bludgeon Killer, albeit narrowly, is 24-year-old Jane A. Pettengill. Today, she speaks with an implanted voice box and breathes through a hole in her throat-remnants of a tracheotomy she underwent as a result of the attack, Cordeiro said. Pettengill has moved out of the area and changed her name.
At the height of the hysteria in 1979,
The killer was described as strongly built, 25 to 30 years old, about 5 feet 10 inches tall, with an olive complexion and pock marks on his cheeks.
Pamela Senior, mother of the late Debra Senior, can't forget the face on the posters.
"To even consider that he's had good days, Christmas, Thanksgiving, days that he's deprived my child of," she said, her voice cracking. "It's very hard to accept that."
But Senior said she is convinced that the police are still doing their best to find the killer.
"The police have really done a great deal," she said. "I know they haven't forgotten us."
But for the mother of Kim Rawlins, there is no solace, said Kim's sister, Cheryl.
"My mother is not any different today than she was three days after the funeral. . . . That was her baby."
Kim was the third child her mother had lost, Cheryl said. One son died as an infant and a second, Earl, was killed in a hit-and-run crash on his motorcycle. Like Kim, Earl was 21 years old and his killer was never found.
After Kim Rawlins' death, her mother moved to
Cheryl, who lived next door to Kim, moved to another
Cheryl recalled the last day she saw Kim alive. They were "clowning around" during the drive home from an
"Fortunately, I have that memory," Cheryl said. "I'm lucky. I'm one of the people who got to know her."
"We don't know what that guy looks like now," Costa Mesa Lt. Rick Johnson said. "He could be bald for all we know." According to the psychological profile prepared for police by psychiatrists and other experts specializing in criminology, the killer was driven by a need to control women, a need that ultimately was satisfied only by killing them. He probably was unintelligent and extremely insecure, police said.
If the killer was scared away by the intense publicity and poster campaign at the time of the murders, he may be committing brutal crimes elsewhere, Cordeiro worries.
However, with no fingerprints to link the killer to other crimes, police at this point can only keep a lookout for suspiciously similar cases in newspapers, police bulletins and most-wanted lists, Johnson said. There are no more leads to track, no more theories to test.
As time goes on, the chances of finding a killer lessen. "If police can't solve a crime in 10 days, then it's very unlikely that they'll solve it," Cordeiro said.
DA's Target: Ghosts of Murders Past
CRIME: The O. C. prosecutor hopes to use new technology such as DNA testing to solve about 110 murders.
By STUART PFEIFER, The Orange
A sketch of the killer's pock-marked face once was posted across
He would slip into women's apartments to sexually assault his victims and then savagely beat them. Police said six of his victims _ three of them in
At the time, there was little police detectives could do with skin, semen or hair samples the killer left behind and those crimes, like hundreds of others in
Now the District Attorney's Office hopes DNA testing and other new technology can help pinpoint suspects in those killings and more than 100 other unsolved killings.
Prosecutors hope to begin working with detectives and sheriff's criminalists early next year to re-examine unsolved killings stretching back to 1972, said Deputy District Attorney Mike Jacobs.
"We need to reopen some of these cases like they're new cases and just start over," Jacobs said. "We'll completely re-examine them."
The sheriff's crime laboratory has already sent DNA evidence from some unsolved cases to a California Department of Justice laboratory in
The program will focus on about 110 unsolved homicides _ a majority of them involving sexual assaults _ that would be susceptible to new crime-solving techniques.
Those are only a fraction of the county's homicides that have yet to be solved. Between 1972 and 1994,
In several of the older cases, fingerprints may have not yet been entered into a state fingerprint database _ a simple task that could identify a suspect.
In others, prosecutors and detectives will try to obtain suspects' blood samples and match DNA markers against evidence a killer left behind.
"We felt there was a high likelihood there would be evidence we could apply new technology to that has not been available until recently," Jacobs said. "There's a number of cases with semen stains on objects, clothing or obtained from autopsy. Even in some cases from the '70s, the evidence has been properly preserved." Jacobs said many of the killers who have gotten away with murder could be serving time for similar crimes.
"Wherever they are, whether they're down the street from you and me, whether they're in prison or whether they're dead, we want to get the answers to that," Jacobs said.
Jacobs, who is working on the project with Deputy District Attorney Mel Jensen, said he noticed similarities in many of the homicides and believes the project may uncover several serial killers.
"There are some striking similarities in a number of these," Jacobs said.
The scope of the program depends in large part on a $500,000 grant application to a county agency that prosecutors said could be used to staff two attorneys, two investigators and two sheriff's criminalists. If the county provides less money, prosecutors can apply for a federal grant.
"These are some of the most aggravated cases that we have," said Orange County District Attorney Michael R. Capizzi. "I don't know if you can put a price tag on the value of identifying these people and getting them off the streets."
Capizzi said he hopes sheriff's officials will agree to assign criminalists from their crime lab to the project _ something that would be more likely if the grant is approved.
"They have just an outstanding lab that is recognized as one of the finest in the nation and they would be an integral part of making it a success," Capizzi said. "Once we get the money ... I certainly anticipate that they would eagerly embrace it."
Sheriff's Lt. Ron Wilkerson said he could not comment about the project until his department has a chance to review it.
Jacobs said it is important to begin working on the project soon because the Department of Justice will expand the number of sex offenders on its database from 4,000 to about 34,000 by 1997.
The database has already been used to solve one crime in
"It's going to be extremely valuable," said Michael Van Winkle, a Department of Justice spokesman. "Sex offenders tend to commit sex crimes over and over again. They also leave the kind of evidence, sperm and semen, that allows for real good typing for DNA."
Jacobs said he hopes the program will include regular meetings where detectives from across the county can exchange information about open homicide cases.
"Up until now there has never been one place to go to compare unsolved murders," he said. "We want to change that."
The program will not succeed without the cooperation of county police agencies, Jacobs said.
"Some of the response initially may be lukewarm because some people may view it as intervening," he said. "You know what, we have a lot of unsolved murder cases out there and something has to be done."
The program was praised by detectives contacted by The Orange County Register.
"If there was a murder that took place in 1980 or 1979 and we still haven't made an arrest, we've obviously had it long enough to do everything we can with our resources," said Lt. Timm Browne, spokesman for the Orange Police Department.
"Our primary goal is to ensure our community remains a safe place to live, work and raise children. If that means sitting down with a D.A. to talk about some expertise that was not available at the time ... we're going to be part of that."
"Your most memorable cases are the ones with innocent victims who could be your daughter, your wife, your sister and they are unsolved," she said. "Nothing would please me more than to use the new things on the scientific horizon to solve them before my lifetime is over."
Register news researchers Jan Rose and Sharon Ostmann contributed to this report.
CHART:
STILL UNSOLVED
Between 1972 and 1994,
Cleared
Year Homicides homicides
1972 74 58
1973 50 42
1974 60 38
1975 63 57
1976 83 70
1977 71 55
1978 77 46
1979 91 72
1980 113 70
1981 96 85
1982 83 64
1983 100 62
1984 102 67
1985 115 71
1986 100 75
1987 90 66
1988 122 72
1989 145 88
1990 149 87
1991 155 75
1992 173 77
1993 196 105
1994 171 89
Totals 2,479 1,591
Source: California Department of Justice
Killing Stopped When Suspect Jailed
CRIME: Authorities say DNA and confessions link him to the string of slayings.
In the last months of 1979, many in
On Feb. 18, 1980, Gerald Parker was arrested for the rape of a
Parker, 41, has allegedly been linked by confessions and DNA tests to the slayings. A news conference is scheduled to be held by authorities today to detail the killings.
Police told former
Parker is in Corchran State Prison on a parole violation, said Jack Tanaka, re-entry oordinator for the state parole agency.
When the slayings stopped in late 1979, authorities speculated the killer left the state or had been jailed for another crime.
Court documents show that by February 1980, Parker _ a staff sergeant at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station _ had been arrested twice, for the
Parker was arrested for the rape Feb. 15, 1980, the same day the
Parker drove the girl around for 45 minutes before stopping at a
A military police officer, Staff Sgt. Larry Coyle, heard a radio description of the man and van and spotted Parker near his black Dodge van. Parker initially denied any involvement, but blurted, "I'm guilty, I did it," when he learned the victim was going to look at him, court records say.
He was sentenced to six years in prison for rape and kidnapping.
Before his sentencing, Parker described himself as the victim of a troubled childhood. He had 11 siblings, he said, and his mother died when he was 8.
Parker, who is black, said he was shuttled to his grandmother's in
Documents tell of a troubled life: By the time he was 9, he was sniffing glue. He ran away from home several times and burglarized a school when he was a teen-ager. He was sent to the Boys' Republic in
He never married, according to the report, and joined the Marine Corps around 1973. He enjoyed the service, but grew bored with the infantry and transferred to
Register staff writer Jason Thornbury contributed to this report
KILLING-SPREE
VICTIMS LISTED
Gerald Parker, 41, is suspected of killing six
Sandra Kay Fry, 17,
Kimberly Rawlins, 21,
Marolyn Carleton, 31,
Chantel Marie Green, stillborn,
Debora Jean Kennedy, 24,
Debra Lynn Senior, 17,
Killer Put
CITIES: In 1979, a string of slayings made nervousness the order of the day as police followed up all leads.
By JONATHAN VOLZKE, The Orange County Register, June 22, 1996, page A16
COSTA
Somewhere out there was a man who slipped into women's apartments at night to rape them and beat them. He was suspected of killing at least three
Police handed out 25,000 fliers with a drawing of a possible suspect. They manned all-night stakeouts and started foot patrols in an effort to capture the killer.
Seventeen
Ultimately, police turned to hypnotizing a 9-year-ol! d victim and even called on psychics.
"We were doing everything we possibly could to find the guy," Lt. Tom Warnack recalled Friday. "We followed every possible lead we could."
They never considered Gerald Parker, a Marine Corps staff sergeant, who was arrested for raping a
On June 7, the Orange County Sheriff's Department notified
DNA samples from the attack had been run through a stat! e database in hopes of a match.
On June 11, Costa Mesa Detective Bill Redmond and retired Detective Lynda Giesler flew to the state prison at Corcoran, where Parker was being held on a probation violation. He agreed to talk with them.
Scientific evidence and his statements widened the case, authorities said.
A search warrant was served June 14 on Parker at Corcoran to collect samples of his DNA.
On Friday, he was charged with the slayings of three
"It was a long time ago, but I'm glad they got him," said Randy Garell, owner of the Grant Boys gun store on
SUCCESS: Deputy district attorneys don't have time to celebrate. They've got more work to do.
Veteran prosecutors Mel Jensen and Mike Jacobs quietly left a news conference Friday while the county's top law-enforcement officers were still explaining how their agencies helped solve six 1970s murders.
They had more work to do.
It was Jensen and Jacobs who designed a program to use 1990s technology to help crack murders of the county's past. The news that the first case they examined helped link six murders to one man _ and led to the release of a man wrongly jailed for 17 years _ gave them no reason to relax.
"It's really like the tip of the iceberg," Jacobs said, while praising detectives who did the investigations. "Obviously, it's a significant start. But there's a lot of other cases."
The two
"We were looking for cases that were similar and we found there was no database; no one kept track," Jacobs said. "We were shocked."
So the two prosecutors and one of the office's investigators, Ron Shave, began assembling a computer database that would help them identify similar unsolved killings.
After spending hundreds of hours leafing through yellowed coroner's records, Jensen and Jacobs noticed similarities in many of the cases. They asked themselves: Were serial killers responsible for many of the killings?
The prosecutors decided to work with detectives from across the county to focus on 110 unsolved killings dating back to 1972. The suspects in those cases left behind physical trails that could be traced with new technology, including DNA testing.
They figured their best resource would be the state Department of Justice's computer database of DNA samples drawn from state prison inmates convicted of sexual assaults and other types of violent crimes.
Late last month, the state computer database linked DNA from those crimes to Gerald Parker, a 41-year-old former
"The larger you sweep the net of possible suspects, the more likely you are to solve an unsolved case because you'll have more possible people in there," Jacobs said. "We expect that we'll solve more that way."
Many obstacles remain, however, namely finding a way to pay for the project. Sheriff's crime lab officials say they have five overburdened DNA specialists who struggle to keep up with their current caseload. Criminalists did the work that led to Parker's arrest _ and the release of wrongly convicted Kevin Lee Green _ between other assignments.
"We could easily double our staff and still have a backlog," said Frank Fitzpatrick, the sheriff's forensic science director. "These cases are not the only cases that these people work on. The No. 1 priority is the case going to trial."
A state agency that funds crime-fighting grants earlier this year declined to fund the unsolved-homicide project. Prosecutors on Friday said they hope that may change now that the project helped
"DNA is going to revolutionize crime-fighting, the same way fingerprints did in 1902," Attorney General Dan Lungren said recently. "The taking and matching of fingerprints has wrapped up literally tens of millions of crimes, which otherwise might never have been solved. DNA will fuel a similar revolution."
Evidence of that came to
"I was very pleased, particularly for
Jacobs and Jensen went to lunch after
"We were too busy to have a beer," Jacobs said. "We'll do it some day."
The Lives and Deaths of a Serial Killer's Victims
A look at the lives and deaths of the five women and stillborn infant allegedly killed by murder suspect Gerald Parker.
Who: Sandra Kay Fry
Age: 17
Location of killing:
Date: Dec. 2, 1978
It was a December morning in 1978 when when the mother of nine children awakened inexplicably from sleep. Gladys Fry rose from bed and walked to a spot just inside the front door of her family's
"She was screaming bloody murder . . . a blood-curdling scream," Thomas Fry, one of four brothers, recalled Friday.
"We all came running out of our rooms, the lights came on, and she was falling to the floor," he said. "We were trying to calm her down and figure out what the problem was, and then the police walked up to the door."
Sandra Kay Fry, 17, had been raped and killed only minutes earlier in the apartment she had moved into only three days before.
"A mother always knows," said Thomas Fry, now 36.
Sandra Fry, a former student at
Records show she was bludgeoned with a blunt object at about 12:35 a.m. in the Lincoln Arms apartments, on
"It's kind of ironic how it's gone full circle," said Sgt. Steve Rodig, who responded to the crime scene as a patrolman.
Rodig confirmed Friday that serial-murder suspect Gerald Parker confessed to murdering Fry during an interview in state prison. He was later linked to the case by physical evidence, according to Rodig.
Thomas Fry said word of Parker's arrest has reopened old wounds.
"With what this individual did to my family and my sister . . . he does not deserve to walk on Earth," he said. "She was a little sweetheart. Basically, she was just venturing off into the world, trying to make her mark in life."
Who: Kimberly Rawlins
Age: 21
Location of killing:
Date: April 1, 1979
Kimberly Rawlins had been in her new apartment less than 2 1/2 months when she was found dead on her bed.
In 1988, Rawlins' sister Cheryl described her younger sister, who worked in the shipping department of the Shiley medical laboratory, as "very bubbly. She was just a real person. She worked hard and played hard and had a lot of real friends."
Who: Marolyn Carleton
Age: 31
Location of killing:
Date: Sept. 14, 1979
There was a witness to the death of Marolyn Carleton the night she was sexually assaulted and killed in her
A published report recounted a harrowing scene: Lt. Jack Calnon, then with the Costa Mesa Police Department, told how the killer walked straight toward the boy. He said nothing to the boy, but "just walked out the door and very gently moved the boy aside," Calnon said.
A month after the killing, police, at their wits' end to capture the "bedroom basher," hypnotized the boy to see if he could help them improve on a crude sketch of the killer.
The effort at hypnosis was unsuccessful, and Carleton's slaying remained unsolved until a recent breakthrough.
Carleton, who taught self-actualization courses from her apartment at the time of her slaying, was a widow. Like many of the other women who were attacked during this period, her apartment had a ground-floor entry that was shielded from the street. Published accounts of the time indicated that Carleton had not locked her door or windows on the night she was attacked.
Efforts to reach her son this week were unsuccessful.
Who: Chantal Marie Green
Age: stillborn
Location of killing:
Date: Sept. 30, 1979
Chantal Marie Green suffocated in her mother's womb, making her the youngest victim of the "bedroom basher." Her mother didn't immediately know that she had lost her baby _ or recalled that she had been pregnant _ when she emerged from her coma after the beating.
Planning for her baby, her mother, Dianna D'Aiello, chose the name "Chantal," after her childhood pen pal in
"I wonder about what it would be like to have a 16-year-old daughter . . . what she would look like," said D'Aiello, 36, who has an 8-year-old daughter with her husband, David Langenberger.
Who: Debora Jean Kennedy
Age: 24
Location of killing:
Date: Oct. 7, 1979
Debora Kennedy, 24, had been working for six years as an assembler of cassette tapes at Memorex in Santa Ana before she was slain.
Records show she was sharing an apartment with her sister, Yvette La Vey, in the 15500 block of Boleyn _ the residence in which she was raped and killed at about 10:30 a.m. Oct. 7, 1979.
Kennedy, who had never married, died of severe skull fractures, according to records.
Efforts to reach members of her family this week were unsuccessful.
Who: Debra Lynn Senior
Age: 17
Location of killing:
Date: Oct. 21, 1979
Debra Lynn Senior had graduated that summer from
She had moved into the apartment with a friend only two months earlier, making her start on her own with her salary derived from driving a delivery car for a blueprint and graphics firm. She and her roommate attended a party for members of the college cross-country team that night, but at 10:30 p.m., Senior decided she wanted to go home early. Her roommate discovered her body at 3 a.m.
Published reports at the time described her as "a sweet girl." Her brother, Michael Senior of
Register staff writers Dan Chang, Tony Saavedra, Bryon MacWilliams and Jonathan Volzke contributed to this report.
LIVES IN COLLISION
PEOPLE: The story of Kevin Green and Gerald Parker reverberates across the country.
Both were Orange County Marines, imprisoned for violent crimes and dishonorably discharged from the service. Now their lives are intertwined by strands of DNA.
One may ultimately lose his life as a serial killer. The other got his life back as a man wrongly convicted of murder.
The story of Marine Staff Sgt. Gerald Parker _ accused this week of being the "bedroom basher" _ and Cpl. Kevin Lee Green reverberated Friday throughout the country. A new DNA procedure and confessions showed that Green was innocent of bludgeoning his wife and killing his unborn baby in 1979. The culprit, prosecutors allege, was Parker, who also is being accused of killing five other women in
Green, 37, stepped off a TWA flight Friday and into his family's arms in
He missed the deaths of both his grandmothers and one grandfather. He missed the weddings of a brother and a sister. He missed the births of his nieces and nephews. But he was home at last.
"A lot has happened. I've got kids to introduce him to," said Green's uncle Leslie Joyce from his home in Holts Summit, Mo. "We've all been hoping and praying and believing in the best. We knew the person, saw him grow up, and (murder) didn't fit the character."
Green steadfastly insisted he was innocent and from his cell at
Court records also showed that Green passed at least one, and perhaps two, polygraph tests before his Orange County Superior Court trial in
"He was `The Fugitive' in real life. This is a scary deal," Brower said. "He told me, `I've prayed every day for this since I was arrested.' "
The DNA test that freed Green and tied Parker to the killings became available to
The test allows scientists to compare very small samples of deoxyribonucleic acid, while previous tests required large samples.
Green was convicted largely on the testimony of then-wife Dianna D'Aiello, who suffered brain damage and amnesia from the beating. She also said he had abused her in the past, which Green also denies.
Despite his erroneous incarceration, Brower said Green is not angry and may have no grounds to sue
"He is generally of the belief that nobody did anything intentionally wrong," Brower said. "It was a terrible mistake. They weren't bad people or stupid people."
State Department of Corrections records show that Green's tenure in prison was not unblemished. He was disciplined in January 1985 for having 11.8 grams of marijuana and possessing a prison weapon. Before the beating, Green was arrested in
In a prison ceremony, he was married a third time in 1985 to Darlene Busby, who is 19 years his senior. Green, trained in the military as a helicopter mechanic, has a daughter in
At a news conference Friday, prosecutors and police tried to put a positive face on the wrongful incarceration, saying the arrest of the right suspect was good news and the freeing of Green "better news."
Orange County District Attorney Michael Capizzi said police and prosecutors did everything they could at the time to make sure they had the right man. Capizzi added that Dianna D'Aiello, despite her injuries, appeared "very credible." D'Aiello lapsed into a coma after the attack, leaving her brain-damaged and with a speech impediment. Her memory gradually returned, but she suffered lapses. At a preliminary hearing, she couldn't recall her own name.
Capizzi acknowleged those problems Friday, but said that "Efforts were made, I'm told, to determine her credibility. Experts were consulted. They examined her."
Orange County Sheriff Brad Gates conceded that his stomach dropped when he heard the wrong man had been sent to prison for nearly 17 years.
"My comment was, `I'm glad that wasn't my brother,' " Gates said.
As legal pundits debated her testimony, D'Aiello remained confused Friday, saying she remembers only Green hitting her with his keys. She also was fearful that the world would forget that she, too, was a victim _ a victim, forensic tests conclude, of Gerald Parker, whose DNA was matched with the sperm taken from D'Aiello's body.
A trail of forensic evidence led to Parker, authorities said Friday.
After his arrest in a 1980 rape, Parker's DNA sample was placed in the Department of Justice database, said Steve Telliano, spokesman for Attorney General Dan Lungren.
Two
Using the new DNA test, scientists came up with a genetic code that was entered into the Department of Justice's computer database in
Experts there called
The code tied Parker to a July 20, 1979, attack on a