Wrongly convicted US man set free after 16 years

A Colorado man wrongly convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the rape and murder of a woman found strangled with a dog leash was exonerated on the basis of new DNA evidence and set free on Monday after spending more than 16 years behind bars. Robert "Rider" Dewey, 51, who had been incarcerated since 1995, walked out of a courthouse in Grand Junction, Colorado, a free man, accompanied by a woman he had been corresponding with from prison for the past year. Prosecutors earlier on Monday announced they were seeking an arrest warrant for a new suspect in the 1994 killing who was identified by DNA testing and is already serving a life sentence for a similar 1989 murder. "I get to step outside there, touch a tree, get a dog and kiss my girl," Dewey said on his release. A smiling Dewey also told reporters he was not angry about the injustice, asking,"What good would it do me?" "They threw me into a dark hole with just a pinhole of light," he said. "I had to stay positive." Dewey was sentenced to life without parole for the rape and murder of 19-year-old Jacie Taylor in the western Colorado town of Palisade. Taylor's partially clothed body was found in her bathtub in June 1994. She had been beaten, sexually assaulted and strangled with a dog leash. The latest DNA testing ruled out Dewey as the source of blood found on a shirt that also bore blood stains from Taylor. The original DNA analysis had already excluded him as the source of semen recovered from the crime scene and of scrapings taken from under the victim's fingernails. New analysis showed those additional samples matched the DNA of Douglas Thames, who is serving a life sentence without parole for the 1989 rape and strangulation of Susan Doll, 39, of Fort Collins, according to court papers filed in the Dewey case. Mesa County District Attorney Peter Hautzinger said before the court hearing that he felt "deep regret" for Dewey's conviction and told reporters his office was seeking an arrest warrant against Thames in connection with the Taylor slaying. He explained that Thames was not arrested in the Doll case until after Dewey's 1995 arrest in the Taylor murder, and Thames' DNA information was not contained in a statewide database for inmates back then. Dewey's lawyer, Danyel Joffe, said she submitted the Dewey case to the Colorado Justice Review Project, a program established in 2009 with a US$1.2 million (S$1.5 million) federal government grant that allows convicted felons to apply for DNA testing in their cases. Under Colorado law, a first-degree murder conviction carries an automatic life sentence without the possibility of parole. At Dewey's sentencing, then-Mesa County District Judge Charles Buss was quoted in local media as saying, "I am happy to impose it (a life sentence) on you." Dewey replied: "There's still a killer out there."