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“The science has proved that Mr. Dail is innocent,” said Vickory, who worked in the district attorney's office when Dail was prosecuted. “He didn't do it. The evidence is so overwhelmingly strong, there's no need to wait.”
The rape occurred Sept. 4, 1987, when an intruder entered an apartment window and raped the girl, defense attorneys said.
The dismissal follows an investigation by the nonprofit N.C. Center for Actual Innocence, which began looking into the case in 2001. Dail has always said he did not commit the crime, the center said in a news release, although the victim identified him and hair found at the scene was found to be “microscopically consistent” with his.
Dail was sentenced to two life sentences plus 18 years in 1989 on charges of first-degree rape, first-degree burglary, first-degree sexual offense, taking indecent liberties with a minor and lewd and lascivious behavior.
The Durham-based center is manned by law and journalism students from several North Carolina universities. The center said police, court officials and others have said throughout that all evidence in the case - including a rape kit, bed sheets and a nightgown - had been destroyed.
But Christine Mumma, Dail's attorney and the center's director, decided to ask one more time. That's when a court clerk told her that one police officer, now deceased, kept evidence from all his cases. The box with the nightgown, sheet and other evidence was found in a bicycle closet, Vickory said.
The test of semen recovered from the victim's nightgown did not match his DNA, Vickory said, who got the test results Monday afternoon from the State Bureau of Investigation.
Mumma said the lab has already matched DNA found on the nightgown to someone now in prison.
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On the 'Net:
http://www.law.duke.edu/innocencecenter/
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Information from: The News & Observer, http://www.newsobserver.com
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