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No physical evidence linked Douglas Stewart Carter to the murder but he signed a confession he later said was coerced. Now new analysis of DNA evidence has excluded him as a possible match.
Douglas Stewart Carter will be bailed after spending 41 years behind bars. A Utah man will be released on bail after spending decades on death row, following newly analysed DNA evidence from a murder he was convicted of in 1985.
Douglas Stewart Carter was sentenced to death that same year after a jury found him guilty of murdering Eva Olesen, the aunt of the police chief at the time in Provo, where she was killed. No physical evidence linked him to the crime scene, but Carter was convicted partly based on a signed confession he says was coerced.
Two witnesses at his original trial also later said they had been bribed by police and threatened with deportation if they did not implicate him. Carter, originally from Chicago, was living with his mother in Utah at the time of Olesen's murder on February 27, 1985. Olesen's husband told police he found her dead in their home, partially undressed and with her hands tied. Douglas Stewart Carter was 29 at the time of Eva Olesen's murder.
Carter's defence attorneys have said witnesses saw a white man fleeing the crime scene and an investigator at the time suppressed evidence pointing to other suspects, including the husband, Orla Olesen. They allege that prosecutors were close to filing charges against Mr Olesen, but a Provo police lieutenant asked them not to so he could continue investigating. Carter was identified soon after, according to court documents, suspected of killing Olesen during a robbery.
By April he had fled Utah believing he was a suspect in an unrelated assault case, and was apprehended two months later in Nashville, Tennessee. In the same year he was convicted and sentenced to death, after a trial in which the defence called no witnesses. , arguing he did not receive a fair trial due to his race and the victim's relation to the police chief.
The following year, the Utah Supreme Court overturned Carter's sentence, citing an error in how the jury was instructed. He was again sentenced to death after a 1992 retrial, and numerous appeals were rejected in the following years. But in 2011, two witnesses who said Carter bragged about killing Olesen at his original trial were tracked down in Mexico. They said they had been told to lie in court and were given cash and gifts by police.
They also said they were threatened with deportation if they did not implicate Carter. Years of legal wrangling followed before the Utah Supreme Court last year ordered a new trial, citing "multiple instances of intentional misconduct" by police and a prosecutor. A two-month retrial was scheduled for 2027 but last week new analysis emerged of DNA evidence collected at the crime scene.
The results excluded Carter as a possible match to blood found on a doorknob and genetic material recovered from the knife used to stab Olesen. Prosecutors told Judge Derek Pullan that reassessing Carter's bail was "necessary and fair" in light of the new evidence. Carter's attorney said he would be placed in accommodation near his son, who was adopted as an infant and did not learn about the conviction until years later.
"We are profoundly grateful to see Doug finally go home, but we are also heartbroken by the theft of his life," Theresa Olesen, a daughter-in-law of Eva, said while the family was hoping for a "concrete match", the results did not mean Carter was not at the crime scene. "There are other factors and hopefully the investigation will continue.
"They said the new evidence did not necessarily exonerate Carter, noting the handgun used to shoot Olesen was never found and his confession.
Utah Man Released Douglas Stewart Carter Eva Olesen Sentence Dna Analysis Evidence
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