STORY: "Douglas Prade's daughters stand by their father as he fights for new trial in 1997 murder of his ex-wife, Dr. Margo Prade," by reporter Ed Meyer, published by the Beacon Journal on January 2, 2016.
GIST: "Kenya and Sahara Prade remain strongly in their father’s corner and insist he was never capable of killing their mother. “That’s not in his character,” Kenya Prade said. During a Dec. 28 phone interview with the Beacon Journal, the sisters
said that they have never wavered from their belief since the day Dr.
Margo Prade was shot to death inside her van soon after arriving at the
parking lot of her Wooster Avenue medical office on the morning before
Thanksgiving 18 years ago. Investigators said it was clear that her killer was familiar with her route and knew she would be there. Her ex-husband, former Akron Police Capt. Douglas Prade, now 69,
remains in a state penitentiary awaiting a Summit County court ruling
that could result in a new trial. The pending decision rests with Judge Christine Croce’s findings from a
second round of hearings conducted in early November to review the
latest DNA evidence in the case. A decision could be announced sometime early this year. Testimony at those hearings by forensic scientists excluded Prade’s
genetic markers from the most scrutinized evidence in the case — a bite
mark impression left under two layers of a lab coat worn by Dr. Prade on
the morning of the slaying. ........The former police captain was found guilty of aggravated murder and
other crimes by a Summit County jury in 1998. In January 2013, he was
freed from prison after Summit County Common Pleas Judge Judy Hunter
ruled new DNA evidence proved his innocence. An appeal by prosecutors
ultimately sent him back to prison in October 2014. Hunter, now retired, heard four days of forensic testimony in November
2012 on what is, to date, the most advanced testing of the bite-mark
evidence. After a review of the lengthy case record, she concluded that
the exclusion of Douglas Prade’s DNA from small swatches of cloth from
the lab coat where Dr. Prade was bitten was “clear and convincing”
evidence of his innocence. Prade’s DNA also wasn’t found on any other sections of the lab coat. No jury today would convict Prade of the slaying, Hunter asserted in
her decision, and she ordered state prison officials to release him. After prosecutors challenged the ruling, the 9th District Court of
Appeals in Akron reversed Hunter and sent Prade back to prison in what
Croce has called a legal pingpong match. The case has reached this point, perhaps more contentious than ever,
because Hunter also issued a conditional order that Prade should get a
new trial if her decision was overturned on appeal. Sahara Prade said that she believes the case has become “a witch hunt” by authorities. Prosecutors should have concentrated their efforts “on what they need
to concentrate on – which is the main evidence that they presented in
the first trial, saying that the person who killed my mother put that
bite mark on her arm,” Sahara Prade said. “They need to pursue that
evidence and let my dad go so he can be back with his family.” ......... Beacon Journal stories from the jury’s decision in the 1998 trial
reported that prosecutors based their case “almost solely on
circumstantial evidence that was so compelling, jurors needed only four
hours to return a guilty verdict.” David Kelly, 56, a marketing director for a restaurant equipment firm in Columbus, was the Prade jury foreman.....During a recent interview, he said he didn’t know whether the advanced DNA test results would have changed the trial’s outcome. “If the trial was today,” he said, “everyone would obviously be of a
different mind. Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn’t. But from what we had
in 1998, we felt 99.9 percent sure he was guilty.” During Prade’s trial, DNA test results that were much less
scientifically accurate than today’s testing technology didn’t link him
to the doctor’s heavily blood-stained lab coat. “To us,” Kelly said of the panel’s verdict, “I don’t think DNA was ever a factor.” The cumulative effect of the state’s circumstantial evidence, he
stressed, carried the day, “and we went through everything when we
deliberated.” He also pointed out that Prade had loose-fitting dentures for his upper teeth. “The fact that his lower teeth matched the bite mark fairly well – it
sure looked like his teeth – played in as a factor,” Kelly said. In modern criminal trials, however, identifying a perpetrator by a
bite-mark impression alone has been discredited by court rulings in many
cases of wrongful arrest and conviction, his lawyers maintain."
The entire story can be found at:
http://www.ohio.com/news/local/douglas-prade-s-daughters-stand-by-their-father-as-he-fights-for-new-trial-in-1997-murder-of-his-ex-wife-dr-margo-prade-1.651786
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.
The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.
The entire story can be found at:
http://www.ohio.com/news/local/douglas-prade-s-daughters-stand-by-their-father-as-he-fights-for-new-trial-in-1997-murder-of-his-ex-wife-dr-margo-prade-1.651786
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.
The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.
