STORY: "State: Innocent man served 30 years in Newport News 'bite mark case," by reporter Travis Fain, published by the Daily News on April 7, 2016.
PHOTO CAPTION: "Keith
Allen Harward is charged with murdering a Newport News man. Harward,
60, is serving life in prison plus 65 years. DNA tests done within the
last year point instead to his former shipmate aboard the USS Carl
Vinson, a man who died 10 years ago in an Ohio prison."
GIST: "A man twice convicted of rape and murder in a 1980s Newport
News case that turned on bite mark comparisons has been exonerated by
DNA evidence, Virginia Attorney General
Mark Herring said Wednesday. Keith
Allen Harward, 60, is serving life in prison plus 65 years. DNA tests
done within the last year point instead to his former shipmate aboard
the USS Carl Vinson, a man who died 10 years ago in an Ohio prison. “It is clear that Keith Harward is innocent,” Herring said. Herring's
office, along with the Newport News Office of the Commonwealth's
Attorney, has backed a writ of actual innocence for Harward, which would
have to be granted by the Virginia Supreme Court. Gov. Terry
McAuliffe's administration is pursuing a potential pardon in addition to
the writ, but that investigation is just underway.........(Attorney General) Herring
said he spoke to a living victim in the case Wednesday but declined to
go into detail. A man sneaked into the woman's bedroom in 1982 and
killed her husband with a crowbar, according to a case summary that
appears in a Wednesday court filing from the attorney general. He then raped her repeatedly, threatening to “get” her three sleeping children if she didn't do as he said. The
attacker left visible bite marks on her thighs and calves, and those
marks were Harward's downfall. A Newport News shipyard security guard
reported seeing a sailor with a Carl Vinson badge and E-3 rank insignia
enter the 50th Street gate early on the morning of the murder, wearing a
uniform that seemed to be splattered in blood, court records state. The victims' home was not far from the gate. But the victim never identified her attacker. She described a clean-shaven man, when Harward had a mustache, the attorney general's rundown states. Teeth marks lead to Harward's conviction: In 1983, Harward appeared in court after being involved in an altercation with a woman he was accused of biting. Later, a New York dentist matched Harward's teeth to marks on the victim in the 1982 assault. His attorney at the time, Roy Lasris, said Wednesday that the marks indeed looked close. Then,
the shipyard security guard picked Harward out of a photo lineup. Two
forensic odontologists testified that Harward left the bite marks on the
victim's legs. “They put two and two together and only got three,” Lasris said Wednesday. The
initial conviction was thrown out on a technicality. A second jury
convicted Harward in 1986 on charges of first-degree murder, rape,
forcible sodomy and robbery.
‘Proud of that case': No one now at the
Newport News Police Department
was involved in the case, which was prosecuted during Commonwealth's
Attorney Willard Robinson's lengthy tenure. Robinson has since died, as
has the lead detective in the case, C.D. “Chuck” Spinner. The
crime became known as “the bite mark case,” and it was mentioned
prominently in Daily Press articles marking Spinner's retirement, and
then his death. A decorated detective, Spinner told reporters he
believed Harward would have killed again had he not been caught. He had dental impressions from the case bronzed and kept them. “He was proud of that case,” Newport News Capt. Marvin Evans told the Daily Press upon Spinner's death in 2003. The
Warwick Kiwanis Club named Spinner outstanding police officer for his
work on the case, which was believed to be the first capital conviction
in Virginia based on bite mark evidence taken from a survivor. Newport
News police spokesman Lou Thurston said Wednesday he doesn't believe
the department uses bite marks any more to make cases. Moran said the
state crime lab doesn't use them because “it just doesn't achieve the
level of certification … that would justify our Department of Forensic
Science to use it.” Lasris called it “simply bogus science.”
The entire story can be found at:
http://www.dailypress.com/news/crime/dp-nws-keith-allen-harward-20160406-story.html
PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
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/charlessmith
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html
Please
send any comments or information on other cases and issues of
interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.
