A Utah judge has ordered the release on bail of a 71-year-old man who spent 41 years on death row for murder, after newly analysed DNA evidence failed to match him.
Douglas Stewart Carter was sentenced to death in 1985 after being convicted of killing Eva Olesen, the aunt of Provo’s police chief at the time. He has always maintained his innocence and said a confession used against him was coerced.
Judge Derek Pullan said the DNA results further weakened the case, although he ruled that a reasonable jury could still find Carter guilty of murdering Mrs Olesen.
Carter must wear a GPS monitor and is barred from contacting the victim’s family. His lawyer, Neal Hamilton, said he would stay in extended accommodation near the family of his son, who was adopted as an infant and only learned about his father’s conviction years later.
Mr Hamilton said Carter would also need therapy after decades in prison. “He’s being released with 41 years of state-induced trauma and the effect it will have on him is very real,” he said.
DNA evidence excludes Carter as a possible match
Utah County prosecutors told the court that testing received on September 22 excluded Carter as a possible match to blood found on a doorknob and genetic material recovered from the handle of the knife used to stab Mrs Olesen. She had also been shot.
The Utah Supreme Court ordered a new trial last year after finding multiple instances of intentional misconduct by investigators and a prosecutor. A retrial had been scheduled for 2027, but prosecutors withdrew their notice that they intended to seek the death penalty last week.
Prosecutor Erwin Petilos said reassessing Carter’s bail was “necessary and fair” while the state continued to examine the remaining evidence. Prosecutors did not say whether the DNA would be used to search for other suspects.
The case against Carter relied on a signed confession and testimony from two witnesses who said he had boasted about killing Mrs Olesen. No physical evidence initially connected him to the crime scene, and both witnesses later recanted.
Carter, who is from Chicago, was living with his mother in Utah when Mrs Olesen was killed during what investigators treated as a robbery on February 27 1985. He fled the state two months later, believing he was wanted in an unrelated assault case, and was arrested in Nashville, Tennessee, in June.
He signed the confession during questioning by a Provo detective. Mr Hamilton has said Carter was held for two days alongside a friend who had also been arrested, and that Carter confessed in an attempt to protect him.
Carter later said police repeatedly threatened him and that his confession was false. He was convicted after a trial in which the defence called no witnesses, and was sentenced to death again following a 1992 retrial.
Witnesses alleged police offered cash and gifts
A major development came in 2011, when the two witnesses were found in Mexico. They said they had been instructed to lie, given cash and gifts by police, and warned not to disclose the payments.
They also alleged that police and prosecutors threatened them and their son with deportation unless they implicated Carter. More than a decade of legal proceedings followed before the Utah Supreme Court ordered a new trial.
Carter’s lawyers have argued that witnesses saw a White man fleeing the scene and that evidence pointing to other possible suspects was suppressed. They have also said investigators came close to charging Mrs Olesen’s husband, Orla, before a Provo police lieutenant asked prosecutors to delay any charges.
Theresa Olesen, the victim’s daughter-in-law, told the bail hearing that the family had serious concerns about Carter’s release. “It doesn’t mean he wasn’t there,” she said of the DNA findings. “We just want justice for Eva. And if he had any part of it we want that to be known.”
