DNA Tests Free 2 Inmates

Two Oklahoma inmates who each served 12 years in prison on a murder conviction were freed Thursday, after a judge dismissed charges against them. Recent DNA tests from the crime scene did not match either man.

Dennis Fritz, 49, and Ron Williamson, 46, have said all along that they had nothing to do with the killing of a woman in 1982.

Fritz had been serving a life sentence and Williamson was sentenced to death, though a federal appeals court ruled in 1997 that he should get a new trial because of inadequate defense at his first trial.

"I wouldn't say I'm angry at this point," Fritz said at an impromptu courthouse news conference where he sat in the arms of his mother and daughter. "I was angry at one time, very bitter. I am upset to the point I would like to do everything I can to prevent this from happening to someone else."

The investigation now centers on one of the men who testified against Williamson and who escaped from a prison public works crew in Purcell on Wednesday, District Attorney Bill Peterson said.

Glen Gore, 38, was implicated in the same DNA tests from the crime scene that exonerated Fritz and Williamson. No charges have been filed against Gore, who was serving three 40-year sentences for burglary, kidnapping and shooting with intent to injure.

District Judge Tom Landrith ordered a new trial for Fritz as a procedural matter but then immediately dismissed the murder charges against both men in the slaying of Debra Carter.

"We can never replace the 12 years the defendants have been incarcerated, nor can we forget Debra Carter. All we can do is go forward," Landrith said.

Peterson said there was a moral, ethical and legal obligation to dismiss the case.

"I believe it is incumbent based on the evidence that this case should be dismissed against them," he said.

As Landrith gave the order releasing both men, Fritz stood quietly while Williamson replied "Thank you, judge."

Carter's death in her apartment was attributed to asphyxiation from a washcloth stuffed down her throat and a ligature, possibly an electric blanket cord, pulled around her neck. She also was sexually assaulted.

The charges were dismissed after Mary Long, a criminologist with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, testified that hair and semen samples submitted for DNA testing did not match either man.

"This case should have never been prosecuted," Fritz told The Ada Evening News this week. "The evidence they had against me was insufficient and if the police had done an adequate investigation of all the suspects, this may have never happened."

Hair-comparison tests, testimony from jailhouse informants and a dream recounted by Williamson helped persuade jurors to sentence him to death.

The dismissal was set in motion four years ago, when Fritz contacted the Innocence Project, an organization that reviews hundredof cases of people who claim they have been falsely convicted, usually of rape or murder, and helps arrange for DNA tests that were unavailable until recent years.

O.J. Simpson attorney Barry Scheck, who co-founded the Innocence Project, became his lawyer.

The dismissals today were the 61st and 62nd cases where prisoners in the United States had been exonerated after post-conviction DNA testing, Scheck said.

By Jay Hughes