Arvin McGee

The Crime

On Oct. 29, 1987, a 20-year-old woman, identified as C.G., was sweeping the floor of the laundromat where she worked in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when a man grabbed her, carried her to her car, and drove her to a secluded area. There, the man raped her in the back of the car, then placed her in the trunk and fled on foot.

C.G. managed to extricate herself and drove back to the laundromat where police were present, investigating what they believed had been a robbery.

The woman reported she had been abducted and raped. She was taken to a hospital where a rape kit was taken.

The Investigation

C.G. described her attacker as a 6-foot-tall Black man, with a slender build of about 150 pounds and red streaks in his hair. A police sketch artist drew a composite based on C.G.’s description. The sketch was posted on bulletin boards throughout the Tulsa Police Department.

In December 1987, an officer contacted the lead detective on the case, Randy Lawmaster, to inform him that the sketch resembled 25-year-old Arvin McGee Jr. On Feb. 16, 1988, Officer Lawmaster showed C.G. a five-person photographic lineup that included Mr. McGee. After first picking out someone else, the woman then identified Mr. McGee as her attacker.

On March 7, 1988, Mr. McGee was arrested. He was charged with one count of first-degree rape, one count of first-degree kidnapping, one count of robbery, two counts of forcible sodomy, and one count of unauthorized use of a car.

The Trial

During a preliminary hearing on March 31, 1988, C.G. identified Mr. McGee as her attacker. A defense motion to suppress the identification was denied.

Mr. McGee went to trial in Tulsa County District Court in February 1989. On Feb. 16, a mistrial was declared when the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict. The jury was split 11 to 1 in favor of conviction.

In September 1988, Mr. McGee went to trial a second time. On Sept. 15, after more than eight hours of deliberation, the jury convicted Mr. McGee and sentenced him to 67 years in prison. However, two weeks later, District Judge Bill Beasley vacated the conviction because one of the jurors had not signed the jury verdict forms. The juror admitted during a hearing on Sept. 30 that during the polling of the jury, she did not answer. She said, “I just wanted to leave.”

Mr. McGee went to trial a third time in June 1989. C.G. again identified him as her attacker. Police said $85 had been stolen from the laundromat. A Tulsa Police crime laboratory serologist testified that Mr. McGee’s blood type had been identified in the rape kit swabs and that his blood type was present in 19% of the population.

As the defense had done in the prior trials, evidence was presented that at the time of the crime, Mr. McGee was suffering from an injury requiring surgery, rendering him physically unable to carry out the crime.

On June 22, 1989, the jury convicted Mr. McGee of all the charges. Judge Beasley sentenced him to 150 years on the first-degree rape charge, 150 years in prison on the first-degree kidnapping charge, 20 years on the robbery charge, 20 years each on the two forcible sodomy charges, and five years on the unauthorized use of a car charge. The judge ordered the sentences to be served consecutively for a total of 365 years in prison.

The Exoneration

More than thirteen years later, Mr. McGee’s case was taken on by the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System. They arranged for DNA testing of the semen evidence. The results revealed that Mr. McGee was excluded as a contributor of the spermatozoa and, therefore, could not have been the perpetrator. A second round of testing ordered by Tulsa County prosecutors yielded the same results. 

On Feb. 26, 2002, Mr. McGee’s convictions were vacated, the charges were dismissed, and he was released from prison. He had spent more than 12 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. 

In September 2002, Oklahoma authorities revealed that the DNA profile from the biological evidence was that of Edward Alberty, who was serving a prison sentence for a rape in Washington County, Oklahoma. 

Mr. Alberty was charged with first degree rape and forcible sodomy, but the case was dismissed prior to trial because the statute of limitations had expired. 

In 2006, the city of Tulsa agreed to pay Mr. McGee $12.5 million to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit. 

In 2007, Mr. Alberty was convicted of unrelated burglary and other charges and sentenced to 15 years in prison.