William O’Dell Harris

The Crime

On Dec. 18, 1984, a 26-year-old nurse named C.W. was attacked and raped on her walk home from work. Afterwards, she was taken to the hospital and a rape kit was taken.

The Investigation

In March 1985, the police showed C.W. a photographic lineup that included 17-year-old William O’Dell Harris Jr., a state wrestling champion with no criminal record. Initially, C.W. said she knew Mr. Harris — he was her neighbor — and that he was not her attacker. This information was not disclosed to the defense until after Mr. Harris had been convicted of the crime. 

Four months later, C.W. viewed a live lineup and identified Mr. Harris as her assailant. On July 25, Mr. Harris was arrested and charged with first-degree rape.

The Trial

Although Mr. Harris was only 17 — a juvenile under West Virginia criminal law — he was prosecuted as an adult. He went to trial in Kanawha County Circuit Court in July 1987. C.W. identified Mr. Harris as her attacker in court, and the county sheriff’s deputy confirmed that C.W. had selected Mr. Harris in a live lineup.

Fred Zain, a serologist and director of the West Virginia State Police Crime Laboratory, testified that the genetic markers in the semen left by the assailant matched those of Mr. Harris and excluded 96.1% of the population.

Mr. Harris testified that he was with his girlfriend at the time of the crime, which she confirmed.

On July 24, a jury convicted Mr. Harris of second-degree sexual assault. He was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison.

The Exoneration

In 1992, Glen Woodall, who had been convicted in 1987 of two rapes in Cabell County, West Virginia — in part based on similarly flawed testimony by Mr. Zain — was exonerated by DNA testing. That testing revealed that Mr. Zain had testified falsely about the serology results in the case. 

Subsequently, the West Virginia Supreme Court ordered a review of all cases handled by Mr. Zain, which concluded in 1993 that the serologist had fabricated evidence in more than 100 cases between 1986 and 1989.

One week later, Mr. Harris’ attorney George Castelle filed a motion requesting DNA testing. He argued that when the victim and perpetrator shared the same blood group markers, as they did in Mr. Harris’ case, no male suspect could be excluded because the victim’s blood group markers could be “masking” the perpetrator’s. The failure to inform the jury of this fact was misleading.

On Dec. 29, 1993, the court ordered prosecutors to release the trial evidence for testing. On July 21, 1994, Mr. Harris was released on a $200,000 bond. The judge once again ordered the prosecutor to release the evidence for DNA testing, but the sheriff’s department stated that all evidence had been lost. 

Shortly after, however, an investigator at the public defender’s office found a slide at the medical center where the rape kit had been taken.

On Sept. 13, 1994, a hearing was held on a prosecution motion to reconsider the order to release the evidence. At the conclusion of the hearing, the court ordered for a fourth time that the evidence be released for DNA testing. 

In November 1994, after the prosecution balked, Mr. Castelle filed a motion seeking to hold the prosecution in contempt of court. At a hearing on the motion, the district attorney stated that the victim had not cooperated with giving a blood sample but that his office had sent the slide for testing.

On May 1, 1995, Dr. David Bing of the Center for Blood Research in Boston, Massachusetts, reported that Mr. Harris was excluded as the source of the sperm on the slide. The prosecution sought independent testing, which confirmed the exclusion.

On Nov. 3, 1995, Mr. Harris’ case was dismissed. His lawyers subsequently discovered that the police had withheld a report from the defense noting that C.W. had described her attacker as 5 feet 7 inches tall. Mr. Harris was six inches taller. 

Mr. Harris later settled a wrongful conviction lawsuit against the State of West Virginia for $1.8 million. He also received an additional $2.5 million settlement after filing a separate lawsuit against the state, an insurance company, and a law firm for delaying his release by engaging in a coverup early in the Zain scandal.

Mr. Harris died in North Carolina in 2016. He was 49.