Paul D. Kordonowy

The Crime

On July 25, 1987, a woman returned to her home in Sidney, Montana, after work, not realizing the back door was unlocked. She went to sleep after removing her hearing aids and glasses, and was later awoken by a man lying beside her on her bed. 

The woman, identified as K.B., said she saw him for less than a minute before he grabbed her and raped her.

The Investigation

K.B. was only able to provide police with general attributes of the perpetrator. She described him as a white man in his 20s or 30s, between 145 and 160 pounds, of average height with dark hair and a muscular build, wearing round-toed boots and a belt with a heavy buckle. Because of her poor hearing and sight, she ceased to go further in her description or to positively identify the assailant.

About a year and a half later, in January 1989, 24-year-old Paul Kordonowy was arrested for a similar attack in nearby Fairview, Montana. The nature of this rape was similar to the 1987 attack. The victim, identified as V.N.O., said that she woke up at 2 a.m. on Jan. 21 and saw a man sitting on the end of her bed before he raped her. 

Mr. Kordonowy was arrested days later. After V.N.O. identified him as her attacker, he was charged with sexual intercourse without consent, robbery, and aggravated kidnapping. 

Because of the similarity of the attack in 1989 Fairview to the 1987 rape in Sidney, about 12 miles away, Mr. Kordonowy became a suspect in the rape of K.B.

Forensic testing was performed on head and pubic hairs by Arnold Melnikoff, former head of the Montana Forensic Science Laboratory. He reported that the head and pubic hairs from Mr. Kordonowy could not be distinguished from hairs recovered from the rape kit. In addition, Julie Long, a serologist at the state crime laboratory, reported that she did blood typing and the results included Mr. Kordonowy.

Mr. Kordonowy was then charged with one count of aggravated burglary and one count of sexual intercourse without consent. 

The Trial

In August 1989, Mr. Kordonowy pleaded guilty to the charges in the Fairview rape case. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

In January 1990, Mr. Kordonowy went to trial in Richland County District Court for the Sidney rape case. The victim described the attack, but was unable to identify Mr. Kordonowy as her attacker. V.N.O. also testified and identified him as her attacker in Fairview.

Mr. Melnikoff testified that he could distinguish head and pubic hairs between different Caucasian individuals in 99 out of 100 cases. He stated that the head and pubic hairs from Mr. Kordonowy were indistinguishable from the suspect hairs recovered during the investigation, and that the probability of multiple hairs from another person matching the multiple crime scene hairs was 1 in 10,000. 

Ms. Long testified that she examined semen found on K.B.’s vaginal swaps and underwear. She stated that Mr. Kordonowy could be the source of a substance known as the H enzyme found in those samples. She also found a second substance, the A enzyme, which did not match Mr. Kordonowy. Ms. Long said it could have come from K.B.’s boyfriend, who had sex with her 3 days prior to the attack, or it simply could have been caused by bacteria.

On Jan. 18, 1990, Mr. Kordonowy was convicted of both charges. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

In December 1991, the Montana Supreme Court upheld his conviction and sentence.

The Exoneration

In October 2002, Jimmy Ray Bromgard, who had been convicted of a 1987 rape in Billings, Montana, largely on the basis of similar testimony by Mr. Melnikoff, was exonerated by DNA testing. The Innocence Project, which had obtained the testing for Mr. Bromgard, demonstrated in a reinvestigation that Mr. Melnikoff had testified falsely about the hair comparison evidence. There was insufficient empirical data on human hair characteristics to determine the likelihood of a match.

Lawyers for Mr. Kordonowy then obtained DNA testing of the evidence in the Sidney case. Test results excluded him as the source of the biological evidence. In May 2003, the prosecution dismissed his case. At the time, Mr. Kordonowy remained incarcerated for the Fairview rape case.

In March 2004, Mr. Melnikoff, who had left the Montana state crime laboratory to work in the Washington state crime laboratory, was fired after an audit uncovered sloppy procedures and evidence that he inflated his testimony to bolster prosecutions.