James Waller

The Crime

At around 6 a.m. on Nov. 2, 1982, a 12-year-old boy, identified as J.C., and his 7-year-old brother were alone in their family’s apartment in Dallas, Texas, after their mother and older brother had left for work. They woke to find a man in the house, wearing a cowboy hat and a bandana draped over the lower half of his face.

The man ordered J.C. to lay facedown on a pillow and sexually assaulted him. Before he left, he told J.C. that he was going to get a “friend” who would hurt the boy if he told anyone about the incident.

Afterwards, J.C. went to the hospital, where a rape kit was collected. Police collected J.C.’s bedsheet as additional evidence.

The Investigation 

It had been dark outside when J.C. woke, but despite this — and the man’s cowboy hat and bandana — the boy told police he had gotten a quick look at his attacker. He described him as a Black man, about 5 feet 8 inches tall, around 150 pounds.

The evening after the assault, J.C. was at a corner store near his apartment building when he thought he heard his assailant’s voice. He turned around and saw 26-year-old James Waller. 

Believing Mr. Waller to be his attacker, J.C. ran home and told the apartment manager. At about that same time, Mr. Waller, a fellow resident of the building, walked in.

The police were called. When they arrived, the apartment manager told police that she had seen a man wearing a cowboy hat and a bandana around 6 a.m. on the morning of the crime, but that she did not recognize Mr. Waller. 

Nonetheless, based on J.C.’s identification, Mr. Waller was arrested on Nov. 4, 1982 on a charge of aggravated sexual abuse.

The Trial

In January 1983, Mr. Waller went to trial in Dallas County Criminal District Court. J.C. identified him as his attacker on the stand. The defense noted that J.C.’s description of his attacker vastly differed from Mr. Waller himself, who was 6 feet 4 inches tall and far heavier than 150 pounds.

At trial, the apartment manager’s account of events had changed. She now identified Mr. Waller as the man she had seen wearing a cowboy hat and a bandana on the morning of the crime. She also mentioned that, 10 weeks after the attack, she had found an address book belonging to Mr. Waller outside of J.C.’s apartment. 

A forensic analyst testified that spermatozoa was found in the rape kit. No analysis was done on the sheets.

Three strands of Black hair fragments had been found on the sheet. Given that the victim and his family were white, the fragments were initially thought to have come from the attacker. A Dallas County Institute of Forensic Sciences analyst testified that the hairs did not resemble Mr. Waller’s, but that it was impossible to exclude him as the possible perpetrator based on hair alone. 

“If you wanted to say that this hair did not come from this individual, you would have to check it against every hair to be positive that it did not come from that individual,” the analyst said. “[One would] practically have to denude a person to make a proper comparison.”

Mr. Waller testified and denied committing the crime, stating that he had been at home asleep with his girlfriend. He explained that his family was forced to move out of the apartment two weeks after he was arrested, and had accidentally left behind the address book. He surmised that the new tenants may have thrown it away.

Mr. Waller’s girlfriend and cousin, who were staying with him at the apartment, both testified and corroborated his account.

On Feb. 1, 1983, a jury convicted Mr. Waller of aggravated sexual abuse. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

The Exoneration

Mr. Waller was released on parole in 1993.

In 2001, after saving up enough money for DNA testing, Mr. Waller requested testing on the rape kit evidence. The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) performed DNA testing, but were unable to produce a conclusive result. 

Undeterred, Mr. Waller then requested DNA testing on the hairs. He was excluded as the source of the hairs in 2002, but the prosecution successfully argued that this was not sufficient to overturn his conviction.

Later that year, the Innocence Project took on Mr. Waller’s case and found that the DPS laboratory still had “extracts” of evidence that could be tested. The Orchid Cellmark laboratory then performed testing on the extracts in 2006, and found that both Mr. Waller and the victim were excluded as the source of the DNA evidence.

On Dec. 19, 2006, 23 years after his conviction, Mr. Waller’s conviction was vacated and the case was dismissed. He was officially pardoned by Governor Rick Perry on March 9, 2007. 

Subsequently, Mr. Waller was awarded $1.2 million in state compensation and a $7,000 annuity.