Charles Irvin Fain

The Crime

At about 8:20 a.m. on February 24, 1982, 9-year-old Daralyn Johnson left her home on Greenleaf Avenue in Nampa, Idaho, to make the six-block walk to Lincoln Elementary School. At 4 p.m., when a friend who usually walked home with Daralyn went to the Johnson home to ask if Daralyn could come out to play, Daralyn’s mother called the school and learned that her daughter had never arrived. 

Three days later, fishermen discovered the girl’s body in a small creek near the Snake River at Walters Ferry, about 15 miles south of Nampa. An autopsy determined that she had been sexually assaulted, knocked unconscious by a blow to the head, and drowned in the creek. 

The Investigation

The police investigation involved, in part, collecting hair samples from numerous men in the area to compare to hairs found on the child’s body.

More than a year later, on March 7, 1983, police questioned 35-year-old Charles Fain. His hair was similar to hair found on the child’s body, and he owned a car similar to one seen near the area police believed that the girl had been abducted. In addition, Mr. Fain lived a block away from the Johnson family, although he had not moved there until seven months after the murder. 

Mr. Fain denied any involvement in the crimes and passed a polygraph test. 

Later that day, he was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping, and lewd and lascivious conduct with a minor. 

The Trial

In October 1983, Mr. Fain went to trial in the Third Judicial District Court in Canyon County, Idaho. 

FBI agent Douglas Deedrick, an analyst in the agency’s microscopic hair analysis unit, testified that he had compared strands of hair found on the girl’s body to Mr. Fain’s hair. While he conceded that point-by-point comparisons could not be made as with fingerprints, he claimed that human hair had many characteristics that analysts could compare. “Based upon the appearance and different characteristics, it was my conclusion that the two hairs could have originated from Charles Fain,” the agent testified. 

FBI Agent Robert Hallett testified that he compared Mr. Fain’s left shoe to shoeprints found in the mud, close to where the girl’s body was found. He stated that the make of the shoeprint was consistent with Mr. Fain’s shoe, saying that it was “possible that this shoe made this impression.” He added that although it was a common type of boat shoe sole, the wear patterns on the shoe individualized the print. 

A former Canyon County detective testified that swabs taken from the girl’s body during the autopsy had been discarded by Dr. Kenneth Droulard, the pathologist who had conducted the procedure. 

A 12-year-old girl testified at the preliminary hearing that she had seen a car resembling Mr. Fain’s car approach Daralyn on her walk to school, and that when the car made a U-turn, she had believed Daralyn to be in the car. However, at the trial, she noted that she had only seen one person in the car — the driver. He had had a beard and long hair, resembling Mr. Fain at the time of the crime. 

Two jailhouse informants, Bobby Roberson and Ricky Chilton, who shared a jail cell with Mr. Fain, testified that they had heard him admit to the crime. Both received reduced sentences in exchange for their testimony, although Mr. Chilton’s deal was not disclosed to the defense at the time of the trial. 

At the time, Mr. Chilton faced charges of fraud, escape, armed robbery, and kidnapping, which carried possible combined sentences of 230 years. While Mr. Chilton claimed that he was testifying voluntarily with no agreement, he later pleaded guilty to his own charges, got a substantially reduced sentence, and was released after three years. He would later assert that the prosecution “had conspired to force him into testifying,” and that the prosecutor’s office had made death threats against him. 

John Thompson, an acquaintance of Mr. Fain’s, testified that at one point prior to his arrest, Mr. Fain had asked, “What would you say if I told you I killed someone?” 

Mr. Fain denied committing the crime. He testified that he had been 360 miles away in Redmond, Oregon, at the time of the crime. Other witnesses corroborated that testimony.  

On Nov. 4, 1983, Mr. Fain was convicted on all charges. In March 1984, he was sentenced to death. 

Mr. Fain appealed to the Idaho Supreme Court, which ordered Judge Doolittle to hold a special hearing to investigate the destruction of the swabs of semen taken from the victim’s body. The judge, however, found that the samples had been destroyed in good faith. In 1989, the Idaho Supreme Court upheld Mr. Fain’s convictions, but ordered the judge to hold a new sentencing hearing. The judge once again sentenced Mr. Fain to death, and in 1991, the Idaho Supreme Court affirmed the decision. 

The Exoneration

In 1993, Mr. Fain’s lawyers filed a federal petition for a writ of habeas corpus to vacate his conviction. Five years later, in August 1998, Mr. Fain’s legal team filed a motion for mitochondrial DNA testing of the hairs, which had not been available at the time of the crime. In November 1998, U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill granted the request. 

In June 2001, the Bode Technology Group reported that it had tested two of the hairs recovered from the victim’s body and that Mr. Fain had been excluded as the source. On July 6, Judge Winmill granted the habeas petition, vacated Mr. Fain’s convictions, and gave the prosecution 60 days to retry Mr. Fain or dismiss the charges. 

The prosecution did not seek a retrial. On Aug. 23, 2001, the charges were dismissed and Mr. Fain was released. 

In May 2020, the Canyon County Prosecutor’s Office said that DNA testing implicated David Dalrymple, who had been serving a sentence of 20 years to life for the 2004 sexual assault of a minor, as the real perpetrator. 

In 2021, Mr. Fain was granted a certificate of innocence from the state of Idaho, and later that year received $1,385,963 in compensation for his wrongful conviction. 

In January 2022, Mr. Dalrymple was charged with rape and murder, and was convicted in June 2024. He was subsequently sentenced to two consecutive terms of life in prison without parole.