Carlton Lewis

The Crime

On the morning of Feb. 7, 1990, a maintenance worker discovered the body of 23-year-old Cheryl Coleman in an apartment on the south side of Syracuse, New York. Ms. Coleman’s clothing was in disarray, and she had bruises on her head, neck, and face. Syracuse police recovered a bloody two-by-four nearby. 

The Investigation

The police collected hairs from the apartment and Ms. Coleman’s body and clothing. Police also found a red knit cap. A medical examiner concluded Ms. Coleman had died of blunt-force trauma to her head. The medical examiner also collected a rape kit.

Police developed a list of 10 potential suspects — men who hung out at bars near the apartment or sold drugs in the neighborhood. One of the men on the list was 23-year-old Carlton Lewis.

On Feb. 10, 1990, Mr. Lewis and his wife, Brenda, went to the police station. Mr. Lewis told detectives he and his wife had stayed home on Feb. 6 because Brenda had just been released from jail. Mr. Lewis said he wasn’t near the apartment where Ms. Coleman was found and had not even been in that neighborhood since Feb. 3. Jail records corroborated the date of his wife’s release.

On Feb. 19, the police questioned 16-year-old William McKee, who had a prior conviction for attempted armed robbery. He signed a statement saying he saw Ms. Coleman and Mr. Lewis go behind a gray house with a man named Gregory Brown. About 15 or 20 minutes later, he said Mr. Lewis came out from behind the house and asked Mr. McKee to leave with him. Mr. McKee said he didn’t find out about Ms. Coleman’s death until the next day.

Police returned to Mr. Lewis’s house at 12:15 a.m. on Feb. 20, and he agreed to go to the police station, where he was interrogated for hours. Although the police said they read Mr. Lewis his Miranda rights, there were no notes or recording of the interview.

After the interrogation, the police typed up a three-page statement that Mr. Lewis signed. According to the statement, Mr. Lewis said Ms. Coleman approached him on the street to buy drugs. According to the statement, Mr. Brown then ran up and said, “I got it. I got it right here.”

Mr. Brown suggested they go to the empty apartment because the police were in the neighborhood. In the apartment, Mr. Brown offered Ms. Coleman drugs in exchange for sex. After they were done having sex, Ms. Coleman got dressed and asked for her drugs. Mr. Brown gave her something, which Ms. Coleman tasted and then said, “This ain’t real.” 

In the statement, Mr. Lewis said Mr. Brown and Ms. Coleman began fighting. In the hallway, Mr. Brown picked up a board and hit Ms. Coleman in the face. Mr. Lewis said he left the apartment, and when he saw Mr. McKee and some other young men, he told Mr. McKee “Greg had done something he had no business doing.” After Mr. Brown left, Mr. Lewis went back inside. When he came out, he told Mr. McKee that Ms. Coleman was badly hurt and Mr. Brown had hit her. In the statement, Mr. Lewis said Mr. McKee then went in and came back out, saying Ms. Coleman was dead.

After Mr. Lewis consented to give investigators his blood, hair, and fingernail samples, he was allowed to leave.

Police then re-interviewed Mr. McKee, who gave a second statement implicating himself, Mr. Brown and Mr. Lewis in the murder. 

Mr. McKee, Mr. Brown, and Mr. Lewis were arrested and charged with second-degree murder. 

The Trial

On July 26, 1990, Mr. McKee pled guilty to first-degree manslaughter and agreed to testify against Mr. Brown and Mr. Lewis. His sentencing was delayed until after he testified. Mr. Lewis rejected a similar offer from prosecutors.

Mr. Brown and Mr. Lewis went to trial in Onondaga County Supreme Court in November 1990. During the investigation, a witness had told police she saw Mr. Brown wearing a red hat like the one found in the apartment, but at trial, she was unable to make a courtroom identification of Mr. Brown. 

Mr. McKee testified that he, Mr. Brown, and Mr. Lewis beat Ms. Coleman to death after she accused Mr. Brown of giving her fake cocaine. 

Timothy French, a forensic chemist with the Syracuse Police Department, testified that Mr. Lewis’ head hair was consistent with hair found on a toilet seat, a piece of Plexiglas, and a rug at the apartment where Ms. Coleman was killed. He also testified that pubic hairs consistent with Mr. Lewis were found on Ms. Coleman’s body and pants. Vaginal swabs from the rape kit tested positive for semen. The oral and anal swabs tested negative for semen.

Toward the end of the trial, Randolph Mattice, who had been in custody with Mr. McKee at the Onondaga County Jail, testified Mr. McKee had said that one of the men charged in Ms. Coleman’s death was innocent, though he did not identify which man.

Mr. Lewis did not testify. 

While the jury deliberated, a judge sentenced Mr. McKee to six to 18 years in prison. On Nov. 16, 1990, the jury convicted Mr. Brown and Mr. Lewis of second-degree murder. Mr. Brown was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison while Mr. Lewis was sentenced to 20 years to life. 

On April 24, 1992, the Fourth Department of the Appellate Division of New York’s Supreme Court granted Mr. Lewis a new trial. On Oct. 19, 1992, after a retrial, Mr. Lewis was again convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 20 years to life in prison.

The Exoneration

In 2001, the Innocence Project began filing motions to conduct DNA testing in the case. In 2012, with the cooperation of the Onondaga County District Attorney’s Office, the Onondaga County crime laboratory conducted DNA testing on a vaginal swab. The sample excluded Mr. Lewis as a contributor. It was then uploaded to the state’s convicted offender DNA database. Forensic analysts reported that Mr. McKee was the source of the DNA. 

Testing of a scraping from Ms. Coleman’s fingernail excluded Mr. Lewis.

In 2013, Mr. Lewis was excluded as a contributor to sperm samples from stains on Ms. Coleman’s pants. In 2021, he was excluded as a contributor to the blood samples found on the two-by-four. He was released from prison on parole in November 2021.

In 2022, mitochondrial DNA testing conducted on the hair samples excluded Mr. Lewis. There were no hair samples from Mr. McKee to compare.

By the time of the mitochondrial DNA testing, microscopic hair analysis had been discredited. 

Adnan Sultan, Mr. Lewis’ attorney with the Innocence Project, filed a motion for a new trial on March 28, 2023. “The new DNA results prove that Mr. McKee was lying because it proves that Mr. Lewis did not have sex with Ms. Coleman and that he did not handle the two-by-four,” the motion said. 

The motion also said that Mr. French’s testimony that tied Mr. Lewis to the hair samples was wrong. It added that the DNA evidence undermined the reliability of Mr. Lewis’ statement because it said Mr. Brown had sex with Ms. Coleman and made no mention of Mr. McKee being present. 

On Aug. 10, 2023, Justice Limpert granted the motion for a new trial and dismissed the charge against Mr. Lewis.