Habib Wahir Abdal

The Crime

On May 18, 1992, a 23-year-old white woman and her husband were bird watching in the Tiff Farm Nature Preserve in Buffalo. While her husband was taking photographs, the woman walked along an isolated pathway back to their car. After she passed a Black man who appeared to be sleeping, the man grabbed her from behind, shoved her off the path, and demanded money. After she handed over a small amount of cash, he blindfolded her with a bandana and then raped and sodomized her before fleeing.

The woman was taken to a hospital where a rape kit was taken. She described the attacker as between 5 feet 8 inches and 5 feet 10 inches tall with a space between his upper front teeth and a “tenor-type” of voice.

The Investigation

More than four months later, a parole officer gave police the name of 43-year-old Vincent Jenkins, who was on parole for a manslaughter conviction. Mr. Jenkins was 6 feet 2 inches tall — at least four inches taller than the description given by the woman. He had a deep voice, and there was no gap between his teeth.

On Sept. 30, 1982, Mr. Jenkins, who would change his name to Harim Warith Abdal while in prison, was arrested. Detectives told the woman that a person was in custody and showed her a photographic lineup with six photographs. Three of the men looked familiar, she said. Although the photograph of Mr. Abdal was more similar to her initial description, his weight and facial hair were different from her attacker. 

The woman then viewed Mr. Abdal through a one-way mirror. He was in a room with a white man, which essentially reduced the viewing to a one-on-one show-up. After 15 minutes, detectives falsely told the woman that Mr. Abdal was a suspect in other rape cases, but none of the victims could make a positive identification. The woman still did not make an identification. The police then brought her into the same room with Mr. Abdal. However, she did not identify him due to the differences in facial hair and weight.

An officer then showed the woman a single photograph of Mr. Abdal, pressing his thumb over the top of Mr. Abdal’s head. Finally, the woman identified Mr. Abdal as her attacker.

Mr. Abdal was subsequently charged with rape, sodomy, and robbery.

The Trial

Before the trial began, Erie County Supreme Court Justice Frederick M. Marshall suppressed the woman’s identification of Mr. Abdal. The judge found the identification procedures “highly improper.” The judge ruled that Mr. Abdal’s arrest “was not valid in its inception” and that “there was no probable cause for placing the defendant in custody.”

Despite the pretrial ruling, Judge Marshall allowed the woman to identify Mr. Abdal at trial based on a “Braille-type” recollection she had from touching his face during the attack. There was no other evidence linking him to the crime. A forensic analyst testified that he had compared an eyelash recovered at the hospital to Mr. Abdal’s eyelashes and found them to be dissimilar. At the same time, the analyst said it was “not unusual for different hairs to come from the same person.”

The analyst referred to a study that purported to show that it was not unusual to look at 4,500 strands of hair from the head in order to find two similar hairs. Pubic hairs would require looking at as many as 800 hairs, the analyst said. 

On June 6, 1983, Mr. Abdal was convicted of first-degree rape, first-degree sodomy, and second-degree robbery. He was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison. In 1987, the conviction was affirmed.

The Exoneration

In 1991, Mr. Abdal’s appellate lawyer, Eleanor Jackson Piel, filed a federal petition for a writ of habeas corpus seeking DNA testing. On Feb. 10, 1992, Senior U.S. District Judge John T. Elfvin ordered DNA testing. Testing was performed in 1993 by Dr. David Bing of CBR Laboratories in Boston, but the results were inconclusive.

At Ms. Piel’s request, Barry Scheck of the Innocence Project joined the defense. They arranged for additional testing by Cellmark Diagnostics in Germantown, Maryland, but in 1998, when the Erie County Forensic Science laboratory sent the swabs and slides via Federal Express, the evidence was lost.

Dr. Bing’s DNA samples from five years earlier were sent to Dr. Edward T. Blake at Forensic Science Associates in Richmond, California. In 1999, Dr. Blake’s tests excluded Mr. Abdal as the source of the biological evidence. Dr. Blake’s results were confirmed by the Erie County Forensic Science Laboratory.

On Aug. 30, 1999, Judge Elfvin vacated Mr. Abdal’s convictions. On Sept. 1, 1999, Mr. Abdal was released from prison. 

Mr. Abdal’s legal team then filed an unopposed motion to dismiss his indictment. On Nov. 22, 1999, Erie County Supreme Court Justice Judge Joseph P. McCarthy granted the motion, and the charges were dismissed.

Mr. Abdal filed a compensation claim in the New York Court of Claims, which was settled for $2 million. A lawsuit was also filed against the city of Buffalo. On Sept. 19, 2005, Mr. Abdal died of cancer. He was 66. In 2009, the city of Buffalo settled the lawsuit with his estate for $1.2 million.