Robert DuBoise

The Crime

At 8 a.m. on Aug. 19, 1983, the body of 19-year-old Barbara Grams was discovered outside a dental office on North Boulevard in the Tampa Heights neighborhood of Tampa, Florida. She was nude except for a tube top that had been pulled below her chest. She had been beaten about her face, and she was covered in blood from scrapes and tears on her neck. She also had bruises on her limbs that appeared to have been made by the pressure of her attacker’s fingers.

The Investigation

Ms. Grams worked at the Hot Potato Restaurant in a shopping center about two miles from where her body was discovered. A co-worker told police that she and Ms. Grams had closed up just after 9 p.m. the night before. Ms. Grams lived not far from where her body was found, and she often walked home along busy Buffalo Avenue. 

Two friends told investigators they saw Ms. Grams walking along North Boulevard at 9:30 p.m., just a few blocks from her house, but by then several blocks south of the dental office. That led police to believe that she might have decided to get a pack of cigarettes at one of the convenience stores clustered at the intersection of Buffalo Avenue and North Boulevard. 

At the crime scene, the police found several pieces of two-by-four lumber with blood and hair attached. Police believed these were the murder weapons. Detective Philip Saladino, the lead investigator, also noticed a white circle on a finger on Ms. Grams’  left hand that appeared to be a ring mark. No ring was found, and witnesses would later give conflicting statements about what type of ring Ms. Grams wore and whether Ms. Grams was wearing a ring on the night she was murdered. Police also collected fingerprints from a nearby air conditioner and from Ms. Grams’ wallet.

Dr. Lee Miller, the Hillsborough County Medical Examiner, performed the autopsy on Aug. 20. He concluded that Ms. Grams had died from blunt force trauma to the head, most likely around 11:30 p.m. on Aug. 18. 

He collected materials for a rape kit, as well as hair, blood and fingernail scrapings. In addition, he collected vaginal samples of what he called a “white fluid.”

Dr. Miller would later testify that he noticed what he believed to be a bite mark on Ms. Grams’ left cheek as he was washing the blood from the young woman’s face. He stopped his washing and then swabbed the area with a saline solution to potentially collect saliva that might have been left by her attacker. 

Dr. Miller summoned Dr. Richard Powell, a local dentist who had been listed as a forensic odontologist by Dr. Miller’s office, although Dr. Powell was not certified in this specialty. This would be Dr. Powell’s his first consultation in a criminal case. Dr. Powell took a Polaroid photo of the mark and told Dr. Miller that it might be from someone missing upper front teeth, specifically a left front incisor. Dr. Powell said he could see tear marks in the skin. He opined that the six lower teeth of the person who left the bite mark had no gaps.

A few days later, Dr. Miller removed a section of Ms. Grams’ cheek and placed it in formaldehyde, which caused the tissue to shrink by about 10 percent. 

Tampa police reached out to Dr. Richard Souviron, a dentist in Coral Gables, Florida, who was a leading forensic odontologist. Dr. Souviron advised Detective Saladino to use beeswax to make bite mark impressions from potential suspects. These molds would then be filled with a composite to make a hard cast that could be compared against the photograph of Ms. Grams’ cheek. As part of this process, the original beeswax mold was destroyed. Detective Saladino had access to beeswax because a police captain was a beekeeper. One report would later state that Detective Saladino and other officers might have created as many as 100 beeswax molds from potential suspects.

Dr. Souviron came to Tampa on Sept. 8, 1983, and examined the tissue that Dr. Miller had preserved. Like Dr. Powell, Dr. Souviron said police should look for a suspect with a missing tooth or a large gap between his teeth or a tooth turned to the side. 

Very early in the investigation, Detective Saladino talked with a woman who had worked at a convenience store near the dental office for a few weeks in February 1983. She didn’t recognize Ms. Grams, but she told Detective Saladino about several people who “caused problems” at the store. She knew their names only as “Ray, Robert and Bo,” but she directed the police toward a nearby house. It was vacant, but there was mail in the mailbox addressed to several people named “DuBoise.”

A records check of that name turned up brothers Victor and Robert DuBoise. Robert was then 18 years old. He had two convictions for minor non-violent crimes and was on probation. On Sept. 25, Detective Saladino met with Robert DuBoise. Mr. DuBoise said he had heard Detective Saladino was trying to take bite mark impressions from everyone. He said he had “nothing to hide” and could prove that “he wasn’t the guy who bit that girl.” 

Mr. DuBoise’s parents told Detective Saladino that they believed both Robert and Victor were home on Aug. 18, but that if they had gone out, it was to go look for their sister, who was reported missing on Aug. 16. 

Mr. DuBoise had no gaps in his upper or lower rows of teeth and agreed to give Detective Saladino a dental impression. Dr. Souviron received Mr. DuBoise’s cast from a beeswax mold in mid-October, and he told Detective Saladino that Mr. DuBoise made the bite mark found on Ms. Grams. 

On Oct. 22, 1983, an officer found Mr. DuBoise at the Peter Pan Motel and told him that Detective Saladino needed to speak with him. Mr. DuBoise arrived at the police station, was then arrested, and charged with murder and attempted sexual battery. On Oct. 23, Dr. Powell made a second mold of Mr. DuBoise’s teeth, this time using a sturdier substance than beeswax. It was sent to Dr. Souviron, who again said it was his opinion that Mr. DuBoise had bitten Ms. Grams and left the mark on her cheek. 

At the time of Mr. DuBoise’s arrest, a man named Claude Butler was also in the Hillsborough County Jail, charged with kidnapping and armed robbery, plus other charges for probation violation and assault on a law enforcement officer. If convicted, he faced a possibility of two life sentences. Both Mr. Butler and Mr. DuBoise had psychiatric issues, and they were both placed in the section of the jail for inmates with a mental illness. 

In November 1983, Mr. Butler approached Detective John Counsman, to whom he had provided information in the past. Detective Counsman introduced Mr. Butler to Detective Saladino, and in January 1984, Mr. Butler told Detective Saladino that Mr. DuBoise had admitted that he, his brother Victor DuBoise, and a friend named Raymond Garcia had raped and murdered Ms. Grams after she resisted when they tried to rob her. Victor and Mr. Garcia were never charged. After giving a statement to an assistant prosecutor on April 19, 1984. Mr. Butler pled guilty to his own charges on May 14. He was sentenced to five years in prison. 

A second witness, Joanne Suarez, told police that Mr. DuBoise had said to her in August 1983 that he had killed someone. Ms. Suarez also said that she might have seen Mr. DuBoise with a ring similar to one worn by Ms. Grams.

The Trial

On Feb. 25, 1985, Mr. DuBoise went to trial in Hillsborough County Circuit Court. Just 12 days earlier, another prosecution witness had emerged. Jack Andrusckiewiecz told police that he was living at the Peter Pan Motel at the time Mr. DuBoise was arrested. A few days before the arrest, Mr. Andrusckiewiecz said that he had seen Mr. DuBoise at a party and that Mr. DuBoise had said that he was wanted for murder.

Dr. Souviron testified that Mr. DuBoise made the bite mark to a “reasonable degree of dental certainty.” During cross-examination, Dr. Souviron acknowledged that, at a police chief’s conference in November 1984, he had declared, “If you tell me that is the guy that did it, I will go into court and say that that is the guy that did it.”

Dr. Norman Sperber, who was chairman of the bitemark guideline committee for the American Board of Forensic Odontology, testified for the defense that Mr. DuBoise should be excluded as the source of the bite mark because there were too many inconsistencies between his teeth and the bite mark supposedly found on Ms. Grams’ cheek. No other forensic evidence tied Mr. DuBoise to the crime scene. He, his brother, and Mr. Garcia were all excluded as the source of the fingerprints collected from the air conditioner and Ms. Grams’ wallet. 

Mr. Butler testified that Mr. DuBoise had confessed his involvement, saying that he and Mr. Garcia and Victor were trying to rob Ms. Grams, but she fought back and then yelled out Mr. Garcia’s name. (A later investigation would show Ms. Grams and Mr. Garcia had no connection.) Mr. Butler said Mr. DuBoise told him that they forced Ms. Grams into a car, drove around, then raped her and killed her. Mr. DuBoise’s attorney tried to discredit Mr. Butler, introducing evidence of a wide range of psychiatric medicines Mr. Butler was taking while in jail.

Detective Saladino testified that he had never met Mr. Butler before Detective Counsman made the introduction. That was not true. A year earlier, Detective Saladino had been part of a sting operation that arrested Mr. Butler for burglary and related charges.

Mr. Andrusckiewiecz testified about his conversation with Mr. DuBoise. At the time of the trial, Mr. Andrusckiewiecz also was preparing to be a prosecution witness in another murder trial, a case where there was the potential for him to be charged as an accessory. He was working closely with the State Attorney’s Office on that case, and his emergence as a witness in Mr. DuBoise’s trial came through prosecutors rather than a police investigation. This was not disclosed at trial, and he was never charged in connection with that separate murder.

Ms. Suarez gave limited testimony. She could not recall much of the events and said she suffered from a traumatic brain injury.

Mr. DuBoise did not testify. His mother did and provided an alibi for the night of the murder. 

During closing arguments, prosecutor Mark Alan Ober pointed to the strength of the forensic evidence and also vouched for Mr. Butler’s credibility, telling jurors that Mr. Butler had “received nothing” for his testimony. 

On March 7, 1985, Mr. DuBoise was convicted of capital murder and attempted sexual battery. The jury recommended a life sentence, but Judge Harry Lee Coe III overrode that recommendation and sentenced Mr. DuBoise to death. 

Mr. DuBoise appealed. His attorneys argued, among other things, that the casts of his teeth made after his arrest were based on an illegal search. They also claimed that the use of any statements Mr. DuBoise might have made to Mr. Butler was unconstitutional because Mr. Butler was acting as agent for the state. Mr. DuBoise also asserted that Judge Coe had abused his discretion when he overrode the jury’s sentencing recommendation.

Three years later, the Florida Supreme Court rejected most of his claims on appeal. 

The Exoneration

In 2006, Mr. DuBoise moved for post-conviction DNA testing. After a hearing, it was disclosed that all biological evidence in the case had been destroyed in 1990. The court rejected a defense request to test other items, accepting the state’s argument that because Mr. DuBoise had committed the crime with others, any exculpatory evidence would not prove his innocence. By then, Mr. Ober was the state attorney for Hillsborough County.

In 2018, the Innocence Project began representing Mr. DuBoise and discovered that Mr. Butler’s five-year prison sentence had been reduced to time served—only 13 months—after Mr. Ober filed a motion on Mr. Butler’s behalf in June 1985. Mr. DuBoise’s attorneys also uncovered the undisclosed relationship between Mr. Andrusckiewiecz and prosecutors on the unrelated murder. 

Mr. DuBoise’s attorneys presented this evidence to Andrew Warren, who had narrowly defeated Mr. Ober in 2016 to become the new state attorney for Hillsborough County. State Attorney Warren had promised that, if elected, he would create a Conviction Review Unit (CRU). On Sept.  26, 2019, he instructed the CRU to reinvestigate Mr. DuBoise’s case.

The investigation examined the validity of the forensic evidence used to convict Mr. DuBoise. In the years since the trial, forensic odontology had been widely discredited as a tool for making identifications based on bitemark analysis. Even the ABFO said it was no longer acceptable for its members to use language such as “reasonable medical/dental certainty.” A 2009 report from the National Academy of Sciences said that there was no scientific foundation to support the idea that human bite marks were unique or that skin was capable of faithfully recording those marks.

The CRU and the Innocence Project requested that Dr. Adam Freeman, a dentist and forensic odontologist, reexamine the forensic evidence used against Mr. DuBoise. Dr. Freeman said that Dr. Souviron’s conclusions of dental certainty had no basis in science. In addition, Dr. Freeman said the preservation of the cheek tissue in formaldehyde made the sample ill-suited for comparison. He also said that the use of beeswax for the initial molds led to distorted impressions. Most significantly, Dr. Freeman said that the mark on Ms. Grams’ cheek was not even a bite mark.

Separately, in August 2020, Teresa Hall, the CRU’s supervising attorney, located three slides from the rape kit prepared by the medical examiner during the autopsy. They had been in the medical examiner’s office since 1983. These samples were sent to a forensic laboratory and compared against a DNA sample provided by Mr. DuBoise. An analyst at the laboratory reported later that month that she could identify both a major and minor male contributor to the vaginal slide, and that Mr. DuBoise was excluded. (Victor DuBoise and Mr. Garcia were also excluded.) 

This information was entered into the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), which returned a “presumptive hit” for the major contributor. Investigators found no connection between Mr. DuBoise and that person. 

On Aug. 26, 2020, Warren’s office filed a motion to reduce Mr. DuBoise’s sentence to time served. He was released from Hardee Correctional Institution that day. 

On Sept. 10, 2020, Mr. DuBoise’s attorneys filed a motion to vacate his conviction. Hillsborough County Circuit Judge Christopher Nash granted the motion on Sept. 14, 2020, and the charges were dismissed.

In October 2021, Mr. DuBoise filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city of Tampa, police officers involved in the case, and Dr. Souviron.

​On August 4, 2022, a grand jury in Tampa indicted Amos Robinson and Abraham Scott on murder charges in the death of Ms. Grams and in the death of Linda Lanson, who had been murdered in 1983. The indictments were based in part on DNA evidence from Mr. DuBoise’s case.

In April 2023, the Florida legislature approved a bill awarding Mr. DuBoise $1.85 million in compensation. Governor Ron DeSantis signed the bill in June 2023.