SALT LAKE CITY (Nov. 9) - A man who
has spent 19 years behind bars for rape and murder was cleared by new
DNA testing and will be released from prison, his lawyer said Tuesday.
Bruce Dallas Goodman, 54, will likely be
freed sometime Tuesday afternoon, said Josh Bowland, the staff attorney
at the Rocky Mountain Innocence Center who handled Goodman's DNA
testing request. He said his client was ecstatic.
"I'm extremely excited. I can't wait to
see Bruce," Bowland said.
Goodman was convicted in the 1984 death of
his girlfriend, 21-year-old Sherry Ann Fales Williams. Williams was
raped, sodomized, beaten to death and left bound just off an interstate
exit.
DNA testing done by Bowland's group last
month concluded samples taken from Williams and the crime scene did not
match Goodman's DNA.
A judge vacated Goodman's conviction
Wednesday, and prosecutor Von Christiansen told Bowland Monday that he
has no plans to retry Goodman.
During his 1986 trial, Goodman and two
defense witnesses testified they were together in Stockton, Calif., the
night Williams was found.