DNA
evidence has cleared an Atlanta man who has served 21 years in
prison after being convicted of raping and kidnapping a woman at a
Sandy Springs apartment complex in 1985, the man's lawyers said Friday.
Willie O. "Pete" Williams, who is now 44, was convicted largely on the
eyewitness testimony of the rape victim and of another woman who was
assaulted — though not raped — a few days later in the parking lot of
another Roswell Road complex.
After his arrest, on the witness stand and throughout his two decades
in prison, Williams has maintained his innocence. He was first notified
of the new DNA test results on Friday in the southeast Georgia prison
where he is incarcerated.
No hearing date has been set to decide if or when he will be released,
said Lisa George, a spokeswoman for the Georgia Innocence Project.
Right now, Williams is not eligible for parole until 2021.
Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said Friday evening that he
was aware of the new DNA test results. He said his office was reviewing
the case to determine if there was other corroborating evidence against
Williams and that he would make a decision on Monday what to do next.
"If it turns out the circumstances are such he did not commit the
crime, we don't want to keep him in jail any longer," Howard said.
During Williams' sentencing in September 1985, his trial attorney,
Michael Schumacher, told the judge his client "has continued to
maintain this is a case of mistaken identity."
Fulton Superior Court Judge John S. Langford Jr. responded, "I haven't
seen many cases with any stronger eyeball identification." He then
sentenced Williams to 45 years for the rape. Williams was not charged
in the assault.
During the trial, the 21-year-old rape victim was asked to point out
her attacker in the courtroom. She identified Williams.
"Is there any doubt in your mind?" the prosecutor asked.
"No, sir, not at all," she said.
"On a scale of one to a hundred, how sure are you?" the prosecutor
asked.
"One hundred and twenty," she said.
The Innocence Project, with the help of volunteer lawyers Bruce Harvey
and Sandra Michaels and Georgia State University law student Cliff
Williams, found the rape kit evidence used at the trial and obtained a
court order to have it tested. They learned this week that DNA tests
performed by the GBI cleared their client of the crimes.
George said Innocence Project members believe they know who actually
committed the sexual assaults. Another man was arrested for three
similar attacks in parking lots nearby in the months after Williams was
arrested. The man pleaded guilty to the offenses, was sentenced to four
years in prison and has since been released, George said.
George said there is rape kit evidence available from the other man's
trial, and she urged authorities to conduct DNA tests.
On Friday, members of the Georgia Innocence Project went to the D. Ray
James Correctional Facility in Folkston to tell Williams the news about
the DNA.
"We were so excited to get there and tell him," George said. "But when
we told him the news, he was so calm. That's because he's known the
truth about this for almost 22 years."
If formally cleared, Williams would be the
sixth Georgia man cleared of
a sexual assault in the past eight years.
Authorities have maintained that, on April 5, 1985, Williams sexually
attacked a woman who had just pulled into a Sandy Springs apartment
complex shortly after 11 p.m. As she got out of her car, a man
approached and asked if she knew a resident named "Paul." When she
tried to close her door, the man put a gun to her head and ordered her
to move over.
He then drove the car to a dead-end street area near the apartment
complex where he raped and sodomized her. Afterward, he drove her car
back to the parking lot and ran away.
Because the victim's description of her assailant was so vivid, police
arranged for her to meet with a sketch artist four days later for a
composite drawing of the suspect.
Later, in court, the woman testified about how sure she was of the
description: "I do very much remember the nose, the eyes, face shape,
the hair, the clothes, everything."
On April 10, 1985, another woman at a Roswell Road apartment complex
about 6 miles away was also attacked. The attacker put a razor blade to
the woman's throat and tried to undress her. But the woman resisted and
managed to get him to stop. Shown the composite drawing of the man who
committed the earlier rape, the woman immediately identified it as a
sketch of her assailant, according to court records.
About three weeks later, Williams was a passenger in a car stopped for
a traffic violation on Roswell Road. The officer making the stop said
Williams closely resembled the man in the composite drawing and
arrested him.
Soon afterward, both victims identified Williams as their assailant in
a photographic lineup, and they later identified him at trial. The jury
took 7 1/2 hours to convict him, a point that made Williams' attorney
at the time insist "it was a close case."
The trial attorney, Schu–macher, noted that the case "depended entirely
on eyewitness identification, a process noted for its inherent
fallacies."
Schumacher fought the introduction of the second victim's testimony,
saying it would prejudice a jury. But the judge allowed it as a
"similar transaction," a legal term to show a defendant's course of
conduct.
During a hearing following the conviction,
Schumacher questioned the
prosecutor, telling him the names of three women who were attacked in
that area in May, June and July 1985. Did the prosecutor ask those
victims to testify, Schumacher asked. The prosecutor said he did not
know of those attacks.
That Fulton County prosecutor was Fredric Tokars. Tokars, who later
became an Atlanta judge and criminal defense attorney, is now serving
two life sentences, one for the murder for hire in Cobb County of his
wife, Sara, in November 1992 and another for a racketeering conviction
on related charges.
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Willie "Pete" Williams
OTHER RECENT GEORGIA CASES
Calvin Johnson
Year of incident: 1983
Charge: Raping a woman in College Park
Convictions: Rape, aggravated sodomy, and burglary
Sentence: Life plus
Year of conviction: 1983
Year of exoneration: 1999
Sentence served: 16 years
Today: Serves on the boards of directors of the Georgia Innocence
Project and the original Innocence Project in New York. He works as a
supervisor for Atlanta's Metropolitan Rapid Transit Authority.
Clarence Harrison
Year of incident: 1986
Charges: Rape, robbery, kidnaping in Decatur.
Convictions: Rape, robbery, kidnaping
Sentence: Life plus
Year of conviction: 1987
Year of exoneration: 2004
Sentence served: 17 years
Today: Works as a security guard and takes classes at Emory University,
working toward a paralegal certificate.
Robert Clark
Year of incident: 1981
Charges: Rape, kidnaping, armed robbery in East Atlanta
Convictions: Rape, kidnaping, armed robbery
Sentence: Life plus
Year of conviction: 1982
Year of exoneration: 2005
Sentence served: 24 years
Today: Works in construction, has acquired a car, has just rented his
first apartment on his own and is learning to use a computer. He is
also working to re-establish relationships with friends and family and
build a solid future.
Douglas Echols
Year of incident: 1986
Charges: Rape, kidnaping, robbery in Savannah
Convictions: Rape, kidnaping, robbery
Sentence: 5 years
Year of conviction: 1987
Year of exoneration: 2002
Sentence served: 5 years
Samuel Scott
(along with Echols)
Year of incident: 1986
Charges: Rape, kidnaping, robbery in Savannah
Convictions: Rape, kidnaping, robbery
Sentence: Life plus
Year of conviction: 1987
Year of exoneration: 2002
Sentence served: 15 years
Now: Married, homeowner, partner in pressure-washing business
Sources: The Innocence Project, The Georgia Innocence Project, other
news sources;
Research by Sharon Gaus / Staff
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