Deborah Adeyefa
A 71-year-old American man who spent 41 years on death row for a murder conviction has been released on bail after new DNA evidence failed to link him to the crime that sent him to prison.
Douglas Stewart Carter was convicted in connection with the 1985 killing of Eva Olesen in Provo, Utah, and sentenced to death. Throughout the decades, Carter maintained his innocence, insisting that a confession he signed during police interrogation had been coerced.
His case took a dramatic turn after the Utah Supreme Court ordered a new trial last year, citing misconduct by investigators involved in the original investigation.
A judge subsequently granted Carter bail pending the retrial, despite objections from members of the victim’s family. He has been ordered to wear a GPS monitoring device while awaiting further court proceedings.
Court records show Olesen was found stabbed multiple times and shot in the back of the head inside her home. Investigators at the time accused Carter of committing the crime during a robbery.
Although prosecutors secured a conviction based largely on his confession and testimony from two witnesses, there was no physical evidence directly linking him to the crime scene.
The credibility of the conviction later came under scrutiny when the two witnesses reportedly recanted their testimony, claiming they were pressured by investigators and offered incentives to testify against Carter.
Fresh DNA analysis conducted this year reportedly excluded Carter as a match to blood discovered on a doorknob and genetic material recovered from the knife believed to have been used in the killing.
While prosecutors acknowledged the significance of the findings, the victim’s relatives opposed Carter’s release, arguing that the absence of a DNA match does not conclusively prove he was not involved.
Carter’s legal team has called for the charges to be dismissed entirely, arguing that the latest evidence and allegations of investigative misconduct have severely undermined the case against him.
