Florida man exonerated after 37 years in jail for sex killing sues
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A Florida man who was exonerated of a 1983 rape and murder after serving 37 years in prison is now suing over his wrongful conviction, claiming that officers conspired with a forensic dentist to put him in jail using unreliable beeswax molds.
Robert DuBoise, 56, was freed from prison in August 2020 after long-shelved, untested DNA evidence from a rape kit proved he was innocent of the slaying of 19-year-old Barbara Grams in Tampa.
Grams was raped and beaten to death while walking home from her job at a restaurant on August 19, 1983.
No one else has been arrested for her murder.
DuBoise is suing the City of Tampa, four police investigators and the forensic dentist Dr Richard Souviron, according to a complaint filed in the Middle District of Florida last week.
'The only physical evidence implicating Mr.
DuBoise was fabricated "bite mark" evidence that supposedly matched Mr. DuBoise to an injury on the victim's body. In fact, the victim's injury was not a human bite mark at all,' Daniel Marshall, an attorney for the Human Rights Defense Center, wrote in the lawsuit.
Robert DuBoise, center, is suing the City of Tampa, four police officers and a forensic dentist over his wrongful conviction. Above, DuBoise in August 2020 after serving 37 years in prison
DuBoise was 18 years old when he was arrested in 1983 based on a tip from a gas station clerk
He was exonerated last year after a rape kit was finally processed and proved his innocence.
Above, DuBoise hugs his mother after being released from prison in Bowling Green, Florida
The dentist who analyzed the bite mark was Souviron, who gained notoriety as an expert after testifying in the murder trial of serial killer Ted Bundy that one of his Florida victims had a bite mark that matched his teeth.
DuBoise claims that investigators 'conspired' with Souviron to get the result they wanted.
DuBoise was 18 when he was arrested.
Dr. Souviron did not immediately respond to a request for comment from DailyMail.com.
The investigators named in the lawsuit are Tampa Sgt. R.H. Price and detectives K.E.
Burke, John Counsman and Phillip Saladino. Counsman is now deceased, with his estate being named in the suit.
'[Detectives] Burke and Saladino knew that they could count on Defendant Souviron to reach any conclusion about bite mark identifications they wanted, regardless of whether the identification had any legitimate forensic or scientific basis,' the lawsuit states.
In a speech Dr.
Souviron gave to a police chiefs meeting before the DuBoise case, the lawsuit quotes him as saying, 'If you tell me that is the guy that did it, I will go into court and say that is the guy that did it.'
He also allegedly added: 'Did that tooth make the hole in the Defendant's finger?
I think so. I think so because the police said he's guilty,' and 'If the detectives say he did it, I am going to go in there and say he did it.'
Dr.
Richard Souviron helped analyze an 'unreliable' beeswax mold that landed DuBoise in jail
Souviron famously testified about bite marks at the trial of serial killer Ted Bundy, pictured in 1978
Barbara Grams was 19 when she was slain in Tampa in 1983. She had been raped and beaten while walking home from her job at a Tampa restaurant
The lawsuit says beeswax was not an accepted method of identifying teeth marks in murder cases and was used 'only because another officer in the Tampa Police Department operated a honey business on the side.'
Detective Burke made the beeswax models with the assistance of his wife, though neither he nor his wife had any training in dental molds, dentistry or forensic odontology, the lawsuit states. If you have almost any inquiries relating to exactly where and also tips on how to utilize stomo1.ru, you can call us from the page.
'Defendant Souviron knew that beeswax was not a proper medium to use for making dental impressions.
Beeswax is too soft, and therefore can neither hold its shape nor preserve fine contours or spaces between teeth,' the suit argues.
In addition, the lawsuit contends that investigators conspired with jailhouse informants to falsely implicate DuBoise in the Grams killing because they knew their beeswax mold evidence was weak.
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'The Police Officer Defendants conspired to conjure additional false evidence against Mr. DuBoise to ensure that he would be prosecuted and convicted,' the lawsuit argues.
Officers met five or six times with an inmate named Claude Butler, who admitted to having 'flashbacks,' seeing 'walls melt,' and 'hearing voices' before his arrest, according to the lawsuit.
'With Butler's cooperation, Defendants Counsman and Saladino knowingly fabricated a story that Mr.
DuBoise had confessed to the murder,' the lawsuit says.
DuBoise never confessed to anyone and maintained his innocence throughout, his lawyers say.
DuBoise and his lawyers are asking for a jury trial on four counts of violation of due process, illegal detention and prosecution, failure to intervene and conspiracy to deprive constitutional rights.
They're also making a policy and custom claim against the City of Tampa, arguing that their lack of training, standards and safeguards led to his wrongful imprisonment.
DuBoise and his attorneys are seeking unspecified damages.
His supporters have requested $1.85 million in compensation from the state legislature, but that claims bill has so far gone nowhere.
DuBoise was just 18 when he arrested in Grams' slaying.
According to the lawsuit, investigators initially focused on DuBoise after an attendant at a gas station across the street from where Grams' body was found told police that three 'boys' named Robert, Bo and Ray had been 'causing trouble' in the area.
But this was six months before Grams was killed.
DuBoise was convicted of her murder and initially sentenced to death.
His sentence was reduced in 1988 to life in prison until his exoneration and release last year.
His innocence was proven after a review of the case by the Hillsborough County state attorney's office and the Innocence Project, which works nationwide to free prisoners who are wrongly convicted.
Evidence in DuBoise's case was reviewed with the help of the Innocence Project
DuBoise's attorneys say he 'must now put his life back together after almost 40 years in prison.' Above, DuBoise in September 2020 on his bed in his new home in Tampa
Teresa Hall, the supervising attorney for the conviction review unit - a team dedicated to reviewing potential wrongful convictions - said during an online court hearing last year that she spent months combing through 3,500 pages of documents in the case.
She found that much of the physical evidence in the case had been destroyed.
But she was able to track down rape kit evidence at the county medical examiner's office and process that for DNA.
Within a week, that evidence excluded DuBoise, although it has yet to pinpoint another suspect for Grams' murder.
'Robert knew the DNA would vindicate him,' said Susan Friedman, the Innocence Project lawyer, at the time.
'Even though he was told over a decade ago that the biological evidence was destroyed, he wouldn't give up.'
'It's an overwhelming sense of relief,' Robert DuBoise told reporters outside a prison after he was released last August.
'I prayed to God every day and hoped for it.
'If you keep hatred and bitterness in your heart, you don't have room for anything else,' he said. 'I'm just very grateful.'
Last week's lawsuit says: 'A free man for the first time since he was a teenager, Mr.
DuBoise must now put his life back together after almost 40 years in prison.
'Mr. DuBoise has been deprived of all the basic pleasures of human experience, which all free people enjoy as a matter of right.'
He is being represented by the firm Loevy & Loevy and the Human Rights Defense Center.
Robert DuBoise, 56, was freed from prison in August 2020 after long-shelved, untested DNA evidence from a rape kit proved he was innocent of the slaying of 19-year-old Barbara Grams in Tampa.
Grams was raped and beaten to death while walking home from her job at a restaurant on August 19, 1983.
No one else has been arrested for her murder.
DuBoise is suing the City of Tampa, four police investigators and the forensic dentist Dr Richard Souviron, according to a complaint filed in the Middle District of Florida last week.
'The only physical evidence implicating Mr.
DuBoise was fabricated "bite mark" evidence that supposedly matched Mr. DuBoise to an injury on the victim's body. In fact, the victim's injury was not a human bite mark at all,' Daniel Marshall, an attorney for the Human Rights Defense Center, wrote in the lawsuit.
Robert DuBoise, center, is suing the City of Tampa, four police officers and a forensic dentist over his wrongful conviction. Above, DuBoise in August 2020 after serving 37 years in prison
DuBoise was 18 years old when he was arrested in 1983 based on a tip from a gas station clerk
He was exonerated last year after a rape kit was finally processed and proved his innocence.
Above, DuBoise hugs his mother after being released from prison in Bowling Green, Florida
The dentist who analyzed the bite mark was Souviron, who gained notoriety as an expert after testifying in the murder trial of serial killer Ted Bundy that one of his Florida victims had a bite mark that matched his teeth.
DuBoise claims that investigators 'conspired' with Souviron to get the result they wanted.
DuBoise was 18 when he was arrested.
Dr. Souviron did not immediately respond to a request for comment from DailyMail.com.
The investigators named in the lawsuit are Tampa Sgt. R.H. Price and detectives K.E.
Burke, John Counsman and Phillip Saladino. Counsman is now deceased, with his estate being named in the suit.
'[Detectives] Burke and Saladino knew that they could count on Defendant Souviron to reach any conclusion about bite mark identifications they wanted, regardless of whether the identification had any legitimate forensic or scientific basis,' the lawsuit states.
In a speech Dr.
Souviron gave to a police chiefs meeting before the DuBoise case, the lawsuit quotes him as saying, 'If you tell me that is the guy that did it, I will go into court and say that is the guy that did it.'
He also allegedly added: 'Did that tooth make the hole in the Defendant's finger?
I think so. I think so because the police said he's guilty,' and 'If the detectives say he did it, I am going to go in there and say he did it.'
Dr.
Richard Souviron helped analyze an 'unreliable' beeswax mold that landed DuBoise in jail
Souviron famously testified about bite marks at the trial of serial killer Ted Bundy, pictured in 1978
Barbara Grams was 19 when she was slain in Tampa in 1983. She had been raped and beaten while walking home from her job at a Tampa restaurant
The lawsuit says beeswax was not an accepted method of identifying teeth marks in murder cases and was used 'only because another officer in the Tampa Police Department operated a honey business on the side.'
Detective Burke made the beeswax models with the assistance of his wife, though neither he nor his wife had any training in dental molds, dentistry or forensic odontology, the lawsuit states. If you have almost any inquiries relating to exactly where and also tips on how to utilize stomo1.ru, you can call us from the page.
'Defendant Souviron knew that beeswax was not a proper medium to use for making dental impressions.
Beeswax is too soft, and therefore can neither hold its shape nor preserve fine contours or spaces between teeth,' the suit argues.
In addition, the lawsuit contends that investigators conspired with jailhouse informants to falsely implicate DuBoise in the Grams killing because they knew their beeswax mold evidence was weak.
RELATED ARTICLES
Share this article
Share
'The Police Officer Defendants conspired to conjure additional false evidence against Mr. DuBoise to ensure that he would be prosecuted and convicted,' the lawsuit argues.
Officers met five or six times with an inmate named Claude Butler, who admitted to having 'flashbacks,' seeing 'walls melt,' and 'hearing voices' before his arrest, according to the lawsuit.
'With Butler's cooperation, Defendants Counsman and Saladino knowingly fabricated a story that Mr.
DuBoise had confessed to the murder,' the lawsuit says.
DuBoise never confessed to anyone and maintained his innocence throughout, his lawyers say.
DuBoise and his lawyers are asking for a jury trial on four counts of violation of due process, illegal detention and prosecution, failure to intervene and conspiracy to deprive constitutional rights.
They're also making a policy and custom claim against the City of Tampa, arguing that their lack of training, standards and safeguards led to his wrongful imprisonment.
DuBoise and his attorneys are seeking unspecified damages.
His supporters have requested $1.85 million in compensation from the state legislature, but that claims bill has so far gone nowhere.
DuBoise was just 18 when he arrested in Grams' slaying.
According to the lawsuit, investigators initially focused on DuBoise after an attendant at a gas station across the street from where Grams' body was found told police that three 'boys' named Robert, Bo and Ray had been 'causing trouble' in the area.
But this was six months before Grams was killed.
DuBoise was convicted of her murder and initially sentenced to death.
His sentence was reduced in 1988 to life in prison until his exoneration and release last year.
His innocence was proven after a review of the case by the Hillsborough County state attorney's office and the Innocence Project, which works nationwide to free prisoners who are wrongly convicted.
Evidence in DuBoise's case was reviewed with the help of the Innocence Project
DuBoise's attorneys say he 'must now put his life back together after almost 40 years in prison.' Above, DuBoise in September 2020 on his bed in his new home in Tampa
Teresa Hall, the supervising attorney for the conviction review unit - a team dedicated to reviewing potential wrongful convictions - said during an online court hearing last year that she spent months combing through 3,500 pages of documents in the case.
She found that much of the physical evidence in the case had been destroyed.
But she was able to track down rape kit evidence at the county medical examiner's office and process that for DNA.
Within a week, that evidence excluded DuBoise, although it has yet to pinpoint another suspect for Grams' murder.
'Robert knew the DNA would vindicate him,' said Susan Friedman, the Innocence Project lawyer, at the time.
'Even though he was told over a decade ago that the biological evidence was destroyed, he wouldn't give up.'
'It's an overwhelming sense of relief,' Robert DuBoise told reporters outside a prison after he was released last August.
'I prayed to God every day and hoped for it.
'If you keep hatred and bitterness in your heart, you don't have room for anything else,' he said. 'I'm just very grateful.'
Last week's lawsuit says: 'A free man for the first time since he was a teenager, Mr.
DuBoise must now put his life back together after almost 40 years in prison.
'Mr. DuBoise has been deprived of all the basic pleasures of human experience, which all free people enjoy as a matter of right.'
He is being represented by the firm Loevy & Loevy and the Human Rights Defense Center.
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