The Crimes of Patricia Columbo: The True Story of Illinois' Longest-Serving Female Inmate

 

(photo source)

A Family Is Annihilated 

It was Thursday, May 6, 1976 when the maroon 1972 Thunderbird was spotted parked at 140 South Whipple in west Chicago.  The officer responding to the suspicious vehicle report arrived around two o'clock and noted that the car had an Elk Grove Village sticker in the front window.  There were no hubcaps, the right front window had been smashed and covered by a piece of cardboard and the ignition had been pulled.  Seeing as how the car hadn't been stripped, though, the officer believed it had been stolen by amateurs.  A check, though, revealed that the car had not been reported stolen and was registered to a Frank Columbo of Elk Grove Village, a suburb 20 miles northwest from Chicago.  

At one time home to farmers and German immigrants, Elk Grove Village eventually developed into a residential community.  Its easy commute to O'Hare International Airport helped the population to double in the 1960s and the village itself to continue expanding with new housing, roads, schools and businesses.  The growth would continue throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s and eventually Elk Grove Village would house the largest consolidated business park in North America.   In 1976, Elk Grove Village was considered a safe haven from the crime that plagued cities like Chicago. 

Frank Columbo was a successful auto parts salesman who had no business being in the neighborhood and so the officer attempted to phone the Columbo residence multiple times over the next hour or so, getting only the insistent beeping of a busy signal.  He then transmitted the information to the Elk Grove Village Police Department.  

On Friday, May 7, at roughly 4:45 p.m., an officer was dispatched to the Columbo home at 55 Brantwood to inform the occupants that their car had been found in Chicago.  Upon arriving, the officer was immediately on alert seeing three days' worth of newspapers gathered around the front porch and while the storm door was closed, it was unlocked and the front door was ajar.   The officer received no response to his knocks, other than the sound of a dog barking from inside.   He called for backup and while waiting, walked the perimeter of the house's exterior, noting not only piled up newspapers and mail but the fact that there were no cars in the driveway or garage.  All the windows and doors appeared intact and secure, other than the front door.  When the backup officer arrived, both men then entered the Columbo residence. 

Frank and Mary in a joyful moment (photo source)

 

They found 43-year-old Frank first, in the family's living room.   He was lying on his back, dressed in a t-shirt, plaid pants and socks, surrounded by broken glass and with a torn and bloody lampshade nearby.  He had clearly been dead for several days.  

Forty-year-old Mary was found lying on her back on the landing outside the bathroom that featured gold filigree tiles she had painstakingly hand painted.  She had a bullet wound on the bridge of her rose, literally right between her eyes, and a one-inch slash across her throat.  Part of an artificial fern plant and a bloodied magazine were lying next to her body.  Broken glass and beads were scattered by her head.     

The officers immediately called for an investigative unit and evidence technicians.

At roughly 5 p.m., Investigator Raymond Rose of the Elk Grove Village Police Department became the first investigator to arrive on the scene.  He viewed the bodies of Frank and Mary Columbo and also made note that Mary was still wearing a large diamond ring on her left hand.  Her handbag was found in the bathroom, its contents on the floor, as well as a cigarette case and an ashtray.  

Rose observed four human teeth lying between the top of the stairs and the wall, as he continued his examination of the crime scene.      

Michael (photo source)

In his bedroom was 13-year-old Michael.  He was lying on his back on the floor, clad in a white t-shirt and blue sweatpants.  His head was bloodied and he appeared to have a bullet wound to the left side as well as one to the back.   He also had a multitude of stab wounds to his neck and chest.  A pair of gold-plated scissors with crossed blades was found on his desk and a marble-based bowling trophy was lying next to his body.  Both items were bloody.  

Walking through the rest of the house, Rose found a bloodied crumpled magazine, loose coins, beads and portions of artificial ferns on the floor of the foyer.  In the kitchen, the garbage had been dumped on the floor, which was bloody.  One of the cabinets was open, the telephone was off the hook and a personal telephone directory was open to a page that had the name and number of the Columbos' eldest child written on it.   In the master bedroom upstairs, the covers were pulled back, as if someone was readying for bed, but the sheets were smooth, indicating no one had slept there.  Everything appeared orderly, with no ransacking, and the bedside alarm clock, which had been set for 9 a.m. was buzzing.  

Outside the house, a nine-inch knife was lying next to the front stoop and a steak knife was found lying a rock garden.   

The scissors used to stab Michael  (photo source) 

Rose was immediately aware that valuable items in the home - portable color television sets, a CB radio, an eight-track recorder, stereo equipment, cameras, projectors, a .40 caliber shotgun, and two air rifles, not to mention the diamond ring that Mary Columbo wore - were all easily visible and had been left untouched.  There was also a wall safe that contained nearly $5,000 in cash.  No one had opened the safe or attempted to pry it open.  

In Rose's opinion, the valuable items being left behind, the fact that all the windows were intact, the back door was locked, the front door showed no pry marks or forced entry and the phone lines were not cut discounted robbery as a motive.     

Also noticeably absent, at least in the detectives' minds, was 19-year-old Patricia Columbo.  While the arrival of police cars, detectives and crime scene tape had aroused natural interest throughout the neighborhood, the lone survivor of the Columbo family massacre never appeared.  Detectives summoned Patty, as she was known, to come to the station and provide them with information.

While all detectives and law enforcement personnel know that people respond to tragedies and grieve in glaringly different, and even unusual, ways, Patty Columbo, rather than being distraught or in tears, showed up at the precinct with what she considered a lead:  her father Frank's ties with the mob.  According to Patty, Frank ran a mob chop shop for stolen cars behind the auto parts store and that probably led to the murders.  Detectives dutifully made note of her story, as well as the fact that she openly flirted with the male officers and was dressed rather seductively.  

On Saturday, May 8, the chief medical examiner of Cook County performed the autopsies on the Columbos.  The body of Frank Columbo contained irregular lacerations from a blunt object, probably a heavy crystal lamp and/or the bowling trophy found by Michael's body.  Frank had suffered four gunshot wounds:  one to the right side of his face, one to the left side of his face, one to his left lower lip, and one to the left side of his head behind his ear.  He had also sustained cuts from a sharp instrument and had four teeth missing from his jaw.  

Mary Columbo had died from the gunshot wound she sustained between her eyes.  She was likely dead by the time her body hit the floor and her heart had certainly stopped beating when her throat was slashed.  

Michael Columbo had died after being shot at close range in the head.  After being shot, he was bludgeoned with a heavy instrument before his neck and chest were stabbed or punctured more than 90 times.  The medical examiner felt the stab/puncture wounds were shallow enough that they could possibly indicate a female administered them.   A single foreign hair was recovered from the front of Michael's t-shirt at the time of his autopsy.   That hair would later be determined to be microscopically indistinguishable from the hair of his sister, Patty.  

Based on the stomach contents of the family, and the lack of rigor mortis, the medical examiner estimated the Columbos had died between 11 p.m. on May 4, 1976 and 1 a.m. on May 5, 1976.

The crime scene (photo source)

At the time the autopsies were being performed, the evidence technician for the Elk Grove Village Police Department pried open the trunk of Frank Columbo's Thunderbird at the PD garage.  He noted there were dark maroon or red smudges on the trunk, visible from five feet away and that the smudges could have been from either grease or blood.  Unfortunately, the smudges were contaminated and were unable to be compared.  Handprints were found on the fender and trunk of the car.  These prints came from the left hand of a person who was either missing a left index finger or wherein the left index finger did not make an impression.  Glass was recovered from the floor of the car's interior, as well as take-out bags from a fast food restaurant, a white box from back seat and a bloodied artificial plant stalk similar to that found by Mary's body.   When the glass fragments were analyzed using a refraction method, it was determined that they could have originated from the broken lamp base found on the Columbos' living room floor.    

Later on that same Saturday, less than five miles from Elk Grove Village, a Wood Dale police officer, responding to the teletype on Mary Columbo's missing car, located the 1972 Oldsmobile '98 in the parking lot of a condominium complex.  There was no damage or theft to the vehicle and nothing appeared to be out of place.  A resident at the condominium complex would later state that when he left for work around 5:30 a.m. on May 5, there had been no car parked in the space next to his but when he returned home around 5:30 p.m., the Oldsmobile was there. 

When the Oldsmobile was examined by evidence technicians, five fingerprints were recovered, as well as two different types of cigarette butts from the ashtray and a blue blanket in the backseat.  Part of the roof liner had red stains on it and was removed.    

Patty as a child with her mother, Mary (photo source)

All About Patty

On Monday, May 10, 1976, funerals were held for Frank, Mary and Michael Columbo.   As is standard operating procedure in a homicide investigation, detectives planned to attend with one minor change:  noticing how flirtatious Patty Columbo was with the male officers previously, they sent a young, handsome officer along.  Although Patty had brought her boyfriend, a man by the name of Frank DeLuca, to the service, DeLuca reportedly sat alone off to the side while Patty openly flirted with the cop.  So brazen was she with the cop that relatives, who had heard of DeLuca but had not met him, assumed the cop was her boyfriend.   Frank's older brother, who had lived only a block from the Columbo residence, recalled that he and Patty had verbally argued over Patty's desire to have her family cremated (it went against the Catholic Columbos' beliefs) and that at the wake, Patty did not cry or show any visible signs of emotion. 

Outside of Patty's flirtation with the officer, her behavior sent up red flags to the seasoned detectives.  She laughed and joked over cigarettes outside the church and then once inside, threw herself, wailing, on the slate gray coffins that held the earthly remains of her father, mother and brother, coffins that were closed due to the damage inflicted on them in their last moments of life. 

Detectives checked into Patty's suggestion that Frank Columbo had mob ties and came up empty. They found nothing to tie him in with the mob or any illegal activity.  Instead, they focused their attention on Patty.   

Patricia Columbo was the first child of Frank and Mary and the apple of Frank's eye, calling her "Princess" and treating her just as that.  Patty had been the center of her parents' world until she was six years old, when her younger brother Michael was born.  Although some family and friends would later say that Patty had always been very caring and maternal toward her younger brother, others would claim she was jealous and resentful over the attention Frank gave to his only son.  

By the time she reached adolescence, Patty was a very pretty girl who easily turned the heads of boys . . . and men.   She was known to be wild and uninhibited.  She was also headstrong, as demonstrated by her decision to drop out of school when she was sixteen.  She stole the credit card and the wallet of two fellow employees at Walgreens, where she was working the cosmetics counter, and racked up thousand of dollars in charges.  Although her father made restitution and paid off the amount, in July of 1974, she was convicted of deceptive practices and sentenced to two years' probation -- probation she was still on at the time of the murders.  

A young Patty with her father, Frank (photo source)

It was around this time that she met Frank DeLuca.  DeLuca was a Purdue University graduate with a pharmacy degree who had been working at Walgreens since 1961 or 1962.  He had been promoted to manager by the time he met Patty in 1972.  At that time, he was 36 years old, married and the father of five children but he had a reputation as being a swinger around town.  Sixteen-year-old Patty was not the first Walgreens' employee he had an affair with, although she may have been the youngest.  Patty was up for swinging with Frank, having sex with other women and allowing Frank to photograph her and make videos.  Neither Frank nor Mary Columbo were aware of the illicit relationship between their daughter and her boss and so when Patty decided to move out of the home on Brantwood in 1974 and into the DeLuca family home, it was apparently with the blessing of Frank and Mary.  At the DeLuca home, unbelievably, DeLuca and Patty continued their affair, engaging in sexual acts while Marilyn DeLuca and the DeLuca children were in another room or in the yard.  At some point, the Columbos found out that Patty was involved not only with a man nearly twice her age who was married and had children but had a reputation as a swinger.  Needless to say, Frank Columbo was understandably upset and disapproving.

Patty lived with the DeLucas for about a year before she came running back home in the summer of 1975 to tell her father that she was done with DeLuca and she wanted her own place.  Frank was likely thrilled that the affair was over, although Patty was lying.  She didn't tell her parents that not only was she still very much involved with DeLuca but that DeLuca and his wife had separated.   Frank helped Patty to find an apartment in Lombard, a small village known for their annual Lilac Festival about 15 miles south of Elk Grove Village.  He also agreed to foot her monthly rent.  

Needless to say, he was less than happy when he found out that not only was Patty still seeing DeLuca but the Lombard apartment he was paying for was essentially the couple's love nest - DeLuca had immediately moved in with Patty.   

In August of 1975, a month before Marilyn DeLuca filed for divorce, Frank approached Patty and DeLuca in the parking lot of the Walgreens where DeLuca worked, ordering DeLuca to leave Patty alone.  A violent confrontation ensued when, according to DeLuca, Frank pointed a rifle at DeLuca's head and said, "I'm going to blow your head off!"  When DeLuca crouched down, Frank hit him across the mouth with the butt of a rifle, knocking DeLuca completely to the ground.  When DeLuca began to get up, Frank hit him again with the rifle butt, this time in the stomach.  DeLuca claimed that Frank then said, "You're dead, you motherf*cker!"  

Patty filed a complaint and had her father charged with assault.  Frank was arrested and tossed in jail but Patty soon withdrew the complaint.  Reportedly, once he was out, Frank made plans to disown Patty.   

The Columbos apparently had little or no contact with Patty until the late winter or early spring of 1976, when they appeared to mend fences over Patty and DeLuca planning to marry.  As DeLuca's divorce would be finalized at the end of May, the couple said they were going to marry in June.  According to DeLuca, the Columbos had accepted the relationship and were even going to gift them with a new washer and dryer as a wedding gift.  

Police outside the Columbo home on May 7, 1976 (photo source)

The Plot Thickens

On May 12, 1976, fingerprints were taken of Patty Columbo and Frank DeLuca.  It was noticed and noted at the time that DeLuca was missing the index finger and the tip of his middle finger on his left hand.  No nicks or scabs were noticed on either his hands or Patty's.  

Two days later, on May 14, detectives spoke with 25-year-old Lanyon "Lannie" Mitchell who had plenty of information on Patty Columbo and Frank DeLuca.  Mitchell, a car salesman, had first met Patty in September of 1975 through a friend of hers.  Mitchell said that he had offered Patty money to go out with a friend of his, 34-year-old Roman Sobczynski.  Patty told Mitchell that she was living with her boyfriend but she needed the money.  She also mentioned that her father had struck her boyfriend in the head with a rifle butt.   In October, Mitchell and Sobczynski met up with Patty at the Where Else Lounge, where they drank and danced.  Under the impression that Mitchell was a "heavy" who did favors for his friends (helped by the gun he toted), Patty discussed the animosity between DeLuca and her parents and expressed a desire to have them killed.  Mitchell told her he would do it for $10,000 a person, or $20,000.  He quickly assured detectives that he never had any intention of killing anyone but was trying to impress Patty, so that he could have sex with her.

According to Mitchell, Patty called him multiple times throughout October of 1975, wanting to know when he was going to kill her parents.  Mitchell stalled her by asking for a rundown of her parents' activities and schedules.  In return, Patty provided him with floorplan drawings of the Columbo house and informing him about the wall safe, the televisions, the CB radio, furs and diamonds.  

By November, Patty was again demanding to know when the killings would take place.  According to Mitchell, she wanted them done around Christmas as some sort of demented gift to herself.   Sobczynski, who had been informed about the "contract" through a telephone call from Mitchell, demanded money up front to continue.  Patty told him that the money for payment would come after the killings from an insurance policy.  In the interim, however, she offered sex in exchange and both men accepted.   After their sexual encounters, Patty gave Mitchell photographs of her family and what amounted to a dossier on their activities.  

In early December, Mitchell accompanied Patty to the Columbo residence as Patty wanted him to case the house.  Mary answered the door and Mitchell panicked, leaving the property and driving down the street.  When Patty rejoined him, she told him that she and Mary had an argument about DeLuca and Patty wanted her parents killed that night.  She said she left a patio door unlocked so that he could enter the home.  

Another month went by and in January of 1976, Mitchell said that Patty told him and Sobczynski that her little brother was going to have to go too because he might figure out things later.  Later that month, Patty informed Mitchell that she had once again left the patio doors unlocked and that she and DeLuca were both getting anxious.

In mid-March, Mitchell called Patty and asked about the up-front money.  Patty told him neither she nor DeLuca had any money and again questioned when the hits would go down.

Mitchell reiterated to the cops that he was not a hit man, nor had he ever had any intention of killing Frank, Mary and Michael Columbo.  He had simply been stringing Patty Columbo along for sex and money.

Detectives picked up Roman Sobczynski, a recruiting officer for the Cook County Department of Personnel.  He was married and the father of three children.  Despite being held at the Elk Grove Village Police Department until five or six the following morning, he refused to talk.  He would also refuse to speak before the grand jury.  

Detectives corroborated at least part of Mitchell's statement after speaking to Carolyn Tygrett, Mary Columbo's sister.  Carolyn recalled visiting her sister in late 1975 or early 1976 and Patty had shown up saying she was there to pick up something.  She left soon thereafter, without picking up whatever it was she claimed to have been there for.  Mary, however, discovered that the sliding glass patio doors, locked before Patty's visit, were unlocked and she secured them.    

Patty at her arraignment (photo source)

Arrests

On May 15, 1976, just before seven in the morning, seven officers from the Cook County Sheriff's Department went to the apartment of Patty and DeLuca in Lombard with a search warrant.  Patty and DeLuca were then both arrested and charged with conspiracy, solicitation and the murders of Frank, Mary, and Michael.   

    .  

Although DeLuca was released on May 17, Patty was not.    The day she was brought in, she gave a written and oral statement admitting her guilt to soliciting two men to murder her family but claimed she knew nothing about the murders themselves.   She denied knowing Lannie Mitchell  until she was shown him at the station, where he was currently in another examination room.  She said she didn't think he had killed her family.   When asked about the dossier she had provided to Mitchell, Patty claimed that she had been forced at gunpoint to do so (later discounted by a handwriting expert) and then also forced to have sex with him.  She claimed she didn't go to the police because she thought the police would eventually uncover all this evidence themselves.  She also repeatedly stated that she was in fear for her life.  Detectives later stated that Patty became irate when questioned about her apartment rent being overdue.  

On May 26, Roman Sobczynski was offered immunity from the state in return for testifying against Patty (and eventually, DeLuca).   After accepting the deal, he spoke to detectives about Patty and DeLuca.  He corroborated everything that Lannie Mitchell stated, adding that he had spoken with DeLuca in a phone call in which DeLuca claimed that Frank Columbo had taken a contract out on him and that Michael Columbo would also have to be killed.  

(photo source)

On July 17, 1976, Frank DeLuca was arrested once more and tossed into a Cook County jail to await trial.  An inmate by the name of Clifford Childs became his cellmate for the next six months.   According to Childs, DeLuca had bragged that he had been the one to come up with the perfect plan to kill the Columbo family and he had personally shot each family member himself.  The plan was apparently for there to be a reconciliation between Patty and her parents, which would then pave the way for a meeting to be arranged on the evening of May 4.  DeLuca said the meeting had been scheduled for 8 p.m. but he purposely delayed his arrival until 10 p.m. in order to establish an alibi at Walgreens.  It had been Frank Columbo who answered the doorbell and he had turned and started to walk up the stairs when DeLuca had shot him in the back of the head with a .32 caliber revolver.  He then shot Mary and he and Patty had gone to Michael's room, where the boy had been sleeping.   They woke him up, forced him to stand and then DeLuca shot him in the head.  To make it appear as if a robbery had taken place, the house was messed up and DeLuca took $150 in cash, some jewelry and a few small household appliances that he put in Frank Columbo's Thunderbird, which was driven to a westside neighborhood in Chicago and left.  DeLuca and Patty had expected that the car would be broken into, the contents stolen and then traced back to the Columbos, solidifying the robbery motive.  DeLuca told Childs he had been in the Columbo residence  for no more than 25 minutes and that he had worn gloves, even going so far as to stuff the index finger of the left glove. 

Childs would later provide testimony for the prosecution that in September of 1976, DeLuca told him that he wanted two witnesses, both employees at Walgreens who were going to testify against him, to be killed and wanted to know if Childs could arrange for it to be done.  Childs said he would do it if DeLuca paid the money for his bail and it would cost $10,000 per hit.  DeLuca provided Childs with the physical descriptions of the witnesses, one of whom was a married woman that had had an affair with DeLuca before he met Patty, as well as detailed directions on how to get to their homes and dossiers on their activities.  DeLuca's ex-wife Marilyn was to bail Childs out and Childs would abduct both witnesses, kill them and then bury their bodies in lime somewhere in Indiana.  On November 25, 1976, Marilyn DeLuca sent two money orders totaling just over $3,400 to Childs and then another $830, as the two money orders were not sufficient.  On February 24, 1977, Marilyn DeLuca picked up Childs and drove him to her home, where she gave him another $1,300 in cash, plus the use of what had been DeLuca's car.  

Like Lannie Mitchell and Roman Sobczynski, Clifford Childs denied ever planning to kill anyone but said that he was playing DeLuca for financial benefit.  

Convictions

Patty and DeLuca went to trial just over a year after the murders and chose a trial by jury.  The physical and forensic evidence, combined with the testimonies of Lannie Mitchell, Roman Sobczynski, Clifford Childs and two of DeLuca's former coworkers who recounted statements and/or confessions he made about the Columbo family murders, guaranteed their convictions.  The jury returned after only a few hours' deliberation, to find them both guilty on all counts.  Judge Eugene Pincham sentenced both Patty and DeLuca to 200 to 300 years on each of the three murder counts.  Additionally, on the solicitation to commit murder, Patty was sentenced to 20 to 50 years, to run concurrently with her other sentence, and DeLuca was sentenced to 10 to 50 years, also to run concurrently.    The court ruled that the conspiracy charged merged in law with the murder charge and so no sentences were imposed on that count.

DeLuca moved for a new trial on July 25, 1977, a month after he was convicted.  On August 8, 1977, Patty filed a motion for a new trial.   The court denied both motions.  

Both defendants filed appeals and both were denied in 1983.  

Inmate C73216 (photo source)

Frank DeLuca was sent to the Dixon Correctional Center in October of 1977 to serve out his sentence.  After 1986, he had no disciplinary infractions or tickets.  Under Illinois law, he, like Patty, became eligible for parole after serving 12 years.   

In a parole hearing in May of 2014, DeLuca told the Illinois Prisoner Review Board hat he had no expectation of being paroled and that what he and Patty did was "horrendous" and they should never leave prison.  At that time, the parole board noted that he was in poor health, had hip and prostate problems and walked with a cane.  When parole was denied then, the parole board wrote that parole could not be supported due to the "heinous nature of the crime" and that parole for DeLuca would "depreciate the seriousness of the offense and promote disrespect for the law."  

DeLuca will be 83 years old in June.  Outside of being paroled, his earliest possible release date is 2116.

In 2020, his former wife Marilyn died at her home in Illinois, leaving behind their five children and sixteen grandchildren.

  

Inmate C77200 (photo source)

Patty was sent to the Dwight Correctional Center in October of 1977 to serve her sentence.  Two years into her stretch, in 1979, she was implicated in a prison prostitution scheme in which she organized sexual acts between the female inmates and the correctional officers.  

She also racked up approximately 20 infractions, or tickets, with the last noted being in 2004 for contraband/unauthorized property and in 2006 for unauthorized movement. 

She earned a Secretarial Science Degree, an Applied Science Degree in Computer Programming and an Associates Degree in Art from Joliet Junior College in 1981.  In 1991, she earned a bachelor's degree from Illinois State University.  

Patty received additional certificates for training in Literacy and HIV/AIDS peer education and volunteered as a reading and math tutor for the Literacy Volunteers of America from 1990 until 2006.  She was also a trainer for new tutors from 1995 until 2006.  

While incarcerated, she worked as a clerk and programmer for Leisure Time Services and Family Services Program, as a secretary in the placement office and helped to develop the prison media center.  

Throughout the years, Patty (who preferred to be called Tricia after incarceration) maintained a group of supporters, who would submit letters speaking on her behalf and of her good works at each of her parole hearings.  In 2011, in anticipation of a parole hearing, she was accepted at Leslie's Place, a transitional house on the west side of Chicago that houses and helps former female inmates navigate their way back into society.  Perhaps ironically, had Patty been paroled out to Leslie's Place, she would have been living only two-and-a-half miles from where her father's car was left by her or Frank DeLuca way back in 1976.  

In 2013 or 2014, with the Dwight Correctional Center closing, Patty was moved first to the Lincoln Correctional Center and then to the Logan Correctional Center.  In 2014, she asked for a continuance of her parole hearing as she did not want to leave the special needs inmates she worked with.  The continuance was denied and parole was denied, with the same notation as DeLuca received:  to grant parole would depreciate the seriousness of the offense and promote disrespect for the law.  

Patty remains incarcerated at the Logan Correctional Center and will be 65 years old in June.  Without parole, her earliest possible release date is 2116.  She continues to insist that she's changed.  

Patty Columbo and Frank DeLuca have not seen nor spoken with each other since 1977.

Investigator Raymond Rose, who was 29 years old when he set foot on the Columbo property back in May of 1976, continues to speak against the release of either Frank DeLuca or Patty Columbo.   He believes that DeLuca shot all three victims and Patty stabbed/cut them.  The motive, in his opinion, was money.    

The final resting place of Frank, Mary and Michael (photo source)

Sources:

Illinois Prisoner Review Board Meeting Minutes, 2014.

The New York Daily News, (2009).  Twisted Sister - New York Daily News (nydailynews.com)

The People of the State of Illinois vs. Patricia Columbo, 455 N.E. 2d 733 (Ill. App. Ct. 1983)

        

The Barbeque Murders of California

 Jim and Naomi Olive's Disappearance Leads to a Gruesome Discovery

Marlene Olive, 1975 (photo source)

No one stops
to step into my life
and those in it have long ago
fallen asleep.
I have been empty for so long.

- Marlene Olive's poetry

Early on the morning of Sunday, June 22, 1975, a firefighter found a smoldering flame in a barbeque pit at China Camp State Park in Marin County, California.   As it wasn't uncommon for hunters to roast deer in the pits, he thought nothing of the bone fragments in the ashes.   He would have had no idea that those bones were tied to a missing San Rafael couple by the name of Jim and Naomi Olive, who lived less than ten miles to the west with their teenaged daughter, Marlene.  

Marlene Olive had been born in Norfolk, Virginia in January of 1959 to an unmarried mother.  When she was a day old, she was adopted by Jim and Naomi Olive.  Jim and Naomi had married in 1944, when Jim was an Army recruit.  Once the war ended, he wanted to get in on the housing boom and so the couple moved to Panama.  They both wanted a family but as the years passed, it did not happen and so they adopted Marlene.  Naomi's vigilance as a parent was excessive from the start.  Worried about what the baby might be exposed to, she insisted that everyone around the baby, even herself and Jim, wear a surgical mask and repeatedly sterilized anything and everything that her daughter might come into contact with.  

In the summer of 1959, Jim lost their life savings in a failed business venture and found a new position with Tenneco oil company in Ecuador.  Jim loved Ecuador but Naomi hated it.  She had displayed symptoms of mental illness for a number of years but the move to Ecuador, taking place not long after she became a parent, turned her into a paranoid recluse.  She regularly accused Jim of a multitude of affairs and soothed herself with alcohol.  

In 1965, Jim's work took his family first to Colorado and then to New Mexico.  He was fired from Tenneco but found employment with the Gulf Oil Company, once again in Ecuador.  

The Olives lived a privileged lifestyle in Ecuador, complete with servants.  Marlene was treated like a princess by their household staff and by Jim, who adored his little girl.  She and Jim bonded and became very close, helped along by Naomi's illness and lack of a caring, loving relationship with Marlene.  

The little girl was ten years old when she found adoption papers in Jim's office.  Despite her father's assertions that she was just as loved as if she were his own biological child, and she was more special because she was chosen, the knowledge of her adoption left Marlene confused and hurt toward her adoptive parents and wondering why her biological mother didn't want her.

When she was in the sixth grade, she announced during class one day that she hated her mother.  She asked her teacher how she could find her biological mother, stating that while Jim had told her he would help her locate her mother when she was 21, she didn't want to wait.  

Marlene had never been close to Naomi, even before Naomi's schizophrenia took over but as Marlene entered adolescence, the friction between the two was exacerbated.  Their arguments led Marlene to bang her head against the wall and bite her own arms, leaving scars.  

Jim once again lost his job in 1973, forcing the Olives to leave Ecuador for the States in March.  He found employment in Marin County, California.  He and Naomi chose to settle in Terra Linda, a quiet community in the city of San Rafael, 14 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge.  They moved to Hibiscus Way, a street of homes that were built in the 1950s.  

Marlene had been terrified to leave her safe haven in Ecuador for what she believed was the drug-infested culture of California and the United States.  Ironically, after starting her last term of eighth grade, she fell in with a group of kids and began emulating their behavior.  She dressed in the glam rocker style, took drugs and had sex.  She said she was a witch and told her classmates she was a member of the Church of Satan in San Francisco and that she had appeared in a pornographic movie while in South America.  Her father, she said, was in charge of the drug trade in Ecuador.  

Whether it be her daily interactions with a mentally-ill Naomi, her drug use or typical adolescent moodiness - or all three - Marlene was often sullen.  At time, she would write morose, depressing poems and then write a thoughtful, loving poem about her parents.

When she was fourteen, Marlene began to shoplift and steal her parents' credit cards.  Her first arrest was while she was in the ninth grade.    

Predictably, Naomi disliked Marlene's friends and hated the way her daughter dressed and acted.  She would often berate and verbally abuse Marlene, telling her she was going to be a whore just like her birth mother.   During one episode, Naomi allegedly stripped naked and taunted Marlene, suggesting that the lewd gyrations she was making likely represented her birth mother.

Jim apparently spent more time at work than he had in Ecuador, which Marlene took personally.  When he was at home, according to her, he was more interested in being the "white knight protector to Naomi."  

In 1974, Marlene made a fateful and fatal acquaintance in Charles Riley.  She was on her first LSD trip, sitting on the lawn of Terra Linda High School, and it was a bad one.  Other students were laughing at her and it was Riley who ordered them to leave her alone.  

Charles, known as Chuck, was a 19-year-old high school dropout.  Since leaving school during his junior year, he had worked as a pizza deliveryman, bartender, and factory worker.   A happy and affectionate child, Chuck became obese while in school, enduring names like "Boulder" and "Fat Man" from his classmates and hearing jokes on how he must have a charge account at Jack in the Box, a local fast food restaurant.  By the time Chuck was 15 years old, he weighed 300 pounds.  A former student at Terra Linda High School, he was at the school that day in 1974 to deal drugs.  He did it not only for the money but also to help boost his popularity.  He was immediately smitten and obsessed by the 15-year-old Marlene.    

In an attempt to woo Marlene, who was initially put off by his size, Chuck love bombed her, gifting her with flowers, candy and affection.  Although she appreciated his "white knight protector" act, especially given that she believed she had lost that from her father,  it was only after Chuck agreed to provide her with drugs that Marlene agreed to have sex with him.  Chuck, who had never had a girlfriend before, became utterly devoted to Marlene, who would take him into stores and point out items she wanted, which he would then steal.  His association with Marlene would lead Chuck, wo had never before been in trouble with the law, to have a record.  

Surprisingly, Jim and Naomi Olive liked Chuck and approved of his relationship with Marlene - at least at first.  Naomi reportedly thought he was a nice young man before her daughter got to him.  As 1974 turned in 1975 and life with Marlene became a constant cycle of arrests, drug use and battles, however, Jim's opinion began to change.  In March of 1975, Marlene and Chuck were charged with grand larceny after they lifted $6,000 worth of women's clothing and accessories from a variety of stores in the area.  Jim bailed Marlene out of jail and hired an attorney to represent her in the matter due to move forward in May but also threatened to send her to a juvenile facility.  Chuck's parents, with whom he lived, bailed him out.  

In the winter of 1974-1975, Marlene became obsessive with her fantasies of murdering her mother.  Her friends apparently thought it was nothing more than typical teenage venting and wrote it off.  However, Marlene's relationship with Naomi continued to deteriorate and she decided to take action.  She crushed up prescription medication and put it into her mother's food, hoping that Naomi would ingest it and overdose.  The plan failed, though, when Naomi refused to eat the food, citing it was too bitter.  

By June of 1975, Jim Olive had had enough.  He told Marlene he planned to ground her throughout the summer and come fall, she would be sent to a boarding school.  He no longer wanted her to see Chuck Riley and Jim issued his own warning to Chuck:  stay away from Marlene or I'll kill you. 

On the first day of summer, Saturday, June 21, 1975, Marlene and Naomi had their last fight in which Naomi reportedly told Marlene she was going to get locked up in juvenile hall.  Marlene responded by calling Chuck and telling him to get his gun because "we've got to kill the bitch today."  Chuck claimed that he didn't want to kill anyone but Marlene said that if he loved her, he would do it.  When that wasn't incentive enough, according to Chuck, she said if he refused, she would no longer see him. 

With that in order, she arranged to go out shopping with Jim, leaving Naomi alone in the house.  Marlene left the door unlocked so that Chuck could easily gain entry to the home and murder Naomi.  

Chuck took some LSD before grabbing his .22 caliber revolver and a hammer and heading over the Olive residence, where Naomi was sleeping.   She was struck in the head with a claw hammer until the hammer lodged in her skull.  As that failed to kill her, Chuck ran to the kitchen where he obtained a steak knife that he used to stab her repeatedly in the chest.  He didn't use the gun on Naomi, he later said, because he worried the noise would alert neighbors.  

Although the plan allegedly had been only to kill Naomi,  Marlene and Jim returned from their shopping excursion while Chuck was still in the house.  Jim saw Chuck in the process of attempting to smother Naomi, grabbed the bloody steak knife from the nightstand and rushed at his daughter's boyfriend.  Chuck pulled his gun out and fired it four times, striking Jim in the chest and killing him.

Even if Jim had not been part of the murder plot, Marlene apparently did not mourn him or have no remorse over his murder.  She and Chuck wrapped his body and Naomi's in rugs, placed them in Chuck's car and drove to China Camp State Park.  The bodies were then dumped into a barbeque pit, doused with gasoline and set on fire.  The teenagers returned to Terra Linda, where they enlisted a friend for help in cleaning up the blood.  For the next four days, Marlene and Chuck lived in the house on Hibiscus Way, where, using Jim and Naomi's credit cards, checkbook, and cash, they partied, ate takeout food and went to concerts.  They also bragged about the murders to friends.  Reportedly, the couple's plan was to wait until Jim and Naomi were declared dead, then collect the insurance money and move to Ecuador. 

Jim Olive's business partner became concerned when Jim missed multiple meetings at work and dropped by the Olive residence.  No one answered the door but the man noticed the overall disarray through the windows.  Believing that Jim had been the victim of a burglary or home invasion, he notified police.  The police also received no response to their door knocking and left a note for the home's residents to contact them as soon as they returned home.  Marlene did that, showing up at the police station with a variety of conflicting stories.  First, she claimed that her parents had gone to Lake Tahoe on vacation, then said that they had been kidnapped and killed by Hell's Angels.  She even suggested that one of her parents had killed the other and disappeared with the body.  She also provided several different alibis for herself and Chuck over the preceding days.

Police searched the messy, disorderly residence and while they found nothing of note, they did acknowledge that, unlike the rest of the house, the master bedroom was recently cleaned and spotless.

The friend who had been employed by Chuck and Marlene to help in cleaning up after the murders of Jim and Naomi went to law enforcement to make a statement not only about the blood that was present in the bedroom but about comments made by Chuck and Marlene about killing the Olives.  With this information, Marlene owned up to where her parents were and led the police to the China Camp State Park and the pit where the bodies of Jim and Naomi Olive had been set alight.  Human bone fragments were found in the ash.

Chuck Riley's mug shot (photo source)

On July 10, 1975, Chuck Riley and Marlene Olive were arrested and each charged with two counts of first-degree murder.  Chuck immediately confessed, saying he committed the killings because Marlene told him to, although he would later recant a portion of his confession.  As Marlene was a minor, a psychiatric evaluation was ordered for her.  She was considered troubled but competent to stand trial.  

In September, the attorney who had represented Marlene when she had been arrested for shoplifting at the local mall successfully argued on her behalf that she should be tried in juvenile court rather than as an adult in superior court.  He conceded that she and Chuck were both heavily involved in drugs, sex and fantasy but it was Chuck who carried out the murders.  Following a short hearing in the Marin County Juvenile Court, sixteen-year-old Marlene was ordered to spend three years at The Ventura School, the California Youth Authority's juvenile detention facility about an hour north of Los Angeles.

Chuck, as a legal adult, wasn't so lucky.  His trial began on October 30, 1975.  As he had confessed to both murders (although he had since claimed that he found Naomi Olive with the hammer already embedded in her head and he had stabbed her to put her out of her misery), his defense team attempted to show that a person like Chuck would be susceptible to someone like Marlene, even going so far as to kill for her.  Chuck allowed himself to be hypnotized but it didn't sway the jury.  Following the seven-week trial, he was found guilty of bludgeoning Naomi Olive to death and shooting Jim Olive to death at close range.  He was sentenced to death and in early 1976, was sent to San Quentin State Prison to await execution.

Marin County and Terra Linda settled back in to normal life but Marlene Olive couldn't seem to stay out of trouble.  

Upon arriving at The Ventura School, Marlene tracked down the attorney that handled her adoption back in 1959 and learned the name of her biological mother.  Despite what Naomi had told her for years, the woman was not a prostitute impregnated by a client but a 19-year-old teenager impregnated by a sailor on leave.

In late 1978, with only weeks to go before being paroled, Marlene escaped from a holding cell in Los Angeles and headed east to New York, where she resumed her heavy drug habit and became a high-priced prostitute.  She would remain free until she was picked up in July 1979 at a brothel.  Returned to California to finish her sentence, she was released in 1980 when she was 21.  

In 1981, accompanied by writer Richard M. Levine, who would go on to write 1982's Bad Blood: A Family Murder in Marin County, she saw Chuck for the first time in five years when she visited him in prison.  He correctly observed after the visit, "I'll never see her again."  

(Photo source)

Marlene went to L.A. and changed her name numerous times - possibly due to her multiple arrests (at least seven) for forgery and drug-related charges.  Her arrests led to two one-year jail sentences.  In 1986, she was busted, along with others, for her involvement in a large counterfeit and forgery ring for which she was suspected of being the ringleader.  Sentenced to five years, she was again convicted in 1992 for for making a false financial settlement and in 1995 for possession of a forged driver's license.  In between her forgeries, credit card fraud and cashing bad checks, she was admitted to UCLA through her The Ventura School community-college equivalency degree but she soon dropped out.  In 2003, she was arrested in Bakersfield, California on suspicion of being under the influence of drugs, possession of stolen property, drug paraphernalia and counterfeit checks and sentenced to seven years.   Authorities remarked that they had never before seen a street level forger as skilled or prolific as Marlene Olive, who could commit forgery and fraud from documents she obtained from the trash.

Marlene served her sentence at a Kern County's women prison for the Bakersfield charges and her present whereabouts are unknown.  

Drawing by Marlene McCarty (photo source)

In the 1990s, artist Marlene McCarty, inspired by Levine's book, created a series of drawings on the teenaged Marlene Olive which became a series called "Murder Girls."  One of those drawings is now in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Chuck in 2013 (photo source)

Chuck Riley's life was spared when the death penalty was nullified in 1978 after being ruled unconstitutional; his death sentence was commuted to one of life with the possibility of parole.  Transferred from San Quentin to the Men's Correctional Facility in San Luis Obispo, Chuck slimmed down to 190 pounds and earned his GED and the equivalent of a college degree.   He became eligible for parole seven years into his commuted sentence; ultimately, he would be denied more than a dozen times.  In 2011,  following a denial, he appealed, citing that there was no evidence that he continued to be a danger to the community, that the parole board did not consider his age, and that his sentence was unconstitutionally excessive.  In May of 2014, the Court of Appeals in San Francisco agreed with Chuck and ordered a new parole hearing.  The subsequent parole hearing found him suitable for release.  On February 6, 2015, California's then-governor Jerry Brown reversed the parole board's decision.  He did acknowledge that Chuck had taken positive steps in prison, such as participating in the behavioral programs and earning his associate and bachelor degrees but felt that he continued to minimize his involvement in the crime.  Chuck appealed Brown's decision and on December 3, 2015, Brown's reversal was vacated and five days later, Chuck Riley was granted parole.  

Chuck Riley and Marlene Olive, by all accounts, have not seen each other since 1981.

Jim and Naomi's grave marker (photo source)

Sources:

20th Century Murder (2019). Teen Girls Who Murdered Their Parents (1970s)-Marlene Olive/The Barbecue Pit Murders — 20th Century Murder: A True Crime Blog and Podcast (home.blog)

Catt’s True Crime Corner, (2019). Catt’s True Crime Corner“We Had To Do It.”

Crime Library, (2014). Kill my parents: The story of Marlene Olive (archive.org)

Levine, Richard M. Bad Blood: A Family Murder in Marin County. Signet, 1983.

Marin Independent Journal, (2015) Governor reverses parole board decision to release Marin double-murderer — Marin Independent Journal (marinij.com)

Marin Magazine, (2008). A Local Murder — Marin Magazine

New York Daily News (2017), Adopted California teen convinces boyfriend to kill parents in 1975 ‘Barbecue Murders’ — New York Daily News (nydailynews.com)

Wikipedia, (2021). Barbecue murders — Wikipedia

 

Keith Harward and The Bite Mark Case of Newport News

Flawed Forensic Science Leads to a 33-Year-Long Wrongful Incarceration  

Keith as a sailor (photo source)

Newport News

Lying on the southeastern end of the Virginia Peninsula and on the northern shore of the James River,  Newport News is the fifth most populous city in Virginia.  It's nearly 120 square miles, which includes 50 square miles of water, is divided into segments: Uptown, Northern Newport News and Downtown (also referred to as Southeast Newport News or the East End.)   The city has fostered its share of celebrities, including Ella Fitzgerald, author William Styron, and NFL siblings Michael and Marcus Vick.  

Newport News is home to Christopher Newport University, as well as Thomas Nelson Community College and The Apprentice School, a trade school operated by Newport News Shipbuilding. 

Although one of the city's major industries is aerospace, the military has a huge presence in Newport News.  The Army's Fort Eustis, off the busy Jefferson Boulevard and Fort Eustis Boulevard, is home to the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command, as well as the U.S. Army Aviation Logistics School and  the 7th Transportation Brigade.   

Shipbuilding, however, is its largest employer.  In fact, Newport News Shipbuilding is the largest industrial employer in the state.  The shipyards are located in the southern end of Newport News, where the facilities span more than 550 acres and its location makes it one of the great harbors of the East Coast.  

While the shipyards brought many military families to the area, and helped to bolster the economy, the sometimes transient nature of the Navy also brought crime.

Rape and Murder

Jesse and Teresa Perron were an average Newport News family.  Twenty-nine year old Jesse worked at the Shipyard as a welder, so the family resided in the 4900 block of Warwick Boulevard in southern Newport News, to be close to the shipyard.  They had three children and seemed to have a good, solid existence until September of 1982.  

Monday, September 13, 1982 had started out like any other day for twenty-two year old Teresa Perron.  She had taken the children swimming, a normal activity, but upon driving away from the pool, a hitchhiker in a Navy uniform cursed at her.  Later that day, around 6 p.m., she was hanging clothing in her backyard when she she spotted a man watching her through the back fence.  Both occurrences would seem unimportant - until later.  

It was after the family had gone to bed that she awoke that night to a loud noise.  The loud noise, she discovered, was the sound of an intruder, who was standing by her bed, striking her husband in the head with a crowbar.  The man was dressed in a Navy uniform bearing an insignia of three Vs and wearing dog tags around his neck,   When he saw that she had awakened, he threw her onto the floor, pinned her legs with his own and continued his murderous assault on Jesse.  According to Teresa, he told her that he did not want to kill Jesse, only "knock him out."  

Jesse Perron as he was found (photo source)

Once Jesse was unconscious from the blows, the intruder turned to Teresa.  He threatened to "get" her children and rape her daughter if she made a sound.  She remained quiet over the next several hours while the intruder raped her, with Jesse lying on the bed above her.   During the course of the assaults, both Teresa and her attacker each smoked at least one cigarette apiece.   

It was around 5 a.m. when the intruder finally fled, after robbing Teresa of some $14 in cash.  She called the police, who arrived to find Jesse Perron dead but the children unharmed.  The rape kit done at the hospital provided seminal fluid, saliva, and a foreign pubic hair.  

At the Perron home, detectives discovered a wealth of physical evidence that included a crowbar, cigarette butt, an empty Pepsi bottle, a baby's diaper, a t-shirt, a towel (all of which were handled by the killer) and strands of his killer's hair found clutched in Jesse's hand.   

What would end up being the smoking gun in the case, however, were the bite marks on Teresa's legs, which were photographed at the hospital.

Photo source

Besides the killer's uniform, Teresa had described her assailant as young, white and clean-shaven with sandy hair.  She assisted authorities with a sketch.  She recalled the events of the day before and while she could not state with certainty that the hitchhiker or the man at the fence was the person who attacked her and killed Jesse, she did feel the man who cursed at her had a voice that sounded like the assailant.   

The murder was big news in the Navy town.  Donald Wade, a security guard at the Shipyard, heard an evening news report on the crime.  He recalled a sailor entering his gate around 2:30 in the morning of September 14, acting strangely and wearing a uniform with what appeared to be blood spatter on it.  According to what Mr. Wade told authorities, the sailor was wearing the uniform of an E-3, the rank insignia of which would have three parallel "slash" marks.  Although in uniform, the sailor was not in proper attire, as his sleeves were rolled up and he wore no cover (hat).  Incidentally, Gate 50, where Wade was stationed and where he noticed the sailor, was very close to the Perron home.   

A police tracking dog was brought in and led detectives from the Perron home and through the entry gate where Wade worked and up to the pier where the USS Carl Vinson, an aircraft carrier, was then drydocked.  That, along with Teresa's description and Wade's statement, caused investigators to focus on sailors stationed aboard the Carl Vinson.  The dental records of all E-3s assigned to the Vinson were submitted and screened by a Navy dentist against the photographs taken of Teresa Perron's legs.  From that screening, certain sailors were chosen for additional review.  Despite their diligence, none of the sailors' teeth was found to match the bite marks on Teresa.  The USS Carl Vinson, with its crew of more than 1,300, left the harbor in December of 1982.    

Bites on Teresa Perron (photo source)

Six months passed after Jesse Perron's murder and Teresa Perron's rape with no arrest, no new leads and no viable suspects.  

Senators Alfonse D'Amato and Paul Trible each wrote to the Navy, expressing their concerns over how the investigation was handled.   Shortly after those letters were penned, a March 1983 domestic dispute caught the attention of the Newport News detectives working on the Perron case.  The man involved in the altercation was accused of biting the female.  That man immediately became the focus of their investigation. 

Keith with a former girlfriend (photo source)

Keith

Keith Allen Harward was 26 years old and a former Navy sailor who had been stationed to the USS Carl Vinson.   Before his discharge,  he was an E3.  He was sandy haired and white, but rather than being clean-shaven he sported a neat mustache.   He would later admit that both he and his girlfriend at that time had drinking problems.  Keith's dental records had been in the stack that was reviewed by the Navy dentist six months earlier and had been pulled out for further review but he was ultimately ruled out as the person who had assaulted and bitten Teresa Perron.  

Detectives brought Teresa to the courtroom where Keith was being arraigned on the domestic charges that were ultimately dismissed, hoping that she could identify him as her assailant.  She was unable to do so but investigators thought they had their man.   They sent the dental molds off to Dr. Lowell Levine, the New York forensic dentist who had founded the American Board of Forensic Odontology and who had gained fame in the bitemark analysis field by linking bitemarks on a murder victim to serial killer Ted Bundy and linking bitemarks to Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele.   After an examination, Dr. Levine concluded that Keith Harward had made the bite marks on Teresa Perron.  The State then employed local odonatologist Alvin Kagey, also a member of the American Board of Forensic Odontology, to examine and compare the photographs and the dental molds of Keith Harward.   Dr. Kagey stated that Keith Harward "is the person that did the biting."  The two earlier dentists who had conducted the initial screening and then review of the sailors aboard the Carl Vinson were then asked to reevaluate their findings after being informed of Dr. Levine's conclusion; both did, changing their opinions to match those of Dr. Levine and Dr. Kagey.

Donald Wade was contacted and given a six-photo lineup.  He chose Keith from the photos as the sailor he saw enter his gate in the early morning hours of September 14, 1982.  Unbeknownst to Keith or his defense counsel, Wade had undergone hypnosis prior to the photo lineup.  He not only chose Keith but he also revised the time he had seen the sailor at his gate from 2:30 a.m. to 5 a.m., which corresponded with the time Teresa Perron said her assailant had fled.   

Molds were then made of Keith's teeth.

On May 18, 1983, Keith Allen Harward was indicted by the grand jury on charges of capital murder, rape, robbery, and forcible sodomy.   That same day he was arrested at his parents' home in Forsyth County, Virginia.   Trial was set for October 1983.  

Keith under arrest (photo source)

Defense counsel for Keith knew that the bite mark evidence would be central to the prosecution's case and attempted to get their own expert.  That expert, dentist Dr. Stanley Schwartz, however,  agreed with the conclusions of Dr. Levine and Dr. Kagey that Keith's teeth inflicted the bite marks.  Dr. Schwartz was also a founding member of the American Board of Forensic Odontology,   Thus, by the start of the trial, the defense had no expert or experts with which to rebut the central argument in the prosecution's case.

During the trial, Keith took the stand in his own defense.  A former girlfriend of his testified, not being called by the Commonwealth, but as part of his cross-examination.  She attested that Keith had bitten her on several occasions.  Donald Wade appeared to identify Keith as the man he had seen entering his gate wearing a bloody uniform.  The most damning evidence against him, though, was the bite mark evaluation and identification using the photographs and the dental molds.

Keith was found guilty on all four counts.  His life was spared when his parents testified during the penalty phase and begged the jury to spare Keith's life.  He was sentenced to life in prison. 

Two years later, in 1985, the Virginia Supreme Court reversed Keith's conviction, finding that a rape could only elevate a homicide to capital murder if the person murdered was also the rape victim.  

In March of 1986, Keith went to trial for a second time.  The Commonwealth presented a nearly identical trial to their first, with both Dr. Levine and Dr. Kagey testifying.  Dr. Levine opined that there was a "very, very, very, very high degree of probability" that there were "no discrepancies" between the bitemarks and Keith's teeth, making it "a practical impossibility that someone else would have all these characteristics" that he found in the bite marks.  Dr. Kagey told the jury that he could match Keith Harward to the bite mark "with all medical certainty" and that "there is just not anyone else that would have this unique dentition."   The Richmond, Virginia-based dentist that Keith's attorney contacted in hopes of offsetting the opinions of Dr. Levine and Dr. Kagey agreed with their analysis.

The prosecution also called serologist David Pomposini from the Commonwealth's forensic lab to the stand.  Pomposini testified that the serology results from the rape kit were inconclusive, which neither inculpated nor exculpated Keith.   What Pomposini did not share and was not elicited from his testimony was that the secretion samples in the rape kit were consistent with a type O secretor.   Teresa Perron was a type B secretor and Keith Harward was a type A secretor, meaning that Keith should have effectively been excluded from the rape kit evidence.     

Keith once again testified in his own defense, denying any involvement in the crime.  He proved that at the time Teresa Perron saw the man standing in her backyard, he was attending a mandatory Naval alcohol and drug abuse program because he had been caught with marijuana on the ship.  He also stated that the insignia on his uniform at the time was three slashes, not the upside down Vs present on the uniforms of higher-ranking petty officers.  He also testified, and through photographs, showed that he was not clean-shaven in September of 1982, as Teresa Perron had described her attacker and as Donald Wade had described the sailor entering his gate, but sported a mustache. 

On March 6, 1986, Keith Harward was once again found guilty and convicted of murder and rape and once again sentenced to life in prison.  

Keith appealed his sentence, arguing that bite mark evidence was not sufficiently reliable but the Court of Appeals ruled that the court in Newport News did not err in allowing the evidence in and denied his appeal.  In 1988, the Supreme Court of Virginia refused to review the Court of Appeals' decision. 

The Innocence Project and Exoneration

The case appeared to be officially over until Keith learned about The Innocence Project.  In 2007, he wrote them a letter, outlining his case and asking for assistance with the opportunity to prove his innocence.  It would take seven years but The Innocence Project began to work on his case in 2014.

The first action was to request DNA testing of multiple items recovered from the crime scene, which was done in July 2015 with the permission of the Commonwealth's Attorney.  The first round of test results in January of 2016 effectively eliminated Keith as the contributor of semen recovered from the rape kit and from semen stains found on the diaper and the towel handled by the perpetrator.  The DNA matched on all of the samples and when uploaded into the National DNA Data Bank pointed to one perpetrator:  Jerry Lee Crotty.

Jerry Lee Crotty, who got away with rape and murder (photo source)

Like Keith Harward, Jerry Lee Crotty was a white male with sandy-colored hair stationed aboard the USS Carl Vinson in September of 1982.   Crotty had a rap sheet that included burglary and had been imprisoned in Ohio, where he died in 2006, a year after he had plead guilty to a charge of attempting to abduct a woman a year earlier.  

The Innocence Project discovered that David Pomposini's bench notes indicated that Keith Harward could have and should have been excluded as the contributor of the samples in the rape kit at the time of trial, as well as the fact that both Teresa Perron and Donald Wade had undergone hypnosis, notoriously unreliable, about events on September 14, 1982.    

In March of 2016, Keith filed a petition for a writ of actual innocence with the Supreme Court of Virginia.  On April 6, 2016, Mark Herring, the Virginia Attorney General, said that he believed in Keith's innocence.   The next day, the Virginia Supreme Court found that no reasonable person would have found proof of Keith's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and ordered his convictions vacated and his record expunged immediately.  On April 8, Keith Harward walked out of prison, after spending 33 years locked up for crimes he did not commit.

Keith leaves prison a free and exonerated man (photo source)

In 2017, the Virginia Legislature approved payment of $1.6 million to Keith, with a lump sum of $309,000 and the remaining to go into an annuity.

To date, neither Dr. Levine nor Dr. Kagey has admitted error in Keith's case, taken any responsibility for his conviction or apologized.   Since the time of Keith's trials in 1983 and 1986, bite mark evidence has been discredited by the scientific community as "profoundly unreliable" and "insufficient."   The Texas Forensic Science Commission undertook a six-month study into the reliability and validity of bite mark evidence and found that there is "no scientific basis for stating that a particular patterned injury can be associated to an individual's dentition."    

Despite this, and 28 known wrongful convictions and indictments, no court in the United States has precluded the introduction of bite mark evidence in a criminal trial.

Today, Keith Harward  lives out in the country, much like where he grew up, and enjoys spending his time feeding wild birds, something he missed while incarcerated and could only dream about.   He misses his parents, who both died while he was in prison.  He believes it's his calling to educate people on wrongful convictions and bite mark analysis and hopes to introduce bills that will debunk odontology as credible.   He also would like to work to see that fair compensation for exonerees becomes the norm. 

 

Keith today (photo source)

Sources: 

Harward v. Commonwealth of Virginia, 364 S.E. 2d 511 (1988).

The Innocence Project (2021).  Keith Allen Harward. 

The Innocence Project (2021).  Description of Bite Mark Exonerations.

The National Registry of Exonerations. (2020).  Keith Harward.    

Oxygen: True Crime Buzz.  (2020)  Who is Keith Harward,  the Sailor Wrongly Identified as a Vicious Rapist and Killer. 

The United States Department of Justice.  Commonwealth v. Keith Allen Harward Summary.