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On July 25, 1984, a 9-year-old girl's body was found in the woods near Baltimore, Maryland. She had been struck repeatedly with a rock, raped and strangled.
An anonymous tip and five witnesses placed Kirk Bloodsworth with the girl earlier that the day. Further questioning revealed that he had told a friend that he had done something bad that would affect his marriage. Police testified that during an interrogation, Bloodsworth mentioned a "bloody rock" before they had released information concerning weapons.
Bloodsworth was convicted and sentenced to death for sexual assault, rape and first-degree premeditated murder. His attorney filed an appeal stating the police held back information concerning the possibility of another suspect, that the "something bad" was that he had forgotten to buy his wife a promised taco salad, and the bloody rock was on the interrogation table during his interview.
The Maryland Court of Appeals agreed to a new trial and in July 1986, he was convicted again, receiving two consecutive life terms instead of death.
An appeal of the second conviction was denied. In 1992, evidence from the crime scene was sent for DNA testing, which determined that Bloodsworth's DNA did not match any of the evidence received for testing. The FBI repeated the tests in 1993 and reached the same conclusion.
A Baltimore County judge released Bloodsworth from prison on June 28, 1993, and the governor pardoned him in December.
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In April 1990, a woman in Uvalde County, Texas was attacked in her home. A man put a pillow over her head and sexually assaulted her. She could only describe her assailant in terms of physical size and his clothing. Police canvassing the neighborhood stopped three men, one of whom was wearing clothes similar to the ones described by the victim. She picked Gilbert Alejandro's photo from a mug book, despite her claim that she'd had a pillow over her head and hadn't seen her attacker clearly.
Alejandro was convicted in October 1990, of aggravated sexual assault and sentenced to 12 years in prison. A DNA test found that it was not Alejandro's semen on the victim's nightgown. The court of appeals overturned Alejandro's conviction and the district attorney declined to try him again. In 1994 charges against Alejandro were dismissed.
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