CHICAGO, IL — New forensic testing appears to exonerate two men serving life sentences for a 1994 rape and murder in Chicago, and implicate a known serial rapist, according to a petition filed Monday in Cook County court.
A jury convicted Nevest Coleman and Darryl Fulton in the April 1994 rape and murder of Antwinica Bridgeman about three years after the crime. But the new filing alleges that DNA found under the victim’s fingernails and on her sweatshirt does not match either Coleman or Fulton — and that the men have been wrongfully convicted.
DNA taken from the victim’s underwear does match the serial rapist with “almost scientific certainty,” court documents allege. Additionally Coleman, Fulton, a third man who discovered the victim’s body with Coleman, and Bridgeman’s boyfriend were all excluded as the source of semen collected from the victim’s underwear, according to a forensic report cited by the filing. The same four men were also excluded as the source of semen collected from the victim’s sweatshirt, but that stain could not exclude the serial rapist.
For Coleman and Fulton to have raped and murdered Bridgeman, the filing notes, “The victim would have to had consensual sex with a serial rapist (who was not her boyfriend), sex that left his semen on her underwear and sweatshirt, and then Mr. Coleman, Mr. Fulton and (the third man) subsequently raped the victim without leaving any of their DNA on her underwear, sweatshirt, or fingernails.”
The Cook County state’s attorney’s office said it is reviewing the case and is awaiting more DNA results.
Related: Hannah Overton Exonerated In Salt Poising Death Of 4-Year-Old Foster Son
Bridgeman disappeared after celebrating her 20th birthday at a small party. Coleman, who was a well-liked groundskeeper at the time, was in attendance. A few weeks later, Coleman and his friend found her body in Coleman’s basement with a piece of concrete in her mouth and a pipe in her vagina.
Both Coleman, 25, and Fulton, 27, gave police confessions implicating themselves and another man in the crime. But the two later said their confessions were coerced, and the third man would not give a statement after denying any involvement at all.
Coleman’s attorney Russell Ainsworth of the Exoneration Project at the University of Chicago Law School filed a motion Monday to temporarily vacate Coleman’s sentence and have him released on bond pending the state’s reinvestigation of the case. According to the motion, the sole evidence against Coleman was the confession — and his attorney plans to fight to have his conviction vacated.
Related: New DNA Testing Planned In JonBenét Ramsey Murder Investigation
Judge Dennis Porter delayed a ruling until August 18 while prosecutors file a written argument against Ainsworth’s motion.
Read more:
Main photos: Nevest Coleman (left) and Darryl Fulton (right) [Illinois Department of Corrections]
The post DNA In 1994 Murder Points To Serial Rapist, Not The Two Men Serving Life Sentences appeared first on CrimeFeed.