DNA testing confirms man executed in 1992 was guilty

RICHMOND, Va. — A new round of DNA tests that death-penalty opponents believed might prove an innocent man was executed in the United States confirmed instead that Roger Keith Coleman was guilty when he went to the electric chair in 1992.

Gov. Mark Warner on Thursday said testing on DNA taken from sperm proved Coleman, 33, committed the 1981 rape and murder of his sister-in-law, Wanda McCoy, 19.

Coleman went to his death proclaiming his innocence, and a finding that he was unjustly executed could have had a powerful effect on the public's attitude toward capital punishment.

"We have sought the truth using DNA technology not available at the time the commonwealth carried out the ultimate criminal sanction," Warner said. "The confirmation that Roger Coleman's DNA was present reaffirms the verdict and the sanction."

Coleman was convicted and sentenced to death in 1982 for the murder of McCoy, his wife's sister, who was found raped, stabbed and nearly beheaded in her home in the coal-mining town of Grundy.

Initial DNA and blood tests in 1990 placed Coleman within the 0.2 percent of the population who could have produced the semen at the crime scene. But his lawyers said the expert they hired to conduct those initial DNA tests misinterpreted the results.

The governor agreed last month to a new round of more sophisticated DNA tests in one of his last official acts. Warner, who has been mentioned as a possible Democratic candidate for president in 2008, leaves office Saturday.

The report from the Centre of Forensic Sciences in Toronto concluded there was almost no conceivable doubt Coleman was the source of the sperm found in the victim.

"The probability that a randomly selected individual unrelated to Roger Coleman would coincidentally share the observed DNA profile is estimated to be 1 in 19 million," the report said.

As Coleman's execution drew near, his case drew international attention, with the inmate pleading his innocence on talk shows and in magazines and newspapers. Time magazine featured the coal miner on its cover. Pope John Paul II tried to block the execution. The office of L. Douglas Wilder, then the governor, was flooded with thousands of calls and letters of protest from around the world.

Coleman's attorneys said that he did not have time to commit the crime, that tests showed semen from two men was found inside McCoy and that another man bragged about murdering her.

"An innocent man is going to be murdered tonight," Coleman said moments before he was electrocuted on May 20, 1992.

A former prosecutor in the case said the results, while not surprising, were a relief. "Quite frankly, I feel like the weight of the world has been lifted off of my shoulders," Grundy attorney Tom Scott said.

Prosecutors said other evidence pointed to Coleman as the killer: There was no sign of forced entry at McCoy's house, leading investigators to believe she knew her attacker; Coleman was previously convicted of the attempted rape of a teacher and was charged with exposing himself to a librarian two months before the murder; a pubic hair found on McCoy's body was consistent with Coleman's hair; and the original DNA tests placed him within a fraction of the population who could have left semen at the scene.

Four newspapers and Centurion Ministries, an organization that investigated Coleman's case and became convinced of his innocence, sought a court order to have the evidence retested.

James McCloskey, executive director of Centurion Ministries, had been fighting to prove Coleman's innocence since 1988. The two shared Coleman's final meal: cold slices of pizza.

"I now know that I was wrong. Indeed, this is a bitter pill to swallow," McCloskey said, describing Thursday's findings as "a kick in the stomach" and adding that he felt betrayed by Coleman.

Death-penalty proponents welcomed the results. "Stop the presses; it turns out that rapists and killers are also liars," said Michael Paranzino, president of a group called Throw Away the Key.

Death-penalty opponents said Coleman's case does not mean the death penalty is infallible. "Obviously, one case does not in any way reflect on the correctness of the other 1,000 executions we've had in the last 30 years," said Peter Neufeld, co-founder of the Innocence Project.

Associated Press writers Sue Lindsey in Roanoke and Michael Felberbaum and Zinie Chen Sampson in Richmond contributed to this report.