Florida Man Sues Authorities Over Wrongful Conviction; Exonerated 37 Years Later After Forensic Dentist Shares Testimony About Faulty Beeswax Mold

After 37 years in prison, a Florida man, initially sentenced to death, has been exonerated of 1983 rape and murder charges. He is now suing authorities over wrongful conviction.

A bite mark, which was a piece of crucial evidence, was disproven by a forensic dentist, which led to the Florida man's release.

According to The Guardian, the 56-year-old, Robert DuBoise, was freed in August last year after a long-shelved untested DNA evidence from a rape kit proved that he was innocent of the rape and murder of then 19-year-old Barbara Grams in Tampa.

The rape victim was attacked and beaten to death while she was walking home from her job at a restaurant on August 19, 1983. No one else has been arrested for her murder aside from DuBoise.

Based on the federal lawsuit filed this week, the attorneys of DuBoise named as defendants the city of Tampa, Florida, four police investigators, and a forensic dentist who testified that the bite mark found on Grams' cheek was from DuBoise. The alleged bite mark evidence was based on a faulty beeswax mold.

Moreover, Daniel Marshall, an attorney for the Human Rights Defense Center, wrote in the lawsuit that the only physical evidence which implicated DuBoise was a fabricated "bite mark" evidence that supposedly matched DuBoise to an injury on the victim's body. Marshall clarified that the injury acquired by the victim was not made by a human or the bite mark of Duboise at all.

Meanwhile, the dentist, Dr. Richard Souviron, gained notoriety as an expert after he testified in the murder trial of serial killer Ted Bundy. He stated that one of his Florida victims had a bite mark that matched his teeth.

"Beeswax" is not an accepted method in murder investigation.

Based on the lawsuit, using beeswax is not an accepted method in the identification of teeth marks in murder cases. It was also stated that beeswax was only used because one of the officers in the Tampa PF had a honey business, Tampa Bay Times reported.

Moreover, the lawsuit also claims that the investigators who worked with the informants from the jailhouse which falsely implicated DuBoise should be charged with misconduct. According to his lawyers, DuBoise never confessed to the murder and has maintained his innocence throughout the process.

When he was arrested, DuBoise was only 18 years old. The lawsuit stated that the investigation was mainly focused on him after a gas station attendant from across the street where the victim was found claimed that three "boys" named Ray, Bo, and Robert were causing trouble. This happened six months before the murder.

"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," the lawsuit says.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Jess Smith

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