Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 20, 1994 TAG: 9401200189
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Short
John S. Tingle Jr. was convicted and sentenced to prison last August for assaulting Melissa Hellstrom near the oceanfront in February 1993.
"I couldn't sleep last night," Tingle said after the judge's ruling. "When the judge said I was a free man, I started crying. I couldn't help it."
Judge Thomas S. Shadrick made the ruling after Hellstrom said she was no longer sure Tingle was the man who attacked her near the oceanfront.
Tingle's attorneys praised Hellstrom for telling a judge last week about her doubts. Shadrick released Tingle on a $10,000 bond after that hearing.
Doubts about Tingle's guilt began last fall as police and defense attorneys began noticing similarities between Tingle and a man who was the subject of a police investigation into a series of rapes.
In an unusual hearing in December, six detectives testified for the defense that they had doubts about Tingle's guilt.
Shadrick ruled then that Tingle's conviction and 10-year sentence would stand.
After looking at pictures of the rape suspect, Kerri Charity, Hellstrom said she began to doubt her identification of Tingle as her attacker. Charity has not been charged in Hellstrom's attack.
"They're both very similar to what I remember from the side," Hellstrom told the judge during last week's hearings. "I've always questioned myself."
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.