Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 23, 1994 TAG: 9405230058
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: Medium
Holder, 23, of Portsmouth, was released May 6 after 8 1/2 months in the city jail because of a mistaken identification by the victim and delays in the procedure for genetic testing.
"I was walking behind a girl this week," Holder said. "I thought, `What if something happens to her and I'm the last person to be seen with her?' I bolted home. I know all women aren't the same, but suppose something happens again and there's no DNA and people think I did it. I understand how rape victims feel."
The girl in Holder's case was playing outside Aug. 15. She was raped and sodomized by a man who allegedly held a broken bottle to her neck. Ten days later, she saw Holder on the street and identified him as her attacker.
Holder said he believed at every turn the girl would say, "No, there's been a mistake." But it never happened. Not at the police station, where she picked him out of a lineup. Not at the preliminary hearing, where she pointed him out to the judge.
Not until April, when a laboratory ran comparisons of DNA found in Holder's blood to DNA found in semen recovered from the girl, did authorities say they'd arrested the wrong man. The DNA, or genetic pattern, showed Holder could not have raped the girl.
A hearing to dismiss all charges against him is scheduled for July.
Holder said he is angry at Marjorie Taylor, the prosecutor in his case, who he alleges did not seek justice.
"Less than 24 hours after I was busted, it was all over the news and TV," Holder said. "How do you think people feel about a man who would do something like that? It was pretty rough. I spent Christmas there. I lost my job. I found out who my real friends were."
Taylor said that because Holder's attorney, Pat Cannon, requested the test, it was up to Cannon to pursue it.
Part of the problem, said Circuit Judge Cleaves Manning, is that there was no system to handle a defendant requesting a DNA test.
"This is the first case [in Portsmouth] that I'm aware of where a defendant has asked for the DNA test," said Manning, who issued a court order for the test in December. "Defendants usually do everything they can to avoid it."
From the time he was arrested, Holder maintained his innocence and asked for a DNA test, he said.
Cannon filed a court motion on Nov. 30 when she realized Holder's blood had not been drawn. Manning ordered the tests Dec. 8. Taylor said she then notified police that they were responsible for making sure the test was performed.
The lead detective in the case, Sylvia Kaiser, declined to comment on the case until the charges are dismissed.
Paul B. Ferrara, director of the state Division of Forensic Science, said the lab was never told of the special circumstances of the case and never received the judge's order for the test.
"This is the first I've heard that this man was saying he was innocent and was asking for DNA," Ferrara said. "If we'd been told that, it would have been a priority case."
by CNB