THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 24, 1994 TAG: 9408240522
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JOE JACKSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long : 108 lines
Convicted rapist Edward Honaker's plea for clemency suffered a setback when the state's chief forensics expert determined this week it can no longer be said with certainty that Honaker is innocent of the crime.
The report flies in the face of lab studies conducted two months ago that seemed to establish that Honaker was not the rapist.
On Monday, Dr. Paul B. Ferrara, director of the state's Division of Forensic Science, sent a report to Gov. George F. Allen stating that DNA evidence found on the victim does not rule Honaker out as the rapist.
Instead, Ferrara said, the presence of another man - a lover the victim disclosed only in recent weeks - confuses the identification of the rapist, leaving open the possibility that Honaker's presence could have been ``masked,'' or covered, by the other man's sperm.
``The newest test doesn't eliminate Honaker as the rapist, and doesn't prove he did it, either,'' Ferrara said Tuesday. ``It (the latest test) doesn't establish guilt or innocence. . . . There is no indication that Honaker is there, but his presence could also be masked.''
Such ambiguity does not help the clemency chances of the 44-year-old Roanoke man, who has served nearly 10 years for the rape of a Newport News woman he insists he didn't commit. He was sentenced in 1985 to three life terms plus 34 years after the woman identified him in court.
Earlier this year, DNA tests performed in California conducted on vaginal swabs and clothing from the victim seemed to exclude Honaker. At the request of the chief prosecutor in Nelson County, where Honaker was convicted, the swabs were tested a second time by the state. The results, released in June, were the same.
On June 24, Honaker petitioned Allen for clemency. The scientific evidence of his innocence seemed iron-clad - so strong that the Nelson County prosecutor joined in the request. Honaker waited in Nottoway Correctional Center for word from the governor - word which never came.
``Then this came out of nowhere, like a hand grenade,'' said Kate Germond, an investigator for Centurion Ministries in New Jersey, who has worked on the case for two years. ``Ed's like he's been Sunday-punched. He's so depressed - he is blown away.
``We're anticipating that Ed's clemency plea is going to be turned down now,'' Germond said Tuesday. ``Don't tell me it's not political. Allen's found a way to get out of granting clemency.''
Allen's aides have only said the governor is reviewing the case. Aides did not return a reporter's calls Tuesday.
Unknown to Honaker, state police interviewed the victim again after he filed his clemency plea. For the first time, the victim admitted she had another lover at the time of the rape, someone unknown to her then-boyfriend. This third man confirmed her story and provided saliva for genetic tests.
There is only a 72-hour window during which sperm can be collected as viable evidence in rape cases, Germond said. Yet the victim could not say whether she had sex with the third man in the days preceding her rape.
After the rape, the victim married her boyfriend, then divorced him. Later, she married the third man. She never told the jury in Honaker's trial about sleeping with the third man when asked if she had slept with anyone else, Germond said.
Today, the victim is estranged from the third man, Germond said. It was only after this marriage dissolved that she admitted his existence to police.
The third man's genetic characteristics match evidence from the 1984 rape, Ferrara said. Early genetic tests showed that the rapist was DNA type 3,4 or 4,4. Neither Honaker nor the first boyfriend was either of these types. The third man was type 4,4, yet he has never been a suspect.
In addition, Honaker's vasectomy - the very operation that helped cast doubt on his guilt during the first tests - now works against him, Ferrara said.
``If he were not vasectomized and innocent of the rape, he could have been eliminated'' because genetic indicators would have shown up in a comparison of Honaker's DNA to the rapist's, Ferrara said. But the vasectomy means he does not produce sperm - thus, no comparison, and no certainty, Ferrara added.
It is not the first time the state has used the masking theory in a clemency plea. Earl Washington Jr. was sentenced to death for the 1982 rape and murder of a Culpeper woman. Washington, who was borderline retarded, confessed to the crime, but semen left on the victim's blanket contained a genetic trait not found in Washington, the victim or her husband. Scientists concluded a third man was involved, but prosecutors said that Washington's DNA could have been ``masked'' by the victim's vaginal fluid.
In January, Washington was granted conditional clemency by departing Gov. L. Douglas Wilder. He was taken off death row but remains in prison for life. Wilder called the DNA tests compelling, but said a new jury would give Washington's confession substantial weight.
Honaker's case has been ambiguous from the start. On June 22, 1984, the 19-year-old victim and her boyfriend got lost in the dark while driving west on the Blue Ridge Parkway. They pulled onto an overlook, parked their car and decided to go to sleep. A few hours later, a man in camouflage pants ordered them to open the door and pulled a gun. He told the boyfriend to run, then forced the woman into his truck and raped and sodomized her for four hours.
A National Park Service incident report stated the woman ``was not allowed to clearly see the individual during the entire sequence of events.'' Still, the woman gave descriptions that allowed police to draw two composite sketches. Four months later, a Roanoke police officer decided the composites resembled a mug shot of Honaker. The victim picked out Honaker from a photo lineup.
Yet court records show the woman identified Honaker only after being hypnotized. Testimony about hypnotically enhanced memories has been considered inadmissible and unreliable in Virginia since 1974. Honaker was never told about the hypnosis.
``This new development is extremely suspect in our mind,'' said Germond. ``Why are we believing a woman who can't keep her story straight over all these years?''
KEYWORDS: DNA MURDER DEATH SENTENCE DEATH ROW CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
SEX CRIME by CNB