Donte Booker's Rape Case

In Beachwood, Ohio, on November 11, 1986, a white woman was approached by an African American man who asked about the location of a public phone while leaving her office. After talking to him "under direct light for approximately three minutes," she went to her car to warm it up. She was then attacked by the man who asked about the payphone, and he threatened her with a knife. The victim said she saw him several times after he entered the vehicle. The perpetrator stole eight dollars from her and took the car behind the building, to the docks. Once there, he raped the woman then told her to get out of the car. Then she ran to a nearby building to call the police. When her car was recovered later that evening, a toy gun was missing from the car. The victim assisted the police in creating a composite sketch and looked through many different photo arrays but was unable to make an identification.

Later, in February 1987, Donte Booker was arrested for an unrelated incident involving a toy gun. A police officer remembered the toy gun being stolen in the rape case and thought it might be somehow connected. Booker's photograph was added to a photo array for the rape case and the victim both selected Booker and identified the toy gun as the …show more content…
A pubic hair was also found and determined to likely belong to an African American. The further DNA testing done was retained from the case, including the rape kit. Booker was convicted of rape because of the identifications made by the victim. Booker found out about the withheld evidence after contacting the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation in 2000. He was paroled in 2002 and filed a motion to have the evidence subjected to post-conviction DNA testing which was granted by the court. Test results excluded Booker as the contributor of DNA on the victim's clothing and the rape kit, and his convictions were overturned on February 9,