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| Mass. inmate charged after DNA reverses verdict |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 08/18/2005 |
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Prosecutors have charged a Massachusetts prison inmate in a 1981 rape case that led to the wrongful imprisonment of another man for more than two decades Joel Bill Caulk, 58, was indicted Tuesday in North Carolina on charges of rape, sexual offense, and robbery with a dangerous weapon. Caulk is serving time in the maximum-security Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, Mass., for rape and robbery, and also has been convicted of violent crimes in Maine, New Hampshire, and California. The announcement of his indictment came on the same day North Carolina Governor Mike Easley formally pardoned Leo Waters, who was cleared of the crime by a DNA test in 2003. The charges against Waters were dismissed more than a year ago, after he had served 21 years in prison. Waters had been convicted in a March 31, 1981, attack on a Jacksonville woman. The rapist answered the victim's classified ad to sell a water bed, then tied her up and raped her. Caulk was arrested by North Carolina's authorities about nine months later in Atlantic Beach on an unrelated fugitive warrant issued by New Hampshire. DNA testing wasn't available at the time of Waters's conviction, when authorities determined that his blood type matched that of the rapist, and the victim identified him as her attacker. He was given two consecutive life sentences. But in January 2003, a DNA screening of Waters's blood found that it did not match swab samples taken from the victim or semen stains on a bedspread at the crime scene. The DNA then was compared with samples in a national registry and matched Caulk's, investigators said. Caulk's criminal record dates to 1970, when he was convicted in three sexual assaults in San Diego. He was known in California as the ''want-ad rapist" for choosing victims through newspaper ads. |
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