2/15/2019 Keith Harward - National Registry of Exonerations
A PROJECT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA IRVINE NEWKIRK CENTER FOR SCIENCE & SOCIETY,
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN LAW SCHOOL & MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF LAW
The Natic nation Registr:
a CURRENTLY 2,382 EXONERATIONS
EXONE Ri ATIONS MORE THAN 20,915 YEARS LOST
KEITH HARWARD State: Virginia
County: Newport News City
Other Virginia DNA Exonerations Most Serious Murder
Crime:
In the early morning hours of —
September 14, 1982, a man broke Additional Rape, Robbery,
into a home in Newport News, Virginia Convictions: Burglary/Unlawful Entry
and beat 30-year-old Jesse Perron to
death with a crowbar. Then, over Reported 1982
several hours, the attacker repeatedly Crime Date:
sexually assaulted Perron’s 22-year-
old wife, Teresa, leaving bite marks ah
during the assaults. Before the Convicted: 1983
attacker fled, he took $14 from
Teresa's purse. Exonerated: 2016
Teresa helped police develop a Sentence: _Life
composite drawing of her attacker.
She told investigators that earlier in
the day, she had taken her children swimming and when she drove away Race: White
from the pool, a hitchhiker in a Navy uniform cursed at her. That
evening, around 6 p.m., she was hanging clothes in her backyard when Sex: Male
she saw a man watching her through the back fence. Teresa could not
say that either man was the attacker, but said the man who cursed at
her had a voice that sounded like the man who assaulted her. Ags etths = 26
date of
crime:
Teresa and Jess Perron’s home was located near an entry gate to the
Newport News Shipyard where the U,S.S. Carl Vinson, a recently
commissioned aircraft carrier, was harbored and where Perron worked as Contributing Mistaken Witness ID, False
a welder, The day after the crime was reported in the media, Donald Factors: or Misleading Forensic
Wade, a security guard at that gate, told police that he saw a sailor with Evidence, Perjury or False
blood spatter on his uniform enter the shipyard through the gate at Accusation, Official
about 2:30 a.m. Misconduct
After being hypnotized, Wade changed the time to around 5 a.m., which Yes
was consistent with Teresa’s account of when her attacker left. Teresa evidence
also was hypnotized and for the first time said the attacker had three contribute to
upside down V's on the sleeve of his uniform and that she “associated” he
the hitchhiking sailor with her attacker, not just that he sounded the exoneration?:
same. In the criminal case that ultimately followed, the prosecution did
not disclose to the defense that Teresa and Wade were hypnotized and
changed their accounts after hypnosis
A police tracking dog was brought in and led officers from the Perron
home through the entry gate where Wade worked and up to the pier
where the Carl Vinson was docked.
Police focused their investigation on the Carl Vinson and over several
months bite mark impressions were taken from hundreds of sailors on
the Carl Vinson before it finally left the harbor in December 1982 with its
crew of more than 1,300 men. Police had no suspects at that time.
In March 1983, 26-year-old Keith Harward, a Naval enlistee who
formerly had been stationed on the Carl Vinson, was discharged from the
Navy. At about the same time, his girlfriend accused him of assaulting
her, including biting her during a fight.
Harward had been among those whose teeth were examined in the
immediate aftermath of the investigation, but he had been ruled out as
the source of the bite marks on Teresa by a civilian dental consultant
working with the Newport News City medical examiner. When Harward
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2/15/2019 Keith Harward - National Registry of Exonerations
came to court, Teresa was there, but could not identify him as the
attacker.
At that point, police asked Harward to submit to a second procedure to
obtain a cast of his teeth. The cast was sent to Lowell Levine, then a
budding superstar in the fledgling field of bite mark analysis who had
gained fame for his testimony linking bite marks to serial killer Ted
Bundy and to Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele. Levine concluded that
Harward was responsible for the bite marks on Teresa’s body.Police
showed a photographic lineup to Wade, who selected Harward’s picture
as the man who came through the security gate with a blood-spattered
uniform
On May 16, 1983, police arrested Harward on charges of capital murder,
rape, robbery and burglary,
Harward went to trial in Newport News City Circuit Court and in October
1983 he was convicted of capital murder, rape, robbery, and burglary,
primarily based on Wade's identification of him in court and Levine's
conclusion that Harward’s teeth left the bite marks. Harward was
sentenced to life in prison.
On appeal, the Supreme Court of Virginia reversed the conviction and
ordered a new trial. The court held that under Virginia’ law at that time,
a rape could only elevate a homicide to capital murder if the person
murdered was also the victim of the rape.
Harward went to trial a second time in March 1986. Levine testified to a
“very, very, very, very high degree of probability” that Harward's teeth
made the bite marks on Teresa's body. He told the jury that it was a
“practical impossibility that someone else would have all these
characteristics” that Levine found in the bite marks.”
Harward testified in his own defense and denied involvement in the
crime. He showed that at the time Teresa said she saw a man staring at
her in her back yard, Harward was attending a mandatory Naval alcohol
and drug abuse program because he had been caught with marijuana on
the ship. Harward also testified that the rank insignia on his uniform at
the time of the crime consisted of three slashes, not upside the down V's
that appeared on the uniforms of higher-ranking petty officers. Harward
also testified that he had a mustache at the time of the crime—but
Teresa and Wade said the man they saw was clean-shaven.
Harward was convicted of murder, robbery, burglary, and rape on March
6, 1986, He was again sentenced to life in prison.
In July 2015, the Innocence Project obtained a court order for DNA
testing of the physical evidence in the case. The DNA tests excluded
Harward as the source of the biological evidence.
The Innocence Project's investigation also discovered that the crime lab
analyst who conducted laboratory analysis of the blood and semen
recovered in the case falsely testified that Harward could not be
eliminated as the source of the evidence. The analyst's bench notes of
his testing actually excluded Harward. The notes were not disclosed to
Harward’s defense attorney at the time of his trials.
The DNA profile that was recovered from the crime scene evidence was
identified as that of Jerry L. Crotty, another sailor on the Carl Vinson at
the time of these crimes, Crotty died in prison in Ohio in 2006 where he
was imprisoned for numerous crimes, including abduction and attempted
burglary.
In March 2016, the Innocence Project and the law firm of Skadden, Arps,
Slate, Meagher & Flom filed a petition for a writ of actual innocence. In
April, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring said he believed in
Harward’s innocence and joined in the petition. On April 7, the Virginia
Supreme Court issued the writ of actual innocence, the convictions were
dismissed and Harward was released after spending 33 years in prison.
In 2017, the Virginia Legislature approved payment of $1.6 million to
Harward with a lump sum of $309,000 and the remaining $1.2 million to
be used to purchase an annuity. Gov, Terry McAuliffe signed the
legislation in March 2017.
- Maurice Possley
Report an error or add more information about this case.
https://Awww.law.umich. aspx’
2/15/2019
Posting Date: 4/15/2016
Last Updated: 3/22/2017
ABOUT THE REGISTRY
The National Registry of Exonerations is a project of the
Newkirk Center for Science & Society at University of
California Irvine, the University of Michigan Law School and
Michigan State University College of Law. It was founded in
2012 in conjunction with the Center on Wrongful Convictions
at Northwestern University Schoo! of Law. The Registry
provides detailed information about every known exoneration
in the United States since 1989—cases in which a person was
wrongly convicted of a crime and later cleared of all the
charges based on new evidence of innocence. The Registry
also maintains a more limited database of known exonerations
prior to 1989.
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Keith Harward - National Registry of Exonerations
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