The victim was 58 years old when she was attacked. She was raped and stabbed 33 times by a man who had come to look at a motorcycle she was selling. Amazingly, she survived the attack. 

Investigators showed the victim a photo array which included Gray’s picture, which stood out because it was noticeably smaller than the others. Both the victim and her neighbor identified him as the perpetrator.

Except for the identification, there was little other evidence. Gray’s employer at the Salvation Army testified that he was working the day that the victim had said he first came to look at the motorcycle, and his time sheet confirmed this. He was with family on the day of the crime, as his parents testified. Gray’s first trial ended in a hung jury. 

At a second trial, however, the identification was supplemented with testimony from a jailhouse informant who claimed that Gray had confessed to him. The informant had testified in other cases and was facing a three year prison sentence at the time. 

Gray might have been excluded based on forensic evidence, but the analyst failed to perform secretor testing, which would have shed light on whether his blood group was included in the sample.

He was found guilty. Citing a prior sexual assault conviction, the judge doubled his sentence.

Post-Conviction

The informant failed to recall the admission from Gray about which he had testified. After 20 years in prison, DNA testing in June of 1998 showed that the semen recovered from bed sheets found at the scene of the rape excluded Gray. In deciding whether to retry Gray or drop the charges, the State Attorney maintained his belief in Gray’s guilt and argued that, because semen was not found inside the victim, the quilt sample that excluded Gray was irrelevant. Further testing, however, also excluded the victim’s husband, and Gray’s conviction was eventually overturned in 1999.