In June of 1989, a 39 year-old woman wearing only her underwear was  kidnapped from her home in Bluff Siding, Wisconsin. The woman’s  assailant raped her several times and finally abandoned her along  the side of the road.

 
The Investigation

Police questioning focused on Fredric Saecker, who was found  in  the victim’s neighborhood intoxicated. A truck driver later  testified that Saecker was wearing a blood stained T-Shirt. Saecker  gave inconsistent versions of his whereabouts on the evening of the  assault and made several incriminating statements. 
Saecker who was 6’ 3” tall, thin, and had a full head of hair, did  not at all resemble the victim’s description of the attacker, who  she said was approximately 5’ 8” tall, stocky, and balding.  Nevertheless, he was charged with burglary, second-degree sexual  assault, and kidnapping. 

At trial, a forensic analyst also testified that public hairs found  on the victim’s body were “microscopically similar” to Saecker’s  hairs. Saecker was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. 

In 1993 Saecker’s mother paid for DNA testing by Genetic Designs, a  private laboratory in North Carolina. Although the tests concluded  that Saecker could not have possibly been the source of the semen  found in the victim’s underwear, his request for a new trial was  denied until 1996. When the case was finally revisited, the district attorney dismissed all charges against Saecker based on  the new evidence. DNA testing proved that Fredric Saecker was  imprisoned for seven years for a crime he did not commit.