Larry Gillard spent over a quarter century in prison for a rape and armed robbery he did not commit. He was proven innocent through DNA testing in 2009.

Around 10:00 p.m. on the evening of May 19, 1981, a 25-year-old woman was raped and robbed in her Chicago apartment. As the woman entered her apartment, a man grabbed her by the neck and held a knife to her throat. The man demanded money, so the woman gave him the jewelry she was wearing, as well as $3 from her purse. 

The assailant then pushed the victim into her home. After she screamed, the man cut her beneath the eye, tied and gagged her, and proceeded to rape her, still at knifepoint. The attacker then fled. Semen stains would later be found on the woman’s coat.

About a week later, an off-duty police officer, who happened to live in the neighborhood where the crime occurred, was startled by a cry for help. According to the officer’s testimony, at about 1:20 a.m., the officer then observed Larry Gillard leaving an apartment building with a ski pole acting erratically. When the officer approached Gillard he struck him with the ski pole, injuring his foot, hand and back. He then arrested Gillard. 

Gillard was not charged with the burglary for which he was initially arrested. Instead, because of his proximity to the rape scene, Gillard’s photo was put into a lineup that was shown to the rape victim, who identified him as her assailant. He was then charged with the May 19 rape.

Throughout the trial, Gillard insisted that he was innocent, and he testified on his own behalf. Two alibi witnesses testified that he was across town with a friend when the crime occurred.

A state chemical analyst testified that Gillard was among only 4.4% of the African-American population that could have provided the semen on the coat. This was a flawed analysis based on a mathematical error. Moreover, the analyst did not make a memorandum or report regarding the results of one of the tests; instead, she claimed, it was merely meant to confirm the test that found that the semen had come from a non-secretor.

On January 2, 1982, after deliberating for just one hour, the jury found Gillard guilty of rape, armed robbery and unlawful restraint. The judge sentenced him to concurrent terms of 24 years for the rape and robbery, respectively, and vacated the verdict on the charge of unlawful restraint.

Gillard appealed his conviction on the grounds that the arresting officer’s testimony was prejudicial and that the state had failed to properly disclose the results of the blood test, but he was denied. Gillard continued to appeal and request habeas relief, but he was consistently denied.

In April 2008, the Exoneration Project at the University of Chicago Law School filed a motion for DNA testing in Gillard’s case. The Illinois State police concluded on May 11, 2009, that DNA tests on the semen stains definitively excluded Gillard. When the DNA was run through the CODIS databank, it matched another man. Gillard’s conviction was vacated 15 days later. On August 27, 2009, Gillard received a certificate of innocence.