DNA Tests Vindicate Ohio Man Convicted of Rape

CLEVELAND -- An Ohio man tasted freedom for the first time in nearly 30 years Tuesday after DNA evidence showed he did not rape an 11-year-old girl and a judge vacated his conviction.

"It finally happened, I've been waiting," Raymond Towler, 52, said as he hugged sobbing family members in the courtroom.

He walked from the courthouse, arms around his family members, amid the smell of freshly cut grass, blooming trees and a brisk wind off Lake Erie. Asked how he would adjust, Towler responded: "Just take a deep breath and just enjoy life right now."

He deflected a question about demanding an apology and said he understood justice can take time.

"I think it was just a process, you know, the DNA," he said. "It just took a couple of years to get to it. We finally got to it and the job was done."

In a brief, emotionally charged session, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Eileen Gallagher recapped the case, discussed the recently processed DNA evidence and threw out his conviction. She also told him that he can sue over his ordeal.

Towler smiled lightly, nodded and kept his intertwined fingers on his lap.

"You're free," the judge said, leaving the bench to shake Towler's hand at the defense table. The judge choked back tears as she offered Towler a traditional Irish blessing.

Towler had been serving a life sentence for the rape of a girl in a Cleveland park in 1981. Prosecutors received the test results Monday and immediately asked the court to free him.

The Ohio Innocence Project, an organization that uses DNA evidence to clear people wrongfully convicted of crimes, says Towler is the second-longest incarcerated person to be exonerated by DNA in U.S. history.

Attorneys with the project at the University of Cincinnati have been working on the Towler case since 2004, and Towler said that and his faith had given him hope.

"That's how I've been living these last years, I've just been keeping hope," Towler said as relatives and friends crowded around him after the court session, some whooping, "Alleluia."

Prosecutor Bill Mason said his staff would test crime-scene evidence to try to identify the attacker.