A 71-year-old man who spent decades on death row for killing a police chief’s aunt was released Monday after newly analyzed DNA evidence failed to connect him to the crime.
Utah Judge Derek Pullan ordered Douglas Stewart Carter released on bail late Monday despite objections from Eva Olesen’s family.
Carter must wear a GPS monitor while awaiting a new trial in Olesen’s 1985 killing.
The Utah Supreme Court ordered a retrial last year, citing misconduct by investigators. Carter has consistently maintained his innocence and said police coerced him into signing a confession.
No physical evidence originally connected Carter to the crime scene. Still, the jury convicted him, relying on his confession and testimony from two witnesses who said he had bragged about killing Olesen, who was white. Both witnesses later recanted their statements.
An analysis received Sept. 22 excluded Carter as a possible match to blood found on a doorknob and genetic material recovered from the handle of the knife used to stab Olesen, who had also been shot.
Judge Pullan said the findings further weakened the case against Carter, although he noted that a reasonable jury could still conclude Carter killed Olesen.
Prosecutors are reconsidering the case
Carter left the jail late Monday in a white shirt and gray sweatpants, with his glasses hanging around his neck. His son pushed a cart beside him carrying pillows, blankets and Carter’s personal belongings.
Carter smiled occasionally but also tried to hide his face behind papers. He declined to speak with several journalists outside the jail before entering a vehicle with his son and defense attorney. The judge ordered him to have no contact with Olesen’s family.
“This is going to be a lot for him,” Carter’s son, Tyler Anger, said while waiting for his father.
Carter will stay at an extended-stay hotel near Anger, who was adopted by another family as an infant and learned about his father’s conviction years later, attorney Neal Hamilton said. Hamilton added that Carter will need therapy to cope with his lengthy incarceration.
“If the state of Utah had their way, he would have been executed 15, 20 years ago before we discovered the misconduct,” Hamilton said. He called on prosecutors to dismiss the aggravated murder charge that remains pending against Carter.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Prosecutors: Teen Shot Classmate Dead 6 Seconds After Bus Argument
A two-month retrial had been scheduled for next year. However, county prosecutors withdrew their notice last week indicating they intended to seek the death penalty.
Utah County Prosecutor Erwin Petilos told the judge Monday that revisiting Carter’s bail was “necessary and fair” while the state continues reviewing the remaining evidence.
Carter, a Chicago native, was living with his mother in Utah when Olesen was killed on Feb. 27, 1985. Court documents show investigators eventually focused on Carter, who was suspected of killing Olesen during a robbery.
By April, Carter had left Utah because he believed he was a suspect in an unrelated assault case, according to court records. He was arrested in Nashville, Tennessee, that June and signed a confession during questioning by a Provo detective.
Carter later said police repeatedly threatened him and that he falsely confessed. He was convicted and sentenced to death after a trial in which the defense presented no witnesses. A 1992 retrial resulted in another death sentence, and Utah courts rejected numerous appeals in the years that followed.
Key witnesses say police gave them cash and gifts
The case took a major turn in 2011, when the two witnesses from Carter’s original trial were located in Mexico. They said they had been instructed to lie, received money and gifts from police, and were told to conceal those payments. They also said police and prosecutors threatened them and their son with deportation unless they implicated Carter.
More than a decade of legal battles followed before the Utah Supreme Court ordered a new trial last year, citing “multiple instances of intentional misconduct” by police and a prosecutor. DNA testing was conducted in response to that ruling, and prosecutors said the results arrived last week. On Monday, they declined to say whether investigators were using the findings to look for other suspects whose DNA might match.
Victim’s husband was potential suspect
Carter’s defense attorneys have said witnesses saw a white man fleeing the crime scene. They also contend that an investigator withheld evidence pointing to other possible suspects, including Olesen’s husband, Orla Olesen.
They allege that prosecutors were close to filing charges against the husband, but a Provo police lieutenant asked them not to so he could continue investigating. Carter was identified as a suspect soon after, according to court documents.
Orla Olesen, a painting contractor who died in 2009, told police he found his wife dead in their home, partially undressed and with her hands tied behind her back.
Theresa Olesen, a daughter-in-law of Eva Olesen, said during Monday’s bond hearing that her family had “serious concerns” about Carter’s release.
“By golly we were hoping for a concrete match,” Olesen said of the DNA analysis. “It doesn’t mean he wasn’t there.”
“We just want justice for Eva. And if he had any part of it we want that to be known,” she added. ___ Associated Press photographer George Frey in Spanish Fork, Utah, contributed to this report.