After Kirk Bloodsworth served eight years in a Maryland prison for the rape and murder of 9-year-old Dawn Hamilton, new DNA testing revealed the truth: He was innocent, and the real perpetrator was still at large. 

 

The facts of this crime and trial in 1985 were taken from a number of news accounts and the documentary Bloodsworth: An Innocent Man. Bloodsworth himself was not available for an interview because of illness in his family.

 

Several eyewitnesses had sealed his fate and he was sentenced to life in prison on March 8, 1985. He was released in 1993. It took another 11 years to find the man who had raped and murdered Dawn Hamilton. 

     

From the very beginning, unusual circumstances contributed to the Bloodsworth’s conviction. 

 

On Monday, July 25, 1984, Dawn Hamilton’s body was found in a wooded area of Rosedale, Maryland, near her home. She had been raped and beaten to death with a rock. The effects of this brutal death spread beyond Hamilton and her family.

     

On the day of the murder, Hamilton had gone into the woods with friends to play hide-and-go-seek.  Hamilton was “it” when she came across two boys fishing in “Becky’s Pond” and asked them if they would help her find her friends, but they weren’t interested. Then, a man emerged and told Hamilton he would help her. At 2:30 p.m., Dawn Hamilton’s body was found lying face down in the pond covered with leaves. Her underwear and shorts were discarded in a nearby tree. Her head had been crushed with a rock, and there was an imprint of a shoe on her throat. 

     

Following the discovery of Hamilton’s body, eyewitnesses came forward, saying they had seen a suspicious man in the area. The two main witnesses in the case were the two boys, who had been fishing. On July 27, 1984, the oldest boy was asked to do a composite sketch using an Identi-kit. Working with a set of 25 facial features, he put together a face from a set of eyes, ears, noses, mustaches, jawlines, hairlines and beards. The two boys sat together and agreed on the sketch.

     

When a composite sketch was put on television, a neighbor called the police and said it looked like Bloodsworth. The life of Kirk Bloodsworth, a 22-year-old honorably discharged Marine who had never been arrested before, was soon turned upside down. Bloodsworth was arrested on Aug. 9, 1984. A few days later, Bllodsworth was lined up with five other men, and witnesses identified him as the man in the sketch. The two boys, the only witnesses who actually saw the man take Hamilton into the woods, never saw Bloodsworth in a line-up. Bloodsworth was indicted on all counts of first-degree murder based on witness identification alone in September. Even with the lack of physical evidence and his “not guilty” plea Bloodsworth was convicted. He did not see his home in Cambridge for eight years, 10 months and 19 days.

 

Kirk Bloodsworth was born on Oct. 31, 1960. He had been a waterman and worked at the Easton, MD, Star Democrat at the time of his arrest. He met his first wife, Wanda in the Hammerjacks Bar in 1983. They married in 1984. Bloodsworth moved to the Baltimore area, just three weeks before Hamilton’s murder.

 

Once the police had eye witnesses, they stopped focusing on other suspects. Eight days before Bloodsworth’s arrest, police had a report on Kimberly Shay Ruffner, who had been let out of prison two weeks before Hamilton’s murder after being convicted of two attempted rapes of young girls. RuffnerBut they never followed that lead.

 

In prison, Bloodsworth fought for his innocence. He said that he wanted to find justice, not only for himself but for Hamilton too. That moment finally came when new testing called “genetic fingerprinting” was developed. It allowed him to become the first death row inmate exonerated by DNA, according to the documentary Bloodsworth: An Innocent Man.

 

The saying of “the truth will set you free” proved true, and Bloodsworth was finally released in 1993. For Bloodsworth, being home and being able to do the little things like making his own toast made him realize that a person doesn’t know how important freedom is until he is denied it. 

 

After being exonerated, Kirk Bloodsworth has worked to repeal the death penalty in Maryland. While in prison, Bloodsworth received letters from his mother motivating him to stay focused on his freedom. These letters told him, “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.”  After his mother died, her voice continued to encourage him.

 

Bloodsworth’s exoneration paved the way for thousands of others who were wrongfully convicted.

 

Marissa Bluestine, the first employee of the Innocence Project, oversees the organization and is responsible for the policy and legislative initiatives, as well as communications, development and re-entry programming for clients.

 

Because more than 70% of wrongful convictions result from eyewitness misidentifications,  the Innocence Project seeks to improve the accuracy of witness testimony. They recommend strategies like the double-blind procedure in which neither the administrator nor the eyewitness knows who the suspect is. This process lowers the chance that the lineup administrator will inadvertently or intentionally give cues that influence the eyewitness to pick the suspect.

 

Since Kirk’s case was in Maryland, the laws and processes for DNA testing are different in Pennsylvania, where Bluestine works. 

 

“The Pennsylvania Innocence Project has helped pass two statutes in Pennsylvania, one extending the time for people to file cases based on new evidence of innocence, and the other increasing the availability of DNA testing post-conviction, trained prosecutors, judges and police in the factors that lead to wrongful conviction,” Bluestine said. “[The Innocence Project] established programs at each law school in Pennsylvania to train students on improving the criminal law system, trained dozens of attorneys in post-conviction law, and established a peer-led support group for our freed clients.”

 

According to Bluestine, there are several steps and procedures to go through when attempting to reverse a guilty verdict. 

 

“When we have sufficient evidence of innocence, then we file a Post Conviction Relief Act petition asking a court to reverse the conviction and vacate the sentence. If the court agrees, then the Commonwealth has to decide whether to retry the defendant or not. If the court disagrees, then we file an appeal with the Superior Court of Pennsylvania asking that the decision be reversed,” she said.

 

After every decision, if the defendant can appeal to a higher court, The Innocence Project sticks with the client until all appeals are exhausted.

 

“The Innocence Project works to bring justice to those who have yet to experience and earn a “not guilty” verdict when innocent.”

 

Kirk Bloodsworth’s release as the first death row inmate exonerated by DNA evidence has allowed for hundreds of others to appeal for freedom. On May 2, 2013, then-Governor Martin O’Malley signed Maryland’s death penalty repeal into law.

 

Bloodsworth’s name is now widely seen as synonymous with DNA exoneration. As Bloodsworth himself said, “You have to run with it or go away, and I decided to stand up. Try to help others in a situation like mine. Make it better for everyone.”

 

Upon following his release, he was shunned and endured hurtful chants like “there is a child murderer in the neighborhood.” While he is not the same man he was before, he is much more serious about life, his values and his focus. He takes nothing for granted.

 

(Due to a family emergency, Bloodsworth was unavailable for an interview during the writing process of this article.)

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