Man Spends 41 Years on Death Row, Then DNA Test Changes Everything

(Douglas Stewart Carter. Photo Credit: BBC News)

A man who spent 41 years on death row in the US for killing a woman has been released on bail after prosecutors said fresh DNA analysis did not tie him to the crime.

Douglas Stewart Carter, now 71, was jailed for the killing of Eva Olesen in Utah in 1985.

He was sentenced to death but has always said he is innocent and that the signed confession used against him was forced out of him.

Last year the state Supreme Court ordered a new trial, pointing to misconduct by investigators.

On Monday a judge granted Carter bail even though the victim family objected.

He must wear a GPS monitor while out.

Olesen, an aunt of a local police chief, was stabbed several times and shot in the back of the head at her home in Provo, Utah, in February 1985.

Carter, who is originally from Chicago, was living with his mother in Utah at the time.

Court documents show police suspected he killed Olesen during a robbery.

Believing he was a suspect in a different case, Carter ran away from Utah but was later found in Nashville, Tennessee.

He then signed a confession under questioning, which he later said was forced.

No physical evidence linked Carter to the crime scene, yet a jury convicted him based on the confession and the testimony of two witnesses who said he had bragged about the murder.

In 2011, however, the witnesses said they were told to lie in court, were given cash and gifts by police and were threatened with deportation if they refused to testify against him.

After more than a decade, the Utah Supreme Court ordered a new trial last year.

Carter is Black, and his lawyers said witnesses saw a white man running from the scene of the murder.

They also said an investigator hid evidence pointing to the victim husband, Orla Olesen.

They claim prosecutors were close to filing charges against him but a police officer asked them to hold off so he could keep investigating.

Olesen husband, who died in 2009, told police he found his wife dead in their home.

The stab wounds were said to have come from a knife from their kitchen, which was found near her body.

The gun was not found at the scene.

This month, prosecutors said DNA results ruled out Carter as a match to blood found on a doorknob and genetic material taken from the handle of the knife.

His release goes against the wishes of the Olesen family.

Theresa Olesen, a daughter-in-law of Eva Olesen, told the bond hearing on Monday that the family has serious concerns and that he should stay in jail until a new trial.

She said the family was hoping for a solid match from the DNA test and that the result does not mean he was not there.

Carter defence attorney, Neal Hamilton, called for the case to be dropped.

He told a news agency that if Utah had its way, Carter would have been executed 15 or 20 years ago, before the misconduct came to light.