A Utah judge on Monday ordered a 71-year-old man who spent decades on death row for a 1985 killing to be released on bail, despite objections from the victim's family, after prosecutors said newly analyzed DNA evidence did not match him. Douglas Stewart Carter was sentenced to death that same year after a jury found him guilty of murdering Eva Olesen, an aunt of the Provo police chief at the time. The state Supreme Court ordered a new trial last year, the AP reports, citing misconduct by investigators. Carter has maintained his innocence and said a signed confession was coerced.
No physical evidence linked him to the crime scene, but the jury convicted Carter, a Black man, based on the confession and two witnesses who said he bragged about killing Olesen, who was white. Those witnesses later recanted. A DNA analysis received Sept. 22 excluded Carter as a possible match to blood found on a doorknob and genetic material recovered from the handle of a knife used to stab Olesen, who was also shot. Judge Derek Pullan said that those results further undermined the case against Carter, but that a reasonable jury still could conclude he killed Olesen. Pullan ordered Carter to wear a GPS monitor as a condition of his release and to avoid contact with Olesen's family. Defense attorney Neal Hamilton said Carter was expected to be released Monday night.
"It's not just as simple as, 'Let's let him go,'" Hamilton said. "He's being released with 41 years of state-induced trauma, and the effect it will have on him is very real." 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 and wants to know if he had any part of the killing. "By golly we were hoping for a concrete match," Olesen said of the DNA analysis. "It doesn't mean he wasn't there."
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