Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
To get this episode of Forensic Tales ad-free, please visit patreon.com/forensictales. Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. Over four weeks in the winter of 1984, five women were assaulted at Knife Point in a series of attacks in and around the East neighborhood of Richmond, Virginia.
The police quickly zeroed in on their suspect, Thomas Hainsworth, after every single one of the victims identified him as the perpetrator. But can eyewitness identification always be trusted? This is Forensic Tales, episode number 222, The Story of Thomas Hainsworth. ♪
Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell-Ariola.
Forensic Tales is a weekly true crime podcast covering real, spine-tingling stories with a forensic science twist. Some cases have been solved with forensic science, while others have turned cold. Every remarkable story sends us a chilling reminder that not all stories have happy endings.
As a one-woman show, your support helps me find new compelling cases, conduct in-depth fact-based research, and produce and edit this weekly show. You can support my work in two simple ways. Become a valued patron at patreon.com slash forensic tales and leave a positive review. Before we get to the episode, we've got a new Patreon supporter to thank, Kat B. Now, let's get to this week's episode.
Over the course of four weeks in the winter of 1984, five women were assaulted in a series of attacks in and around the East neighborhood of Richmond, Virginia. Most of the women were abducted at knife point and sexually assaulted. The first attack happened on January 3rd, 1984. A 20-year-old woman was working at a daycare center when an unidentified African-American male broke in and raped her at knife point.
Then after the assault was done, he ran off, and the victim was only able to get a glimpse of what he looked like. A few weeks later, the second assault happened. This time, it was a woman who was approached outside her house by a man who demanded sex and money. He said if she didn't comply with everything he said, he would also kill her. But before that could happen, the woman was able to turn around and quickly get inside her house to call the police.
But by the time they got there, the guy was long gone. Three days later, on January 30th, came the third incident. An 18-year-old girl was kidnapped, raped, and sodomized in a nearby county within just a few blocks of the other two attacks. So far, everything about the three crimes have been almost identical.
The victims were all young females. They were threatened at knife point to do exactly as their attacker said. And two out of the three were raped. Less than 24 hours later, a 19-year-old girl was abducted at gunpoint just outside her home. But the guy ran away when the woman's dog started barking at him. This attack was a little different than the others because the guy used a gun instead of a knife.
But all the other items of the crime were identical. Young female victim, African-American young male suspect, all happening in the same area of Richmond, Virginia. Although Richmond, Virginia in the mid-1980s saw its fair share of violent crime, including rape, this many attacks in the same geographical area was a little unusual. In fact, all of the rapes happened within a one-mile radius of the first one.
And based on all the information they had, the police believed they were looking for a serial rapist. They thought all the attacks had to have been committed by the same person. And if that was true, they knew they needed to find him as soon as possible. Otherwise, there'd be more victims. Plus, investigators had no idea what this person was capable of. If he could rape an innocent woman, what was stopping him from graduating to murder?
Based on all the interviews with the female victims, the Richmond police knew they were looking for a black male. All of the women described the attacker as African-American and holding a knife. Some could recall how tall and big he was, but others weren't. Some got a good look at his eyes and the shape of his face, but others didn't.
In the end, the cops' biggest clue was that they were looking for a young black man who accounted for a large population of people living in Richmond at the time. Right after the fifth assault on February 1st, the Richmond police were on high alert to catch this person before he struck again. So all available police officers were asked to keep a lookout for any young black man in the area, matching the victim's descriptions.
If they matched the description, they were pulled over and questioned. If they didn't match, they weren't. It was as simple as that. A few days later, the Richmond police got the tip they had been hoping for. On February 5th, a woman called the police saying she thought she saw her attacker walking down the street. He looked exactly like him. Young, African-American, same height, same weight, same everything.
And there he was, just walking down the street right there in front of her. So as soon as the call came in, a dozen officers with the Richmond Police Department arrived and confronted the man as he walked down the sidewalk. At first, they were casual and just asked the guy what he was doing walking down the street. And he said he was on his way to the grocery store to pick up a few things for his mom. But then the conversation went in a completely different direction.
They asked him if he knew anything about the recent sexual assaults happening in the neighborhood, but the guy said no. He had no idea what they were talking about. He was just an 18-year-old teenager who didn't watch the news or read the newspaper. And when the cops approached him on the sidewalk, he was simply walking to the grocery store, minding his own business. His name was 18-year-old Thomas Hainsworth.
After that, the police officers asked Thomas if one of the women who had recently been attacked in the area could come look at him and see if he was the guy. Although Thomas was a little reluctant because he said he didn't have anything to do with the recent rapes, he eventually agreed to do it. He had also never talked to the cops before.
He had never been in trouble or arrested, so he wasn't quite sure what he was allowed to say and what he was allowed to do. So he just decided to go along with it with basically whatever the police asked him because, well, he's an 18-year-old kid and didn't want to get in trouble. The woman was brought closer to Thomas to see if he was the guy right there on the sidewalk. And according to her, he was. Thomas Hainsworth was the person who raped her.
And that was just the beginning of the end for Thomas. Once the cops had their first identification, they brought Thomas down to the police station to be questioned further. He was also photographed so that he could be put in a photo lineup for the other victims to try and identify him. At this point, the police didn't have much. All they had as far as evidence went was a single victim identification.
The woman who saw Thomas walking down the street to the grocery store called the police, saying that he looked like her attacker. And that was enough for him to be arrested and brought to the station. There was absolutely no forensic or physical evidence linking Thomas to any of the assaults. Now at the station, Thomas completely denied any involvement. He said he was just a typical 18-year-old teenager on his way to the grocery store when he was arrested.
and he didn't know anything about the five assaults that occurred in the neighborhood. In fact, he had never been arrested before, so he had absolutely no criminal record to speak of. But the Richmond police weren't buying it. Thomas's photo was put in a lineup so that the other victims could identify him. One by one, the other four women identified him as the suspect. Yep, he's the one, they said. So now the cops had a perfect identification—
All five victims said Thomas was the one who attacked them. Despite many issues about eyewitness identification and photo lineups, Thomas Hainsworth was arrested and charged with all five assaults. And even though he had never seen the inside of a jail cell before, he was looking at spending the rest of his life in prison all because of a witness identification.
Without money to afford his own attorney, Thomas had no choice but to sit in jail until he went to trial. He got a public defender, but this was going to be an uphill battle. Every single one of the victims ID'd him as the guy who assaulted them. So what was Thomas supposed to say for a defense? It wasn't me? And all these women are lying or mistaken about what they saw? What jury in their right mind is going to believe that?
No DNA was ever tested in any of these cases. That's because we're talking about the 1980s, when most police departments didn't use or have DNA testing capabilities. They found no fingerprints matching Thomas's at any of the crime scenes. So what was he supposed to use as his defense? Thomas Hainsworth was essentially dead in the water.
He was given four separate trials, one for each of the rapes instead of combining them all into one. The only case that was dropped was the January 27th attack, which was a little strange because she was the first victim to identify him. So one by one, Thomas went on trial for rape. And one by one, he was convicted of almost every single charge against him. The first conviction came on July 12th, 1984.
That's when he was found guilty of the January 3rd rape after the woman had identified him in court in front of the jury. For that crime, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. No matter what happened after that, he would be a convicted sex offender and a felon. The second came on August 10th, 1984 for the January 30th attack. At this trial, the prosecution had a little more than just eyewitness testimony.
Beyond the female victim identifying him in court as the perpetrator, the prosecution also told the jury that the DNA found at the scene was the same blood type as Thomas. Now, they couldn't say the blood evidence exactly matched Thomas. It was just the same blood type.
and that was good enough for the jury to convict him and sentence him to 36 years in prison after being found guilty of rape, sodomy, abduction with intent to defile, and using a firearm in the commission of a crime. The next trial turned out a little different. Instead of being found guilty, this was one of the only cases that worked out in Thomas's favor.
Instead of being convicted, he was acquitted of the assault that happened on January 21st. The jury in that case didn't think the eyewitness testimony was enough to find him guilty. So although he was still sentenced and convicted in the previous two cases, this one was dismissed.
The last trial was for the February 1st abduction, and once again, he was found guilty almost solely based on eyewitness identification and sentenced to 28 years in prison. In case you've lost count, in total, Thomas was sentenced to 74 years across all the cases. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.
What are some of your self-care non-negotiables? Maybe you never skip leg day or therapy day. When your schedule is packed with kids' activities, big work projects, or podcasting like me, it's easy to let your priorities slip. Even when we know it makes us feel good, it's hard to make time for it. But when you feel like you have no time for yourself, non-negotiables like therapy are more important than ever.
Therapy can help with things like how to set healthy boundaries or find ways to be the best version of yourself. So if you're thinking about starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist or switch therapist anytime for no additional charge.
Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash tails to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash tails. After all the trials wrapped up, Thomas Hainsworth was sent away to prison. Remember, he was only 18 years old when he was arrested. And with a sentence of 74 years, he was likely going to spend the rest of his life behind bars.
But eyewitness testimony can be really, really powerful. If a victim takes the stand and tells the jury they know who hurt them and he's sitting right there in court, what else is the jury supposed to believe? Even though there were some pretty significant discrepancies in the eyewitness's testimony. For one, many of the women weren't sure exactly how tall their attacker was.
One victim, who was 5'8 herself, said that he had to be taller than that because he towered over her. Another victim said he had to be at least 5'10, maybe taller. But that doesn't make much sense. Thomas Hainsworth was only 5'6 on a good day, which is a stark difference from someone who's at least 5'10. Now here's where things get even weirder.
During the time Thomas was in custody, the crimes against women in Richmond didn't stop. In fact, it was the exact opposite. Not only did they not stop, but they also seemed to get worse. Following Thomas's arrest, at least 10 women reported being attacked by a young African-American male who matched Thomas's alleged M.O. almost to a T.
The man even referred to himself as the, quote, black ninja because he was so confident the police would never catch him. The assaults were reported to the police in March and August, with two more happening a few months later in October. Then three more happened in November and December. But how could that be? If Thomas was in prison, he certainly wasn't the guy doing it. It had to be someone else. Maybe it was a copycat.
While in prison, Thomas did his best to pass the time and make the best out of his situation. He maintained his innocence, but wasn't sure how he could do anything to try and prove that. So he focused a lot of his attention on school and earned his GED while studying auto mechanics, welding, and masonry, all skills that he hoped to be able to use on the outside if he were ever let out of prison.
On the outside, the Richmond police still had their hands full. Just because Thomas was in prison didn't mean the rapes stopped. Now they were looking for a second guy who came a few months later in December. By December 1984, the police arrested another man in connection to the rapes. His name was Leon Davis, a guy who not only looked a lot like Thomas Hainsworth physically...
but also had the same blood type found during some of the rapes, lived in the same neighborhood, and had a criminal record of assaulting women. In an even stranger twist, not long after Thomas Hainsworth was arrested months earlier, he told the police that they should look into this Leon Davis guy. He just thought it sounded like something that Davis would do.
But at that point, the police weren't interested because they already thought they had their suspect, Thomas. Since the rapes didn't stop, the Richmond police had no choice but to arrest someone else for the assaults that happened while Thomas was in custody. So in December of 1984, Leon Davis was arrested for the newer crimes. Now, to be clear...
This didn't mean the cops were reconsidering the other five cases that Thomas Hainsworth was convicted of. No, the police fully believed all of the attacks were committed by two separate people, Thomas and Leon Davis. And to no one's surprise, as soon as Davis was arrested, all the crimes suddenly stopped happening.
Leon Davis was eventually charged and convicted of several rapes and sentenced to multiple life terms in prison. Many of his victims had identified him as their attacker. He had the same blood type found in many of the rape kits, and he just fits the profile.
So now both of them are in prison, and every single young female living in this neighborhood of Richmond, Virginia, can sleep a little bit better at night knowing that two rapists are off the streets, and there's no more threat out there. There was still one person having trouble sleeping at night, Thomas Hainsworth. Over the next 10 years, Thomas continued to say the one thing to anyone that would listen to him, I'm innocent.
He kept saying he had never done any of these rapes, and they were all probably committed by Davis. But that's not the first time someone's done that. How many people go to prison saying that they're completely innocent? Thomas was just another name to add to that list. But by 2005, the words of people like Thomas Hainsworth started to be heard, particularly by people in positions of power within the government.
and one of them was then Virginia Governor Mark Warner. In 2005, over 10 years after Thomas' conviction, Governor Mark Warner ordered the testing of biological evidence from several hundred criminal investigations between 1973 and 1988. This decision was made after he found out that a crime analyst in one of the state's lab who had recently passed away said,
had secretly saved a lot of biological evidence from the cases she's worked on over the years. This was really big news because in many of these cases, the police department threw away or destroyed most of the biological evidence once a person was arrested or convicted. They didn't have the capabilities to test it back then. And then once someone was convicted, why did they need to keep it?
But this crime analyst at the lab didn't do that. She basically did the exact opposite. It was almost like she knew that they couldn't test the biological evidence in the 1970s and 1980s. Still, she believed technology would eventually catch up. And someday, they will be able to perform the type of testing that we have today. So she preserved everything in her own personal files. And she was right.
Her name was Mary Jane Burton, a forensic serologist who worked for the Virginia State Crime Lab for decades. So once Governor Mark Warner heard about this evidence in 2005 and learned about a handful of wrongful convictions being discovered, all thanks to this type of evidence, he ordered everything in her file to be tested. By 2005, forensic and DNA testing had come a long way.
And nothing like this was done in most cases between 1973 and 1988. Pretty quickly, several wrongfully convicted defendants were being exonerated by DNA evidence on cases in Mary Jane Burton's files. Some of them included Marvin Anderson.
In December 2001, Marvin Anderson became the 99th person in the U.S. to be exonerated due to post-conviction DNA testing. He was just 18 years old when he was convicted of robbery, sodomy, abduction, and rape. He ended up serving 20 years in prison until he was eventually exonerated. Anderson was just one of many in Burton's files.
The next were Julius Ruffin and Arthur Lee Whitfield. Both of them were accused of rape in Virginia, but were also exonerated by newly tested DNA evidence. After that came Willie Davidson and Philip Thurman. Davidson was 24 years old when he was wrongfully convicted of rape, and Thurman was 29.
Like the others, they were eventually exonerated by DNA evidence preserved in Mary Jane Burton's files in 2005. Next up was one of Thomas Hainsworth's cases. Inside Burton's files, they found DNA evidence from the January 3, 1984 rape he was convicted of. Just like the others, they decided to test it since it had never been tested before.
And when the results came back, they were exactly like Thomas Hainsworth thought. He wasn't a match. His DNA could officially be excluded from the DNA collected at the January 3rd, 1984 crime scene. Following this discovery, the prosecutor's office had no choice but to exonerate Thomas of that single conviction. His DNA didn't match, despite what the eyewitness testimony suggested all those years earlier.
So in September 2009, the Supreme Court of Virginia issued a writ of actual innocence for the January 3rd, 1984 rape. But this was just the tip of the iceberg. Thomas Hainsworth was still convicted of all those other charges, and he was still facing decades behind bars. At this point, Thomas decided to try his luck and contacted the Innocence Project to see if they would take on his case.
He didn't feel like he was just another inmate trying to proclaim his innocence. That's because by 2009, he already had a new DNA testing that officially exonerated him in at least one of the rapes. And if the same type of DNA testing could be done in the other cases, maybe, just maybe, he would be completely exonerated of everything.
Thomas decided to write letters to both the Innocence Project and the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project to see if they could help review his other convictions. In one of the letters, he wrote, quote, There is an inmate named Leon Davis who is in prison for some of the same things I'm charged with, and he was living down the street from me in Richmond, Virginia. I will bet my life this is the man who committed these crimes.
Just get my DNA tested and you will see I'm innocent of these crimes. End quote. On the plus side, both organizations agreed to help him. His situation almost perfectly fits with what they want to work on. He has a claim of innocence and there's DNA that can be tested, which wasn't tested at the time of his original convictions. But there was also a downside.
Only one more of Thomas's rape cases still had DNA that could be tested. The other cases didn't have any physical or forensic evidence. So in the best case scenario, DNA could only prove his innocence in one additional case, not all of them. DNA testing could only be performed in the case that Thomas had already been acquitted of, and the results excluded him as a suspect.
Remember, there was only one rape case where the jury wasn't able to convict him, and that was the case that still had testable biological evidence. So it wasn't exactly a victory for Thomas because he was never sentenced for that crime. But still, it furthered his argument that, hey, I might actually be innocent of all these crimes that you said that I did.
Not only was Thomas Hainsworth formally excluded as the DNA contributor in that case, but further DNA testing revealed the real suspect, Leon Davis. Now armed with two DNA test results that proved Thomas was innocent, his legal team decided to reach out to the Richmond and Henrico Commonwealth attorneys to review his other convictions.
It was a long shot because there wasn't any forensic evidence that could be tested. Still, it was worth at least a shot to try and prove his innocence in the last two remaining convictions. After hearing arguments from both sides, both county district attorneys decided to further investigate Thomas' claims of innocence.
If DNA had excluded him in the other two cases and pointed the finger at Leon Davis, the other suspect, it was worth their while to look into the last two. Several months later, they came back with their findings. After an extensive investigation, both agencies concluded that Leon Davis, not Thomas Hainsworth, was responsible for all the crimes attributed to Thomas.
These crimes match the same MO as the other rapes committed by Davis. Thomas also passed polygraph tests in both of the cases that were administered in the presence of the respective Commonwealth's attorneys. So although there was no DNA or biological evidence, this was all enough to say that the wrong person was behind bars for all of these crimes. But it wasn't case closed yet.
Thomas still needed a judge to agree with these findings and formally exonerate him so that he could be released. While the petition to exonerate Thomas was pending before the Court of Appeals, Governor Bob McDonald asked the state parole board to reconsider his request for parole, which had been denied repeatedly.
And on March 21, 2011, Thomas was granted parole and was released from prison after serving 27 years. It was also the same day as his 46th birthday. But the release wasn't without its restrictions. In order to be free, he had to abide by several rules, including a curfew and a requirement that he wear an ankle monitor.
He was also still listed on the state's sex offender registry. The case was argued before a three-member panel of the Court of Appeals on March 30, 2011, and then before the full Court of Appeals on September 27, 2011. Finally, on December 6, 2011, Thomas Hainsworth was fully exonerated of every single crime he was accused of back in 1984.
After serving 27 years, he was finally free. No curfew, no ankle monitor, no supervised release. He was completely free. Here's what Thomas had to say right after this decision was made. It's a blessing. There are a lot of people behind the scenes who believed in me. 27 years, I never gave up. I kept pushing. I ain't give up hope. I am very happy.
Me and my family can finally put this behind us and I can go on with my life. And I can finally vote. I'm just so happy. You just want your name restored. You want to prove to them that they made a mistake. End quote. Less than a year later in 2012, Governor Bob McDonald signed new legislation that awarded Thomas a little over $1 million for the time he spent in prison wrongfully accused.
Under this new legislation, he got around $215,000 up front, and the rest would be paid out over the next 15 years. It also granted him an additional $100,000, which he would be entitled to after he turned 60, and $10,000 worth of tuition money so that he could return to school. But it wasn't all about the money.
In a public statement, Thomas thought that the state could have done better, but he was, quote, satisfied with it. His attorney also said, quote, Although we wish the amount of money could have been greater, we also know that no amount can make up for those 27 lost years. We pray that this will allow Thomas a new beginning to pursue the dreams that he had been waiting almost three decades to fulfill, end quote.
The story doesn't end there. Thomas Hainsworth was only the second person of nearly 200 such cases to be exonerated without the support of DNA evidence, and he certainly wasn't the last to be found innocent in Virginia. By the end of 2013, five more defendants had been exonerated by DNA testing of biological evidence in Mary Jane Burton's files.
On top of DNA testing, Thomas' situation also calls into question the credibility of eyewitness testimony. Let's not forget, every single one of Thomas' accusers identified him as the suspect. However, the forensic evidence pointed towards someone else, Leon Davis.
So how could all these women have gotten it wrong? According to the Innocence Project, eyewitness misidentification contributes to an overwhelming majority of wrongful convictions that have been overturned by post-conviction DNA testing. Why? Well, again, according to the Innocence Project, eyewitnesses are often expected to identify perpetrators of crimes based on memory, which is incredibly malleable.
Under intense pressure through suggestive police practices or just over time, an eyewitness is more likely to find it difficult to correctly recall details about what they saw. According to the latest numbers, more than 60% of the organization's clients were wrongfully convicted based on eyewitness misidentification.
Thomas Hainsworth's case is just one of them. His accusers mistakenly identified him as the guy because he looked a lot like the real perpetrator, Leon Davis. And one of his accusers saw him walking down the street at the wrong place at the wrong time. It wasn't until DNA evidence came around that he could officially be set free after 27 years.
After his release, Virginia Attorney General Ken Susanelli offered him a job in the mailroom before he worked his way up to deputy of operations. He also gives speeches to at-risk youth and lobbies for their justice. He also says that he's forgiven the women who accused him of assaulting them. He doesn't want their apologies because, according to him, they're all victims of the system.
To share your thoughts on this story, be sure to follow the show on Instagram and Facebook. To find out what I think about the case, sign up to become a patron at patreon.com slash forensic tales. After each episode, I release a bonus episode where I share my personal thoughts and opinions about the case. Don't forget to subscribe to Forensic Tales so you don't miss an episode. We release a new episode every Monday.
If you love the show, consider leaving us a positive review or tell friends and family about us. You can also help support the show through Patreon. Thank you so much for joining me this week. Please join me next week. We'll have a brand new case and a brand new story to talk about. Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings.
Thank you.
For supporting the show, you'll become one of the first to listen to new ad-free episodes and snag exclusive show merchandise not available anywhere else. To learn about how you can support the show, head over to our Patreon page, patreon.com slash forensic tales, or simply click the support link in the show notes. You can also support the show by leaving a positive review or telling friends and family about us.
Forensic Tales is a podcast made possible by our Patreon producers.
If you'd like to become a producer of this show, head over to our Patreon page or send me an email at Courtney at ForensicTales.com to find out how you can become involved. For a complete list of sources used in this episode, please visit ForensicTales.com. Thank you for listening. I'll see you next week. Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings.
