DNA Test Helps Free Man Held for 15 Years in Rape

LEXINGTON, Okla. — A man was freed from prison Monday 15 years after he was wrongly convicted of rape, based partly on testimony from a police chemist now under investigation for incorrectly identifying evidence.

Oklahoma County prosecutors received a report Monday from a California laboratory that said a DNA test showed sperm and hair taken from the scene of the rape were not from 39-year-old Jeffrey Todd Pierce.

Former police chemist Joyce Gilchrist testified in 1986 that the rapist’s hair was “microscopically consistent” with Pierce’s hair.

Gilchrist, now on paid leave, also testified in the cases of 12 inmates who are on death row in Oklahoma and 11 who already have been executed. Those cases are being reexamined, as are hundreds of others she worked on.