Other Convicted Innocents

Kenneth Waters

Year of Incident: 1980
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Charge: Murder, Robbery/td>
Conviction: Murder, Robbery
Sentence: Life
Year of Conviction: 1983
Year of Exoneration: 2001
Sentence Served: 18 years
Real perpetrator found? Not yet
Compensation? Not yet

The victim in this case was found dead on May 21, 1980, in her bed at home. She had been stabbed more than thirty times and her jewelry and money had been taken. The perpetrator left no fingerprints, though hairs and much blood were present at the scene. Based on the testimony of several witnesses, including two ex-girlfriends, police arrested Kenneth Waters for murder. He was convicted in 1983 of first degree murder and armed robbery. He was sentenced to life with a concurrent term of eight to ten years for the robbery.

Serology testing on the blood at the scene was performed. Types B and O were found in the apartment. The victim was type B and Waters was type O. A witness for the prosecution testified that Waters tried to sell the victim's ring and necklace to her soon after the crime. Another witness, Roseanna Perry, the defendant's ex-girlfriend, testified that Waters had made a drunken confession to the crime. A third witness and another of Waters's ex-girlfriends, Brenda Marsh, testified that Waters returned to their shared apartment the morning after the crime in the same clothes he was wearing the night before. She also testified to a second drunken confession. Finally, workers from the packing company where Waters worked stated that a knife similar to the one found at the crime scene was missing around the time of the murder.

The defense maintained that the serology evidence was not conclusive, as approximately 48% of the population is type O. The hairs from the scene, including at least one found on the victim, were neither from the victim nor Waters. One of the witnesses (one of the ex-girlfriends) later recanted her testimony.

Waters lost his appeals. His sister, Betty Anne, would eventually put herself through law school in order to take over her brother's case. By the time she contacted the Innocence Project, she had already located the biological evidence and was trying to have it subjected to DNA testing.

Testing done by Forensic Science Associates revealed that male DNA was found in various items of evidence. Kenneth Waters was excluded as the donor of the male biological material, and thus as the perpetrator. The results were examined by the Massachusetts State Police Crime Laboratory and they concurred with FSA's findings. The conviction was vacated in 2001 and Waters was not retried. He had spent eighteen years in prison.