THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, October 22, 1994 TAG: 9410220279
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LAURA LAFAY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BURKEVILLE LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
Ed Honaker stepped into the sunlight with a full pardon from the governor Friday afternoon after 10 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit.
He was freed on the basis of DNA evidence proving he was not the man who raped a 19-year-old Newport News woman on the Blue Ridge Parkway in 1983.
Wearing sunglasses, jeans and a new shirt and jacket he bought at a shopping mall on the way to Richmond from the Nottoway Correctional Center in Burkeville, Honaker met with reporters outside the state Capitol an hour and a half after his release.
He talked about pizza and steak and fresh air and freedom. About the novelty of riding an escalator at the mall - about his plans to relax, then look for work.
``Unbelievable. It's the greatest feeling in the world,'' he said. ``The only thing I can compare it to is the birth of my first child. . . . It might even top that.''
Now 44 and gray, Honaker was a dark-haired carpenter and welder in Roanoke when he was arrested in October 1984. His first child - a daughter named Angela - was 9. Another daughter was 8, and his son was 7. They are teenagers now. Honaker is a grandfather, and divorced.
Sentenced to three life terms plus 34 years, Honaker spent a decade trying to convince others of his innocence. He appealed his case and lost. He wrote to ``60 Minutes.'' He wrote to the trial judge and to the man who had arrested him. Finally, he wrote to Centurion Ministries, a New Jersey-based organization that works to free the imprisoned innocent.
Centurion investigated Honaker's case and enlisted Barry Scheck, a law professor who specializes in DNA evidence, to help. DNA tests conducted in March by a California lab, and duplicated by the Virginia Division of Forensic Science, excluded Honaker and the victim's boyfriend as sources of sperm found on a vaginal swab. Based on those tests, Scheck petitioned Gov. George F. Allen for clemency in June.
But Allen, in the midst of a campaign to get tough on criminals by abolishing parole, took no action. In August, he announced that a new state police investigation had cast doubt on Honaker's DNA exclusion.
The rape victim had revealed for the first time that she had sex with a secret lover in addition to her boyfriend during the week before the rape, Allen said. The sperm of her secret lover, he contended, could have masked Honaker's sperm on the vaginal swab.
Centurion investigator Kate Germond disputed that claim, pointing out that Honaker, who underwent a vasectomy in 1977, is incapable of producing sperm. She then arranged for more tests - this time of genetic material from the secret lover.
The new tests found no trace of the secret lover on the swab, ruling out the possibility of masking. The semen on the swab came from the rapist. And the rapist was not Honaker. On Sept. 27, Scheck asked Allen to reconsider clemency.
The delays took a toll on Honaker, who grew shaky and depressed as the summer waned.
``I have been stripped of my dignity, freedom, and everyone I loved,'' he wrote in an Oct. 18 letter to The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star. ``Not a day goes by that I don't think of going home and being with the family and friends I miss and cherish so much. . . . I cannot even begin to count the nights I have cried myself to sleep.''
At 10:28 a.m. Friday, Allen called Nottoway Correctional Center and asked for Honaker.
Honaker's recollection of the conversation: ``In a nutshell, `Ed, you're free.' ''
Minutes later, Allen announced his decision in a news conference.
``I think we went at it at the proper pace,'' he said of his long deliberations. ``I wanted to be absolutely sure I was making the right decision. I'm not going to be stampeded.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
``It's the greatest feeling in the world.'' - Ed Honaker, with his
half-sister, Delores Bennett
KEYWORDS: CLEMANCY DNA TESTING PARDON by CNB