Arrested when he was 17 years old, Sullivan Walter was incarcerated for over 36 years after being convicted of a rape he did not commit. Just after midnight on May 10, 1986, the victim was showering when a man entered her home, the lower half of his face covered with a washcloth. He put a shirt over her face and a knife to her throat, promising not to hurt her son if she cooperated. She was raped twice. The washcloth had dropped from his face several times during the crime and the victim told police that she could identify the man. After the man left, the victim called a neighbor, who called police. She was taken to the hospital and a sexual assault kit was collected. The victim helped police produce a composite sketch.
Mr. Walter was arrested in June 1986 for a simple burglary and police thought that he resembled the composite sketch. The victim then identified Mr. Walter from a photographic lineup. At trial, evidence of seminal fluid from a non-secretor (a person who does not have ABO-type antigens in other bodily fluids) was presented, but there was no evidence introduced of Mr. Walter’s blood type or whether he was a secretor; the victim was determined to be a non-secretor. The police laboratory later determined Mr. Walter’s blood type and confirmed that he was a secretor. At Mr. Walter’s hearing on his motion for a new trial, the police analyst testified that he could not say if the stain on the victim’s shorts was left by a non-secretor. The motion was denied and Mr. Walter’s December 1986 conviction for forcible rape, aggravated crime against nature, and aggravated burglary stood.
Innocence & Justice Louisiana started investigating the case in October 2021. The physical evidence had been destroyed. We were able to collect all of the relevant laboratory reports, one of which was never introduced at the motion for new trial hearing, and submit them for review by expert Alan Keel, who determined that enough seminal fluid was deposited that it was detected by the doctor during the sexual assault examination, a coroner’s analyst during examination of the rape kit samples (in which spermatozoa were visualized), and an NOPD analyst when examining stains on the victim’s shorts. The victim’s sexual history meant that the semen necessarily came from the perpetrator. No secretor activity was detected on any of the relevant samples, meaning that Mr. Walter could not have been the perpetrator. The case was presented to the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office, who joined a motion to vacate Mr. Walter’s conviction. He was exonerated on August 25, 2022, having served over 36 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.
