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Tionna White
Mr. Newman
Forensic Science
20 September 2014
Innocence Project: Douglas Warney
On January 3
rd
, 1996, there was a crime committed in Rochester, New York. Police found
a victim lying on his back with several wounds to his neck and chest. To be exact, they found
that the victim has been stabbed 19 times. He also had defense wounds on his left hand. As
evidence, the police found a bloodstained knife and towel, along with multiple dirty tissues in the
clothing hamper, in his bathroom.
During the investigation of the crime, a man named Douglas Warney contacted the police
stating he has information about the homicide. Warney claimed to have known the victim he
cleaned his house and shoveled snow from his driveway two years before the killing. Warney
was interrogated for at least twelve hours and provided facts that only the killer would know. He
said very specific details such as the clothing the victim had on, as well as what they were doing.
Then he said the killer cut himself with a knife and wiped it with a tissue in the bathroom. He
also put a second man into the situation but at the time, he was confined to a clinic. Warneys
confessions were sketchy and inconsistent.

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Warney was initially charged with capital murder but he was then convicted with second
degree murder and sentenced to twenty-five years to life in prison. In 2004, The Innocence
Project and Donald M. Thompson began working on his case and asked to use DNA testing of
blood from the numerous pieces of evidence, but prosecution went against this and Warney lost
his motion for DNA testing. As the case was being appealed, Monroe County Public Safety
Laboratory conducted STR based DNA testing. They tested the victims left fingernail scrapings,
blood flecks from around the crime scene, bloodstains in the towel, and the bloodstains on the
tissues in the bathroom. The bloodstains found in the bathroom were not from the victim or
Warney. Warney was excluded from this evidence and they compared it to the national DNA
profile database; the DNA matched with Eldred Johnson. This man was already a New York
inmate and when interviewed by prosecution, Johnson admitted to killing the victim, being
alone, and not knowing Warney. Ultimately, Douglas Warney was released from prison on May
16
th
, 2006, after spending nine long years in there for a crime he did not commit.