Richard Alexander is an

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

man who was wrongfully convicted of

rape Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ...

and later exonerated by DNA evidence. Years later, on September 17, 2020, Alexander was charged with the murder of Catherine Minix, who was found stabbed to death. Minix had previously filed a protective order against Alexander for domestic violence.

Arrest and conviction

In 1996 a suspected

serial rapist A serial rapist is someone who commits multiple rapes, whether with multiple victims or a single victim repeatedly over a period of time. Some serial rapists target children. The terms ''sexual predator'', ''repeat rape'' and ''multiple offending ...

dubbed by local media the "River Park Rapist" preyed on female residents of

South Bend South Bend is a city in and the county seat of St. Joseph County, Indiana, on the St. Joseph River near its southernmost bend, from which it derives its name. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total of 103,453 residents and is the fourt ...

. Police arrested Richard Alexander (then 30 years old) in August 1996 for four of the rapes, largely on the basis of the statements of the victims. DNA evidence definitively excluded him as a suspect in one of the

s, although both the victim and her fiancé continued to insist that Alexander was the perpetrator."Richard Alexander"
. ''The

Innocence Project Innocence Project, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal organization that is committed to exonerating individuals who have been wrongly convicted, through the use of DNA testing and working to reform the criminal justice system to prevent futu ...

''. Retrieved December 27, 2006. Not all of the investigators were convinced of his guilt, particularly as three similar rapes occurred while Alexander was in police custody.Newton, M. (2004) ''The Encyclopedia of High-Tech Crime and Crime-Fighting''. Checkmark Books, an imprint of Facts on File, Inc. In the case of one of the rapes that took place while he was in custody, Alexander's picture was accidentally placed in a photo-lineup shown to the victim. She selected his photograph as that of her assailant, despite his incarceration at the time of the offense. Nevertheless, Alexander was prosecuted for the three rapes, with charges totaling two counts of robbery, two counts of criminal deviate conduct, two counts of attempted rape, confinement, attempted robbery, rape, burglary and

auto theft Motor vehicle theft (also known as a car theft and, in the United States, grand theft auto) is the criminal act of stealing or attempting to steal a motor vehicle. Nationwide in the United States in 2020, there were 810,400 vehicles reporte ...

. His 1997 trial ended in a

hung jury A hung jury, also called a deadlocked jury, is a judicial jury that cannot agree upon a verdict after extended deliberation and is unable to reach the required unanimity or supermajority. Hung jury usually results in the case being tried again. T ...

, with the nine white jurors in favor of conviction for the charges brought and two of the three black jurors voting for conviction of lesser charges. He was re-tried for the crimes in 1998 by an all-white jury. At the second trial, one of the victims, though identifying Alexander as her assailant, asserted that he had a hairless chest without

tattoo A tattoo is a form of body modification made by inserting tattoo ink, dyes, and/or pigments, either indelible or temporary, into the dermis layer of the skin to form a design. Tattoo artists create these designs using several tattooing ...

s. When it was demonstrated that Alexander had a hairy, heavily tattooed chest, he was acquitted of that rape. Nevertheless, he was convicted of the other two and was sentenced to 70 years in prison.

Exoneration

In 2001, with Alexander already having served five years in prison, an alleged burglar and

child molester Child sexual abuse (CSA), also called child molestation, is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include engaging in sexual activities with a child (whethe ...

named Michael Murphy confessed to one of the two rapes of which Alexander had been convicted, knowing details only the true assailant would know. With this revelation, a judge ordered a new round of DNA testing in Alexander's case. Hairs found at the scene of the rape were submitted to mitochondrial DNA testing. At the time of Alexander's original conviction, such testing was not available in the state of

. The tests proved that the DNA did not match Alexander's profile, but did match Murphy's. Because of this new development, Indiana prosecutors came to believe that Alexander was in fact not responsible for any of the rapes. In the remaining rape for which he was incarcerated, the evidence against him consisted of the victim's tentative identification of his voice and an eyewitness's visual identification of Alexander. The Indiana prosecutor and Alexander's defense attorney filed a joint

motion In physics, motion is the phenomenon in which an object changes its position with respect to time. Motion is mathematically described in terms of displacement, distance, velocity, acceleration, speed and frame of reference to an observer and m ...

to have Alexander's convictions overturned. The courts granted the motion, and Alexander was exonerated of all charges and released from prison on December 12, 2001. It is now believed that the River Park Rapist was actually two separate perpetrators.

Lawsuit

On June 4, 2002, Richard Alexander filed a federal suit against the city of

, its police department and 14 of its officers, including Sgt. Cindy Eastman, an officer instrumental in securing Alexander's release. His lawyer, Roseann P. Ivanovich, said she expected to ask for about $55 million in damages ($10 million for every year spent in prison).Coyne, T. (2002) "Man Freed by DNA Sues South Bend, Indiana Police". ''The Associated Press''. Among the allegations in the 48-page lawsuit: * Police showed photos of Alexander to rape victims who said they had not seen enough of their attackers' faces for a positive identification. * Police coerced or constructed the identifications of Alexander that were used at his trial. * Police destroyed evidence and ignored Alexander's

alibi An alibi (from the Latin, '' alibī'', meaning "somewhere else") is a statement by a person, who is a possible perpetrator of a crime, of where they were at the time a particular offence was committed, which is somewhere other than where the crim ...

s. The civil rights lawsuit was eventually dismissed by the

United States district court The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district co ...

, a decision which Alexander appealed. But on January 3, 2006, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit upheld the district court's dismissal of Alexander's lawsuit. The court stated that Alexander had not proven his rights were violated during the trial which yielded his wrongful conviction.

Subsequent legal troubles

On May 22, 2007, Alexander pleaded guilty to one count of

battery Battery most often refers to: * Electric battery, a device that provides electrical power * Battery (crime), a crime involving unlawful physical contact Battery may also refer to: Energy source *Automotive battery, a device to provide power t ...

for having beaten a former girlfriend with a lead pipe in 2005. As part of his plea bargain, a second count of battery was dismissed. On June 14, 2007, Alexander was sentenced to eight years in prison, with two years suspended. On September 17, 2020, he was charged in the stabbing death of his ex-girlfriend following a pattern of domestic violence. Midway through his trial Alexander took a plea deal for a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter.

Trivia

* Alexander's case was made into an episode of the Court TV series ''

Forensic Files ''Forensic Files'', originally known as ''Medical Detectives'', is an American documentary television program that reveals how forensic science is used to solve violent crimes, mysterious accidents, and outbreaks of illness. The show was orig ...

''. * Alexander's name was invoked by Senator

Patrick Leahy Patrick Joseph Leahy (; born March 31, 1940) is an American politician and attorney who is the senior United States senator from Vermont and serves as the president pro tempore of the United States Senate. A member of the Democratic Party, ...

( D-

Vermont Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...

) in a floor statement in support of the Innocence Protection Act.

References