Utah Man Freed After Decades on Death Row as DNA Clears Him in 1985 Killing

A Utah man who spent decades on death row for the killing of a police chief’s aunt has been released after newly analyzed DNA evidence ruled him out as the source of genetic material recovered from crucial evidence in the case.

Douglas Stewart Carter, 71, was released on bail late Monday despite objections from Eva Olesen’s family. He must wear a GPS monitor while awaiting a new trial in Olesen’s death. She was found bound, stabbed and shot inside her Provo home on Feb. 27, 1985, in what investigators believed was a robbery.

A judge also barred Carter from contacting members of Olesen’s family.

The Utah Supreme Court ordered a new trial last year, citing misconduct by investigators.

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Carter has consistently maintained that he is innocent and says investigators coerced him into signing a confession.

Although no physical evidence connected Carter to the crime scene, jurors convicted him based on the confession and testimony from two witnesses who said he had bragged about killing Olesen. Both witnesses later recanted their statements.

DNA testing reported Sept. 22 excluded Carter as a possible match to blood found on a doorknob and genetic material recovered from the handle of the knife used to stab Olesen.

Judge Derek Pullan said the findings further weakened the case against Carter, while acknowledging that a jury could still conclude he was responsible for Olesen’s killing.

“This is going to be a lot for him,” Carter’s son, Tyler Anger, said Monday while waiting for his father to leave jail after the release order was issued.

Carter will live at an extended-stay hotel near Anger, according to his attorney, Neal Hamilton. Anger was adopted by another family as an infant and did not learn of his father’s conviction until years later.

Hamilton said Carter will need therapy to cope with the effects of his lengthy incarceration.

“If the state of Utah had their way, he would have been executed 15, 20 years ago before we discovered the misconduct,” Hamilton said.

Hamilton also called on prosecutors to dismiss the aggravated murder charge that remains pending against Carter.

A two-month retrial had been scheduled for next year, but county prosecutors withdrew a notice last week indicating that they intended to seek the death penalty.

Utah County prosecutor Erwin Petilos told the judge Monday that revisiting Carter’s bail was “necessary and fair” while the state continues reviewing the evidence that remains in the case.

Carter was living with his mother in Utah when Olesen was killed.

Court documents show that Carter left Utah by April 1985 because he believed he was a suspect in an unrelated assault case. Two months later, he was arrested in Nashville, where he signed a confession during questioning by a Provo detective.

Carter said later that his confession was coerced, saying he falsely admitted to the crime after police repeatedly threatened him.

He was convicted and sentenced to death after a trial in which the defense called no witnesses to testify. Carter was sentenced to death again after a 1992 retrial, and courts in Utah later denied multiple appeals from Carter’s legal team.

In 2011, the two witnesses from Carter’s original trial were tracked down in Mexico, admitting they had been told to lie in court and had received cash and gifts from police in exchange for their testimonies. They said police told them not to disclose the payments and that police and prosecutors threatened them and their son with deportation if they did not implicate Carter in the killing.

More than a decade of legal fights ensued before the Utah Supreme Court stepped in last year and ordered a new trial, citing “multiple instances of intentional misconduct” by police and a prosecutor. A DNA analysis of the evidence was conducted in response to that order, and prosecutors said the results arrived last week, which excluded Carter from the crime.

Prosecutors declined to say whether they will use the DNA evidence to search for other suspects with matching DNA.

Attorneys for Carter, who is Black, have said witnesses saw a White man fleeing the crime scene and that an investigator suppressed evidence that could implicate other suspects, including the victim’s husband, Orla Olesen.

Prosecutors were close to filing charges against the husband, but a Provo police lieutenant urged them not to so he could continue investigating, according to the defense attorneys. Carter was then identified as a suspect, according to court documents.

Orla Olesen, who died in 2009, told police he found his wife dead in their home, partially undressed and with her hands tied behind her back.

Theresa Olesen, a daughter-in-law of Eva Olesen, said during the bond hearing on Monday that her family had “serious concerns” about Carter’s release.

“By golly we were hoping for a concrete match,” Olesen said of the DNA analysis. “It doesn’t mean he wasn’t there.”

“We just want justice for Eva. And if he had any part of it we want that to be known,” she added.