On July 25, 1984, 9-year-old Dawn Hamilton was abducted, sexually assaulted and murdered in woods near a family friend’s home in Rosedale, Maryland. A rock with human blood was found next to her head.
An autopsy revealed that the girl’s skull was fractured. The medical examiner, Dr. Dennis Smyth, concluded the death was a homicide, the result of blunt trauma to the head and strangulation.
Two boys, 10-year-old Christian Shipley and 7-year-old Jackie Poling, told the police that on the morning of the murder, they were fishing at a pond in the woods. Christian told the police that a man came by and Jackie showed him a turtle he had caught. Shortly thereafter, Dawn came by and asked the two boys to help her look for her cousin, Lisa. The boys refused and resumed fishing. The man, however, agreed to help Dawn and the two walked off together.
Christian assisted police in the creation of a composite sketch of the man. After the sketch was publicized, the police received a tip that the sketch resembled 23-year-old Kirk Bloodsworth. Police located him and on August 8 questioned him about his activities on the day of the murder. Detective Robert Capel would later testify that although Bloodsworth “had a hard time remembering his exact whereabouts,” he said that he had never been to the area near the murder scene.
Detective Capel took two photographs of Bloodsworth and placed one in a photographic lineup that he showed to the two boys. Christian identified Bloodsworth as the man who walked off with the victim. Jackie was unable to make a positive identification.
Based upon the identification, Bloodsworth was arrested on August 9, 1984. A live lineup was held on August 13, 1984. Christian did not make an identification, but later said he recognized the man in the sixth position, who was Bloodsworth, as the man who went into the woods with Dawn, but he was afraid to tell the police. Jackie viewed the lineup but identified someone other than Bloodsworth.
Bloodsworth was charged with first-degree murder, first-degree rape and first-degree sexual offense. The prosecution said it would seek the death penalty.
On March 4, 1985, Bloodsworth went to trial in Baltimore County Circuit Court. Christian identified Bloodsworth as the man who walked away with Dawn. Jackie was unable to identify Bloodsworth.
Donna Ferguson testified that she saw the victim talking with a man near the woods at approximately 10:30 a.m. on the day of the crime. Ferguson testified that she had identified Bloodsworth at a live lineup and she identified him in court.
James Keller testified that he was driving down Fontana Lane, near the scene of the murder, at approximately 6:30 a.m. when he saw a man standing by the side of the road. Keller identified Bloodsworth as the man he saw that day.
Detective Capel testified that he asked Bloodsworth why he was going around telling people in Cambridge about a bloody rock when only a few policemen and the killer knew about a bloody rock. According to the detective, Bloodsworth first denied saying it, but then said he just didn’t know why he did it. “At that point, he said that I didn’t kill that child, only somebody sick would hurt a child,” Capel testified.
Rose Carson testified that in August of 1984, Bloodsworth came to Cambridge and asked if he could spend the night in her home. Carson said he told her that on the next day “he would go admit himself to the State Hospital.” Carson testified that Bloodsworth told her, “I have done something really terrible. I am afraid that me and my wife won’t get back together because of it ...” Carson also testified that Bloodsworth said he was a suspect in the rape and murder of a little girl.
Bloodsworth, who had been a champion discus thrower in the U.S. Marines and had worked as an oysterman, had no criminal record. He testified and denied committing the crime. He denied ever being in the area where the murder occurred. He said that he had not told anyone anything about a bloody rock or that he ever said he planned to seek psychiatric care. He said he was talking about drug treatment.
The defense also presented testimony from a semi-retired shoe store owner who said that shoe marks on the victim’s body were from shoes that were two sizes too small to have been made by shoes that fit Bloodsworth.
Bloodsworth’s wife, his mother-in-law and three housemates testified that he was around the house all day on the day of the crime.
On March 8, 1985, the jury convicted Bloodsworth of first-degree murder, first-degree rape and first-degree sexual offense. On March 22, 1985, Judge J. William Hinkel sentenced Bloodsworth to death.
In 1986, the Court of Appeals of Maryland vacated the convictions and ordered a new trial. The appeals court ruled that the prosecution had failed to disclose a report by a detective that pointed to another man as a viable suspect.
In April 1987, Bloodsworth went to trial a second time and was again convicted. He was sentenced to life in prison. The conviction and sentence were affirmed in 1988.
In 1992, the prosecution agreed to submit biological evidence for a then-emerging DNA technology known as PCR (polymerase chain reaction). The tests, performed by Edward T. Blake, of Forensic Science Associates, in Richmond, California, excluded Bloodsworth as the source of semen found on the victim’s clothing.
Bloodsworth was released on June 28, 1993 after his conviction was vacated and the case was dismissed.. He was the first U.S. death row prisoner to be cleared by DNA. On December 22, 1993, Maryland Governor William Donald Schaefer granted Bloodsworth a full pardon based on innocence.
Nine years later, in the spring of 2003, a Baltimore County forensic biologist who was studying evidence from the case found evidence that had not been analyzed. Investigators ordered DNA testing and ran the results through the FBI's national DNA database (CODIS), which linked Kimberly Shay Ruffner, who had been convicted and sentenced to prison for a rape after Bloodsworth was conviction. Bloodsworth, who had been the prison librarian while incarcerated, had regularly delivered books to Ruffner.
Ruffner was charged with the murder on September 5, 2003. He pleaded guilty in 2004 and was sentenced to life in prison.
The State of Maryland paid Bloodsworth $300,000 for lost income, based on the rough calculation that he would have earned some $30,000 a year for the years from his arrest to his release. In 2021, he was awarded an additional $421,237, based on a new state law and a recalculation of the economic losses he received because of his wrongful conviction. In 2022, he was awarded an additional $83,000 for housing.
In 2004, the Justice for All Act authorized the establishment of the Kirk Bloodsworth Post-conviction DNA Testing Grant Program, a grant program that provides funding to states to help defray the costs associated with post-conviction DNA testing.
– Maurice Possley
Posting Date: 08-29-2011
Last Update Date: 04-28-2022
