On November 11, 1986, a woman, identified as K.L., was leaving her office building in Beachwood, Ohio, when a Black man approached and asked her if she knew the location of a public phone. She spoke with him for about three minutes, then went to her car and began warming it up.
At that point, the man forced his way into her car at knifepoint and forced the woman into the passenger seat. Although the man told her to keep her face toward the side window, the woman later said she saw him several times after he got in the car. The man took $8 from her and drove to loading docks behind a building. There, he raped her and ordered her out of the car. As he drove off, K.L. ran inside a nearby building, and the police were called.
She was taken to a hospital, where a rape kit was taken.
K.L.’s car was recovered that evening. She said a toy gun was missing from the car. K.L. helped the police create a composite sketch and looked through numerous photo arrays but could not make an identification.
On February 18, 1987, 19-year-old Donte Booker was arrested for attacking a woman and stealing her car. At the time of his arrest, police recovered a toy gun. The police put his photograph in a photographic lineup. K.L. viewed the lineup and identified Booker as her attacker. She also identified the toy gun as the one taken from her car. Police executed a search warrant at Booker’s home and recovered a gray sweatshirt and sweatpants that generally resembled K.L’s description of the clothing worn by her assailant.
In May 1987, Booker went to trial in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas. K.L. identified him as her assailant.
A forensic analyst from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation testified that semen had been detected on K.L.’s slip, but there was insufficient evidence to perform ABO blood typing. The laboratory also found a pubic hair from the victim’s pubic combing that was determined to be of Negroid origin.
On May 13, 1987, Booker was convicted of rape, kidnapping, aggravated robbery and gross sexual imposition. He was sentenced to 10 to 25 years in prison. He was later convicted of the February 1987 carjacking and received a sentence of three to 15 years to be served concurrently with his 10-to-25-year sentence.
His convictions were upheld on appeal.
Booker contacted the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation in 2000 and learned that the evidence in his case, including the rape kit, had been retained. He was unable to obtain testing on his own.
Booker was released on parole in December 2002. In April 2004, he was sent back to prison for a parole violation. While in prison, he learned of a state-funded DNA testing program. He hired attorney W. Scott Ramsey, who filed a motion to have the evidence in the case submitted for testing.
On August 15, 2004, the motion was granted. In December 2004, Booker was released from prison on parole.
On January 25, 2005, test results excluded Booker as the source of the spermatozoa found on the victim’s clothing and in the rape kit.
On February 8, the prosecution and Booker’s lawyer filed a joint motion to vacate his convictions and dismiss the case. On February 10, 2005, the convictions were vacated and the charges were dismissed.
The unidentified DNA profile was submitted to the Ohio DNA database and was identified as that of 53-year-old Pettus Adams. Adams was indicted in July 2005. In October 2005, he pled guilty and was sentenced to five years in prison.
In August 2005, Booker was awarded $618,000 in compensation from the state of Ohio. He also filed a federal lawsuit that was dismissed.
In 2013, Booker was convicted of federal drug charges and sentenced to nearly 17 years in prison. Undercover police officers caught Booker in a sting operation in which he thought he was robbing a drug supplier of a 22-pound shipment of cocaine. But the cocaine was actually just white powder, and police arrested Booker after he took the material from a truck. He was scheduled to be released on federal parole in May 2026.
– Maurice Possley
Posting Date: 08-29-2011
Last Update Date: 03-12-2026
