In the early morning hours of October 21, 1982, a man broke into a 28-year-old woman’s apartment in Maryland Heights, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. The victim said that the man threatened her with a knife, stole her jewelry, and then raped her.
After the rape, the man stayed with the victim for an hour, smoking a cigarette while the victim smoked two cigarettes. The two were together in a brightly lit room, and the victim said the man told her that his name was John Briscoe.
After the man left the apartment, the victim called police. While police were still in the apartment, a man called the victim several times between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m., and identified himself as John Briscoe. The call was traced by police to a payphone near the apartment of 28-year-old Johnny Briscoe.
The victim was taken to a hospital, where a rape kit was collected.
The police assembled a photographic lineup that included a photograph of Briscoe. Later, he was the only man in the live lineup wearing an orange jumpsuit. On October 27, 1982, after the victim identified him as her attacker, Briscoe was charged with rape, robbery, burglary, stealing, and armed criminal action.
In May 1983, Briscoe went to trial in St. Louis County Circuit Court. The victim identified him as her attacker.
A forensic chemist from the St. Louis County Crime Laboratory testified that semen was present on swabs from the victim’s rape kit as well as on pantyhose, a towel, and the victim’s bed sheets. No further analysis was done.
A forensic hair analyst testified that a head hair found on the victim’s bed sheet showed “similar microscopic characteristics” to Briscoe’s head hair. The analyst conceded that the hair could also have come from someone else.
The defense contended that on the day of the crime, Briscoe was at home watching the seventh game of the World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Milwaukee Brewers. Briscoe’s 16-year-old nephew said that he was with Briscoe at home on the night of October 20, 1982, watching the game and that Briscoe was still there the next morning.
However, when the prosecutor asked the nephew who won, the nephew said the Milwaukee Brewers had won. In fact, the St. Louis Cardinals had won.
On May 4, 1983, the jury convicted Briscoe of rape, robbery, burglary, stealing, and armed criminal action. He was sentenced to 45 years in prison.
In May 1984, the Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed his convictions for rape, robbery, burglary and armed criminal action but vacated his conviction for stealing, ruling that it was duplicative of the robbery conviction.
Briscoe maintained his innocence and sought DNA testing on the biological evidence collected at the crime scene. In 1997, his motion to compel the St. Louis County District Attorney’s Office to search for evidence was denied.
In 2000, Centurion Ministries, a Princeton, N.J.-based non-profit organization that works to overturn wrongful convictions, began working on Briscoe’s case. In 2000 and again in 2001, Briscoe’s attorneys requested that the St. Louis County Crime Laboratory search for evidence in his case. Laboratory officials said that evidence could not be found and was presumed destroyed.
In 2004, a laboratory inventory turned up the cigarette butts from Briscoe’s case in a freezer, but the district attorney said his office was not informed of the existence of the cigarettes until July 6, 2006.
Days later, DNA testing was performed. The testing revealed that one of the cigarette butts had a DNA profile of a man other than Briscoe. Briscoe was excluded as the source of the DNA.
This profile was matched to a man who was serving a sentence in the Missouri prison system. This man was known to Briscoe and was believed to have used Briscoe’s name in the crime.
On July 19, 2006, Briscoe’s convictions were vacated, the charges were dismissed and he was released.
In 2008, Brisco filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit seeking compensation for his wrongful conviction. The lawsuit was dismissed in 2010
In June 2021, St. Louis County Circuit Court Judge Michael Burton awarded Briscoe $800,000 in state compensation to be dispensed in annual payments of $36,000.
– Maurice Possley
Posting Date: 08-29-2011
Last Update Date: 03-30-2026
