In the early morning of July 13, 1986, a white man broke into the apartment of a 46-year-old woman at the Kingswood Apartments in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. The man raped the woman in her bedroom and fled.
On September 8, 1986, a 32-year-old woman in the same apartment complex was raped, also during the early morning. In both instances, the women were taken to the hospital, where rape kits were taken.
The woman who was attacked in September worked with police to create a composite sketch of her attacker. The sketch was broadcast on television and printed in the newspapers.
On December 30, 1986, Upper Merion Township police received a call from a woman who said that 26-year-old Bruce Godschalk, a local unemployed landscaper, resembled the sketch. On January 13, 1987, Godschalk came to the police station voluntarily and was interrogated.
After less than an hour of questioning, police said that Godschalk confessed to both crimes. Both victims also identified him as their attacker in photographic lineups.
Godschalk was arrested that day and charged with two counts of forcible rape and two counts of burglary.
In May 1987, Mr. Godschalk went to trial in the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas. Both women identified him as their attacker. The prosecution presented the recording of his confession.
A man who was in the jail at the same time as Mr. Godschalk testified that Godschalk had confessed to him that he had committed the crimes.
A serologist testified that Godschalk could not be eliminated as the source of the semen found in the rape kit.
Godschalk testified and denied committing the crime. He said his confession was false and was made when he was intoxicated. He said he was threatened by police and provided details to make the confession more credible.
The defense also presented witnesses who said that at the time of the crimes, Godschalk had facial hair in contrast to the victims’ testimony that their attacker was clean-shaven.
On May 29, 1987, the jury convicted Godschalk of two counts of burglary and two counts of forcible rape. He was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison.
His conviction was upheld on appeal.
In 1995, Godschalk contacted the Innocence Project. In 1999, the Innocence Project obtained a copy of the taped confession. The tape was sent to an expert, who concluded that it was likely that Godschalk had falsely confessed.
During that time, the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office opposed release of the physical evidence for DNA testing. A motion for release of the evidence was denied in June 1995. The defense, represented by attorney David Rudovsky and Innocence Project attorneys Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck, appealed. In July 1996, the Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed the lower court’s denial.
In November 2000, the legal team filed a federal civil-rights complaint seeking access to the evidence.
In its response, the prosecution said that it had sent the evidence to a laboratory for testing and that the laboratory had not been able to obtain results. Moreover, the prosecution said that all of the evidence had been consumed in this testing.
When the defense noted that a carpet sample with semen had never been sent to the laboratory, the prosecution argued that the carpet sample was not introduced as evidence and was not significant to the case.
The police officer who had obtained Godschalk’s confession had been responsible for the delivery of the evidence to the laboratory. He had also been the officer who had removed the carpet from the crime scene.
The carpet sample was discovered in October 2001. In November 2001, U.S. District Judge Charles Weiner ordered the DNA testing be conducted.
“While [Godschalk’s] detailed confessions to the rapes are powerful inculpatory evidence, so too any DNA testing that would exclude [Godschalk] as the source of the genetic material taken from the victims would be powerful exculpatory evidence,” the judge declared.
The evidence was sent to two private laboratories. On January 16, 2002, Forensic Science Associates in California reported that Godschalk was excluded as the source of the semen. On January 30, 2002, Orchid Cellmark in Maryland reported that Godschalk had been excluded as well.
Both laboratories reported, in spite of prosecution claims that all the evidence had been used up, that the same male DNA profile was obtained from the rape kits for both women.
The District Attorney still resisted, arguing that the confession trumped the testing, and sent the evidence to another laboratory. That testing confirmed that Godschalk was excluded.
On February 14, 2002, Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor Jr. asked Judge S. Gerald Corso to vacate Godschalk’s convictions. That same day, Godschalk was released from prison. On February 15, 2002, Judge Corso vacated the convictions and the charges were dismissed.
Subsequently, Godschalk filed a federal civil rights lawsuit that was settled for $2.4 million.
– Maurice Possley
Posting Date: 08-29-2011
Last Update Date: 02-23-2026
