At 1:15 p.m. on January 22, 1987, a man wearing a ski mask abducted a woman at knifepoint in the parking lot of the Huntington Mall in Barboursville, West Virginia. He got behind the wheel of her car and ordered her to keep her eyes shut. He then drove her to another location, where he sexually assaulted her multiple times in the car. He threatened to kill her several times.
About 45 minutes later, he ordered her out of the car and drove off. Before he left, he told her to keep her eyes closed. He said a friend was following who would hurt her if she opened her eyes; that he knew who she was; and that his friend would kill her if she called the police. When the woman opened her eyes, she was standing on the side of a road.
The woman sought help from a passerby. The police were called and took her to a hospital, where a rape kit was taken.
On February 16, 1987, another woman was similarly abducted outside the mall by a man wearing a ski mask and armed with a knife. She had started her car, then went out to scrape ice from the windshield. As she started to get back in, a man punched her and pushed her into the passenger seat. He rummaged through her purse, took her gold watch, then bound her hands and covered her eyes with tape.
She later told police she was able to partially see out of her right eye that as they drove out of the parking lot, the car got to Interstate 64 heading east. He molested her and forced her to perform oral sex. As the car neared the Milton exit, she tried to open the door to escape. The man knocked her to the floor of the car and threatened to kill her. Eventually, he pulled the car into a secluded spot, where he raped her multiple times.
He said that “his buddy’s van” was nearby. He ordered the woman to put her clothes on, taped her hands to the gearshift, and then used paper towels to wipe down the interior of the car. He began driving the car. When he stopped the car and left, she discovered she was back in the Huntington Mall. About an hour had passed. The woman freed herself and drove herself to a hospital, where a rape kit was taken.
Twenty-eight-year-old Glen Woodall became a suspect because he worked in White Chapel Memorial Gardens, a cemetery across the highway from the mall. He was brought in for questioning. While he was being given a polygraph examination, a police officer escorted the victim of the second attack to just outside the door. She could hear the voices of the polygraph examiner and Woodall. She said she recognized Woodall’s voice as that of her attacker.
Both women were taken to Woodall’s workplace at the cemetery. They said that the smell they detected there was the same smell of their attacker. The victim of the first attack also said that Woodall’s pants were the same as her attacker’s pants.
Woodall was arrested in March 1987. He was charged with 10 criminal counts for his attack on the first victim: seven counts of sexual assault, one count of sexual abuse, one count of kidnapping, and one count of robbery. He was charged with nine criminal counts for his attack on the second victim: five counts of sexual assault of the second victim, two more counts of sexual abuse, one count of kidnapping and one count of robbery.
Woodall went to trial in July 1987 in Cabell County Circuit Court. The prosecution’s evidence consisted of the testimony of the two victims about their abduction and assault. The victim in the second attack identified Woodall by his voice and his smell. The second victim said that Woodall had the same hair color as her attacker and that a jacket and boots seized by police from Woodall resembled the jacket and boots worn by her attacker. The victim of the first attack also identified Woodall by his smell. She also said that Woodall had pants that were like the pants worn by her attacker.
The second victim also testified that a police sergeant had her observe several men, including Woodall, as they entered a room. She was asked to watch for anything familiar. When Woodall entered and sat down, the victim told the police that Woodall “fit the man perfect ... from the shoulders down.”
Both women said their attacker was uncircumcised, which Woodall was.
Fred Zain, a serologist and director of the West Virginia State Police Crime Laboratory, testified that he compared the blood traits from Woodall’s blood with blood traits he found in the semen recovered from the victims. He said that across the three blood-typing systems—ABO, PGM, and GLO—the blood traits found in the semen were identical to Woodall’s blood types. He said that combination would statistically occur in 6 of every 10,000 males in West Virginia.
Zain also testified that hair found in the car of the first victim was highly unlikely to have come from anywhere except Woodall’s beard. He admitted he initially had called it a pubic hair and that he had never examined the hairs of the car’s owner.
The defense presented an expert who had conducted his own test of blood and semen samples, and found the same blood types as Zain. However, the expert contended that the occurrence would be 12 in 10,000 males. During cross examination, he said that the figure could be one in 20,000 if independent factors such as age and hair color were considered.
Woodall testified and denied committing the crime. He testified that he was elsewhere at the times of both crimes. Several family members and friends testified and corroborated Woodall’s testimony.
On July 8, 1987, a jury convicted Woodall of all the charges. He was sentenced to two life terms without parole plus 203 to 335 years in prison. Judge Dan O’Hanlon ordered the sentences to be served consecutively.
In July 1989, the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals upheld the convictions and sentence. The court ruled that the sentence “did not constitute cruel and unusual punishment.”
In 1991, a DNA test was conducted on the evidence, but the results were inconclusive.
Woodall continued to press for DNA testing, and Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) testing was performed on spermatozoa found in the rape kits. Both samples yielded the same DNA profile, and excluded Woodall. A second round of testing by another laboratory produced the same results.
Lawyers for Woodall filed a motion to vacate his convictions. At a hearing on the motion, the DNA test results were presented. The prosecution also revealed that both victims had been hypnotized prior to the trial. On July 15, 1991, Woodall’s convictions were vacated, and he was released on bond.
Subsequently, further DNA testing was performed, which again excluded Woodall. The prosecution obtained yet another round of testing, and the results were the same.
On May 5, 1992, the prosecution dismissed the case.
Woodall was the first person to be exonerated after being convicted based in part by testimony from Zain, who went on to be investigated for falsifying credentials and laboratory results in West Virginia and Texas. Three other men were exonerated in West Virginia based on faulty testimony from Zain. A fourth man was exonerated in Texas, where Zain had gone to work after leaving West Virginia.
Woodall later received $1 million in compensation from the state of West Virginia.
– Maurice Possley
Posting Date: 08-29-2011
Last Update Date: 03-12-2026
