The Virginia Department of Forensic Science has released DNA test reports in 30 of the 38 cases that the Urban Institute says support exoneration. Five of those cases are from Richmond.

Two of the Richmond cases, Victor Burnette and Thomas Edward Haynesworth, led to exonerations that were supported by Michael N. Herring, the Richmond commonwealth's attorney who became a key advocate for Haynesworth.

But as far as Herring is concerned, in the three other cases, even if the DNA test results were available at the time of the trials, it would not have altered the outcomes.

Dennis Michael Titus, now 53, was convicted in Richmond of the April 10, 1978, murder and attempted rape of a 31-year-old sunbather stabbed to death on the roof of her West Franklin Street high-rise apartment building.

DNA testing in his case failed to identify his DNA in sperm taken from a physical evidence recovery kit from the victim, identified in news accounts as Mary Dill Simpson, but did find the DNA of an unknown male.

According to reports, police said they did not believe Simpson had been raped. Nevertheless, they obtained the evidence later subjected to DNA testing. Police said Titus, a janitor at the building, became a suspect when he indicated to police he knew she was dead before her body was found.

Police also said that after he was arrested, he admitted killing her when she refused to have sex with him. Titus was sentenced to life and is being held at the Powhatan Correctional Center. He declined to be interviewed last week.

Bernard Coleman, now 49, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the Dec. 20, 1985, slaying of his roommate, Cedric Lee Mayo, 24, shot to death during a quarrel after both men had been drinking.

Mayo was shot once near the eye with a .22-caliber bullet. After the killing, Coleman and a friend took Mayo's body to a wooded area off North 39th Street, where a passer-by found it on Christmas Eve. Coleman fled to Washington and was arrested in February 1986.

The evidence tested in that case was described only as a white suit in the report that said Coleman's DNA was not found. Coleman was released from prison in 1991 and could not be reached for comment.

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Richmond DNA cases show not all reports prove innocence