DNA tests raise questions about Norfolk rape case

The Associated Press March 15, 2014

RICHMOND

Questions are being raised about the convictions of two men who were sentenced to long prison terms for a 1996 Norfolk rape.

The Innocence Project says DNA testing clears the two men, one of whom died in prison in December 2012.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch says the Innocence Project has filed a petition for a writ of actual innocence on behalf of 63-year-old Nathaniel E. Epps. He is serving a 153-year sentence at the Greensville Correctional Center. His brother-in-law, Percell F. Warren, died at the Deerfield Correctional Center.

The DNA testing was on sperm found in jeans worn by the victim. The petition says the testing shows that Warren's DNA was not identified in the mixture of male DNA, but that Epps could not be definitively excluded.

Epps' lawyers told the newspaper that the scientists conducting the testing said that if they had to assume only two men contributed DNA to the material tested, both Warren and Epps would be excluded.

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DNA tests raise questions about Norfolk rape case