DNA test casts doubt on Somerville man’s guilt, judge rules

By John R. Ellement, Globe Staff

A Somerville man imprisoned for a quarter of a century could be freed soon after a Middlesex Superior Court judge ruled DNA testing supports his claim he did not participate in a 1986 murder, a brutal attack that left the victim to die slowly in the parking lot of an abandoned supermarket.

He is ecstatic, said Boston lawyer Dana Curhan, who has served as Michael J. Sullivans appellate attorney since 1991 through the Committee for Public Counsel Services Innocence Program.

Sullivan was convicted of firstdegree murder in the death of 54-year-old Wilfred McGrath, who was lured to an East Cambridge apartment, where he was robbed of jewelry, money, and cocaine. Beaten but still alive, McGrath was wrapped in a blanket and dumped behind an abandoned supermarket, where his body was found in March 1986, according to court records.

The key prosecution witness was Gary Grace, who had murder charges dropped in return for testifying against Sullivan, records show. Grace testified that Sullivan was wearing a purple jacket at the time of the killing. a State Police chemist testified that blood found on the sleeve of the jacket and hair found in the pocket belonged to McGrath.

But Middlesex Superior Court Judge Kathe M. Tuttman, in an 35-page ruling released Nov. 15, concluded that Sullivan deserves a new trial because DNA testing shows that neither the blood nor the hair belonged to McGrath.

The Commonwealth presented this blood and hair evidence to the jury as corroboration of Graces version of the incident, and, consequently as a link between the defendant [Sullivan] and the victims murder, Tuttman wrote.

But the new evidence that eliminates the victim as the source of the hair and the DNA found on the jacket cuffs also eliminates this link between the defendant and the murder, thus supporting the defendant's theory that he was not present at the time of the murder.

Tuttman then ordered a new trial for Sullivan, who faced the prospect of dying behind bars because his earlier appeals of the first-degree murder conviction which carries life imprisonment without the possibility of parole have been rejected by federal courts and by Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

With this newly available evidence, the defendant has cast real doubt on the justice of his conviction, and he is entitled to a new trial, Tuttman wrote.

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DNA test casts doubt on Somerville man’s guilt, judge rules