A Utah judge has ordered the release of Douglas Stewart Carter, a 71-year-old man who spent decades on death row for a 1985 murder, following new DNA evidence that did not match him. The ruling was issued on Monday despite objections from the victim’s family.
Douglas Stewart Carter was originally sentenced to death after a jury convicted him of killing Eva Olesen, the aunt of the Provo police chief at the time. Carter has consistently maintained his innocence, asserting that a signed confession was coerced and that no physical evidence linked him to the crime scene.
The conviction was largely based on a confession and testimony from two witnesses who claimed Carter boasted about the murder, though both witnesses later recanted. Carter, a Black man, was convicted in part due to this testimony and the confession, despite the lack of forensic links to the scene.
State Supreme Court ordered a new trial last year after finding misconduct by investigators. On Monday, Judge Derek Pullan noted that while the new DNA analysis further weakened the prosecution’s case, a reasonable jury could still conclude that Carter murdered Olesen. As a condition of bail, Carter must wear a GPS monitor and avoid contact with Olesen’s family.
Carter’s defense attorney, Neal Hamilton, said his client will stay in extended-stay housing near his son, who was adopted as an infant and only learned of the conviction years later. Hamilton emphasized the psychological toll of Carter’s incarceration.
“It’s not just as simple as, ‘Let’s let him go,'” Hamilton said. “He’s being released with 41 years of state-induced trauma and the effect it will have on him is very real.”
Previously, prosecutors had planned to seek the death penalty in a retrial scheduled for 2027. However, Utah County prosecutors withdrew that notice last week after receiving DNA analysis results on September 22. The analysis excluded Carter as a possible match to blood found on a doorknob and genetic material recovered from the handle of a knife used in the stabbing. Olesen was also shot during the incident.
Hamilton stated that DNA evidence from the crime scene had been run against the FBI database twice—Carter has been in the system since 1995—with no matches returned. It remained unclear at the time whether other potential matches existed.
Utah County prosecutor Erwin Petilos told the court that reassessing Carter’s bail was “necessary and fair” as the state continues to review remaining evidence in the case.
Carter, a Chicago native, had been living with his mother in Utah when Olesen was killed on February 27, 1985. According to court documents, Carter fled Utah in April, believing he was a suspect in an unrelated assault. He was arrested in Nashville, Tennessee, in June and signed a confession after interrogation by a Provo detective.
Hamilton previously alleged that Carter was held for two days alongside his friend, who had also been arrested. “They don’t house men and women together. So Doug was literally kept with a front row seat of the consequences of his failure to confess,” Hamilton said. “Doug said and has always said that the only reason he confessed was to save his friend.”
Carter claimed he provided a false confession after repeated threats from police. He was convicted and sentenced to death in a trial where the defense called no witnesses, and again after a 1992 retrial. Numerous appeals were rejected over subsequent years.
A pivotal moment occurred in 2011 when the two original witnesses were located in Mexico. They testified that police had provided them with cash and gifts and instructed them to lie in court. They also alleged that police and prosecutors threatened them and their son with deportation if they did not implicate Carter.
After more than a decade of legal proceedings, the Utah Supreme Court ordered a new trial last year, citing “multiple instances of intentional misconduct” by police and a prosecutor. A DNA analysis was conducted in response to that order, and prosecutors said the results arrived recently.
Carter’s defense team has argued that witnesses observed a White man fleeing the scene and that an investigator suppressed evidence pointing to other suspects, including the victim’s husband, Orla Olesen. They claim prosecutors were close to charging the husband before a Provo police lieutenant intervened to allow further investigation.
Orla Olesen, a painting contractor who died in 2009, reportedly told police he discovered his wife’s body partially undressed with her hands tied behind her back.
During the bond hearing, Theresa Olesen, a daughter-in-law of Eva Olesen, expressed serious concerns about Carter’s release. She urged that he remain in the Utah County jail pending the new trial.
“By golly we were hoping for a concrete match,” Olesen said regarding the DNA analysis. “It doesn’t mean he wasn’t there.”
She added, “There are other factors and hopefully the investigation will continue. We just want justice for Eva. And if he had any part of it we want that to be known.”
https://prod.vodvideo.cbsnews.com/cbsnews/vr/hls/4731615_hls/master.m3u8
He finally gets to live near his adopted son now. A small, but necessary piece of the puzzle.
Even with the DNA exclusion, a jury could still find him guilty. The path forward remains uncertain.
Why did they run the DNA against the database twice before? That seems like a major oversight.
Witnesses recanting decades later really shakes my confidence in the justice system’s reliability.
Forty-one years on death row is tragic. The trauma Hamilton described must be staggering for him.