He spent 37 years in prison for murder he didn’t commit, suit says. Now man wins $14M

In the search for a murder suspect, detectives focused on a teenager after a person they interviewed said he and his two friends caused “trouble.”

Robert DuBoise was arrested at the age of 18 and spent 37 years in prison for the 1983 murder of a woman that he didn’t commit in Tampa, Florida, according to a federal lawsuit against the city and those accused of helping convict him.

Before his exoneration in 2020, DuBoise was wrongly convicted of murder and sentenced to death, the lawsuit says. The sentence was reduced to life in prison in 1988, following three years he spent on death row.

In 2020, DNA from the woman’s autopsy — evidence previously believed to have been destroyed — was tested and proved DuBoise didn’t commit the crime, according to the Innocence Project, which took on DuBoise’s case in 2018.

Now, DuBoise, who never relented in maintaining his innocence, has settled his lawsuit with Tampa for $14 million.

The Tampa City Council unanimously approved a resolution that authorizes the settlement at a Feb. 15 meeting.

“The tragedy of Robert DuBoise’s wrongful conviction is that it could and should have been prevented,” Gayle Horn, one of DuBoise’s attorneys, told McClatchy News in a statement on Feb. 15.

“While no amount of money will ever compensate Mr. DuBoise for the decades of his life that he spent behind bars for a crime that he did not commit, this settlement is an acknowledgement of that harm and an opportunity to help Mr. DuBoise move forward with his life,” Horn said.

The settlement agreement acknowledges that DNA testing in 2020 linked to two other men who have since been charged in the death of Barbara Grams.

“We hope this settlement helps Mr. DuBoise in his healing,” Tampa Mayor Jane Castor said in a statement to McClatchy News on Feb. 15.

Details about the murder case

On Aug. 19, 1983, Grams was found murdered behind an office building on North Boulevard in Tampa, according to the lawsuit. An investigation revealed she was sexually assaulted.

Afterward, Tampa Police Department detectives interviewed a former employee of the gas station across the street from where Grams’ body was found, according to the lawsuit.

This woman told them she recalled DuBoise and his friends “causing trouble” in February 1983, months before the murder, the lawsuit says. Based on her statement, investigators decided DuBoise “was a murderer.”

The detectives are accused of conspiring with Dr. Richard Souviron, a dentist and forensic odontologist, to link DuBoise to the crime with evidence of an apparent bite mark on Grams’ cheek, according to the lawsuit.

Souviron and the detectives are named as defendants in the lawsuit. McClatchy News contacted attorneys representing the detectives and Souviron for comment on Feb. 15 and didn’t receive immediate responses.

After DuBoise became a suspect, he cooperated with authorities and a beeswax mold was made of his teeth, the lawsuit says.

When Souviron reviewed the impression of DuBoise’s mouth, he decided, and told detectives, that DuBoise bit Grams when she died, according to the lawsuit.

However, he was wrong, the lawsuit says, as DuBoise’s teeth “did not match” the injury.

Souviron’s conclusion was “fraudulent, unscientific, and did not furnish probable cause to link him to B.G.’s murder in any way,” the lawsuit says. “Nevertheless, the defendants … used this phony bitemark identification based on a beeswax mold to arrest Robert DuBoise.”

Before DuBoise was convicted in the case, he was detained in Hillsborough County Jail, where he met an individual who later gave false testimony, saying DuBoise confessed to the murder, according to the Innocence Project.

DuBoise was convicted of murder and attempted sexual battery on March 7, 1985, following a one- week trial in Florida’s 13th Judicial Circuit, the settlement agreement says.

“Based on the junk science of bite mark evidence and the unreliable testimony of a jailhouse informant, DuBoise was convicted and sentenced to death,” the Innocence Project wrote on a web page.

His release from prison

DuBoise was released from prison on Aug. 27, 2020, and exonerated on Sept. 14, 2020, according to the Innocence Project.

“I’m just happy to get home to my family,” he said the day of his release, according to ABC Action News. “It’s a beautiful day.”

Earlier that year, slides of DNA from Grams’ autopsy that were believed to be destroyed were found stored at the Hillsborough County Medical Examiner’s Department, the organization says.

DNA tests revealed matches to two men, Amos Robinson and Abron Scott, the Tampa Bay Times reported. Both men are serving life sentences in connection with a separate murder in 1983, two months after they’re accused of killing Grams, the outlet said.

The men have since been indicted on first-degree murder charges in Grams’ death, according to the Tampa City Council.

In August 2020, DuBoise told Fox 13, “I have no room for bitterness.”

“If you keep bitterness and hatred in your heart, it just steals your joy from everything else,” he added.

The lawsuit

In October 2021, DuBoise filed the lawsuit over his wrongful conviction.

“We recognize the profound and lasting effects of this case, especially on Mr. DuBoise nearly four decades later,” the Tampa Police Department said in a statement to McClatchy News on Feb. 15. “Advancements in training and technology have significantly enhanced the Tampa Police Department’s capacity for conducting investigations, ensuring greater accuracy and due process for all.”

The lawsuit accused the Tampa Police Department detectives and Souviron of faking evidence, writing false police reports and issuing false testimony ahead of DuBoise’s trial.

It also accused the city of not training officers “on their duty to disclose exculpatory evidence,” the settlement agreement says.

When Souviron testified in the civil case, he said that “he no longer believes that bitemarks can be matched to a specific individual and that he would not be able to testify today within a reasonable degree of certainty that the marks found on the victim were made by Mr. DuBoise,” according to the agreement.

In approving the $14 million resolution, the city denied “any intentional wrongdoing on the part of” the Tampa Police Department “or any individual TPD officer.”

“The credibility of our criminal justice system requires scrupulous accuracy and adherence to the highest investigation standards,” Castor said. “Today’s Tampa Police Department is light years ahead of where we were four decades ago in technology and training.”

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