“I’m Innocent”

Kirk Bloodsworth was a 23-year-old ex-Marine in 1984, when 9-year-old Dawn Hamilton was brutally raped and beaten to death with a rock. She was then left in a wooded area of Rosedale, Maryland, near her home. The crime was so horrific that it was hard to fathom, but as terrible as it was, there was going to be another victim of this crime.

During the investigation, witnesses recalled a suspicious man in the area where Miss Hamilton was brutally murdered. A police sketch was publicized on television and in newspapers. An anonymous caller identified Kirk Bloodsworth as the man in the sketch two weeks later. Bloodsworth had been in Baltimore, which is close to Rosedale, at the time of Hamilton’s murder. Later, he returned to his home in Cambridge and told friends that he had done something that would harm his marriage. He never said what he had done. Of course, that wouldn’t really matter if he were convicted of rape and murder. His wife would move on.

Once charged, the prosecutors accused Bloodsworth of murder with little evidence other than the witnesses saying he might have been the suspicious man in the area. During the trial in 1985, the defense presented several witnesses who said that they were with Bloodsworth at the time of the murder. Their testimonies made no difference. Completely disregarding his alibi, the jury convicted Bloodsworth and sent him to death row.

Bloodsworth never confessed, and in fact, maintained his innocence for the next seven years, while in prison. During those seven years, DNA testing came of age, and since the police had kept the evidence in the Hamilton murder, namely her underwear with a spot of semen, smaller than a dime, it was available when science finally progressed to the point where this small amount of physical evidence could be tested. Eventually, Bloodsworth’s attorneys were granted permission to test the semen spot. It was sent to Forensic Science Associates, a private California laboratory, and in a shocking revelation, they found that it did not match Bloodsworth’s DNA. For seven years, an innocent man had been on death row, for a crime he did not commit.

After the FBI’s crime lab confirmed this test, prosecutors in Baltimore County had no choice but to release Bloodsworth. Still, they refused to apologize to Bloodsworth. On June 28, 1993, nine years after first going to jail, Kirk Bloodsworth was released. He was officially pardoned later in the year. In 2003, nearly a decade after Bloodsworth’s release, prisoner DNA evidence added to state and federal databases resulted in a match to the real killer, Kimberly Shay Ruffner. Ironically, a month after the 1984 murder, Ruffner had been sentenced to 45 years for an unrelated burglary, attempted rape, and assault with intent to murder. He had been incarcerated in a cell one floor below Bloodsworth’s own cell. In a 2009 guest lecture at Florida Atlantic University, Bloodsworth said that he and Ruffner sometimes spotted each other during workouts, but of course, Bloodsworth had no idea who Ruffner was. Because of the new evidence, Ruffner was charged in Maryland for the rape and murder of Dawn Hamilton. In 2004 he pleaded guilty to the 1984 murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Justice was finally served for Dawn Hamilton.

For Bloodsworth, life began anew. Bloodsworth was the first death row inmate in the country to be exonerated based on DNA evidence. Initially, he received $300,000 for his wrongful conviction from the Maryland Board of Public Works in 1994, the year after he was released from prison and pardoned by Governor William Donald Schaefer (D). Then, in 2021, based on the new payment formula, Bloodsworth’s total compensation amount was adjusted to $721,237.40. The administrative judge decided to subtract the $300,000 Bloodsworth received 27 years ago, leaving him with $421,237.40 in supplemental compensation. Bloodsworth’s attorney stated, “It can’t erase his pain and suffering, but it will help him move forward with his life.” No one wants to have a wrongful conviction, but it happens, so it’s good Bloodsworth was compensated for this horrific injustice.