Florida, a 37-year-old Florida man released from prison a day later, has been deported by DNA evidence in connection with the 1983 murder and rape of a woman in Tampa.
Robert Dubois, 55, was released Thursday from the Hardy Correctional Institution in Bling Ling Green, where his mother, sister and attorney welcomed him as a free man for the first time in nearly four decades, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
“It’s a great sense of relief,” Dubois told reporters, adding that he was not angry at being falsely convicted in a case that relied on evidence of the sting and the prisoner’s informant. “There is no place for bitterness in my life. If you keep hatred and bitterness in your hatred, it steals all your pleasure. “
Dubois, who was sentenced to the death penalty, was sentenced to life in prison following an appeal. He was convicted in 1983 of the murder and rape of Barbara Grams, who was attacked while walking home from work at a Tampa mall.
The Innocence Project made the case for Dubies in 2018 and notified the Hillsboro State Attorney’s Confidence Review Unit. Teresa Hall, a lawyer who heads the department, told a judge Wednesday that the old DNA sample from the rape kit did not match the dubbing, clearing the way for her release Thursday.
Without a legal basis to detain Dubois, Judge Christopher Nash ordered his release and his life sentence was commuted before the revised time. A Sept. 14 hearing is set to determine his guilt, according to newspaper reports.
Dubois learned on Wednesday that he would be released soon, but he has doubts, he said.
“After all these years, you always have to wonder if they’ll throw another turn somewhere there.”
Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren said the latest tests to take DNA samples from a rape kit in the case included the DNA of two other individuals, one of whom is now a person interested in the 1983 murder, said Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren.
“I hope God has mercy on his soul,” Dubois said. “I’m not his judge.”
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