ollowing her 1987 abduction and sexual assault, a fourteen-year-old Houston girl gave police basic descriptions of the two perpetrators. The victim said that one of her attackers called the other “George,” though she told police that she believed it was a fake name. Based on the victim’s description of the house where the crime occurred and the surrounding area, police went to the home of Manuel and Uvaldo Beltran. George Rodriguez became a suspect in the case because he was an acquaintance of one of the Beltran brothers.
George Rodriguez spent seventeen years in prison after compelling evidence of his innocence was overlooked in favor of a mistaken eyewitness.
Police conducted a photo lineup and the victim identified Rodriguez as one of the attackers.
Even though Manuel Beltran confessed to police that he had sexually assaulted the girl and stated that Isidro Yanez was his accomplice, police continued to focus on Rodriguez. In a one-person show-up, the victim again identified Rodriguez as her attacker. The victim was also shown a collection of photos that included both Rodriguez and Yanez, but the victim again identified Rodriguez as her attacker.
At trial, a forensic analyst testified that a pubic hair found on the victim’s underwear was microscopically similar to Rodriguez’s hair, and that the semen from the rape kit could not exclude Rodriguez as the perpetrator, and it could not belong to Yanez. Even though Rodriguez presented evidence that he was at work during the time of the crime, Rodriguez was convicted of aggravated sexual assault and kidnapping and sentenced to sixty years in prison.
In 2004, DNA testing established that Rodriguez was not the source of the pubic hair found on the victim’s clothing, and Yanez could not be excluded. Further testing also established that Yanez was mistyped by the Houston Crime Lab during the initial testing and could not have been excluded as the source of the semen-directly contradicting the forensic testimony at trial. Rodriguez’s conviction was vacated in August 2005 and all charges were dismissed a month later.
Because of faulty forensic testimony and a mistaken eyewitness identification, George Rodriguez spent seventeen years in prison for a crime he did not commit.
