our years after the 1986 Montgomery County sexual assault and murder of Deanna Ogg, Roy Criner became a suspect in the case. Three men alleged that Criner made statements in which he referred to a hitchhiker with whom he had he had sex. There were numerous inconsistencies among the stories of the three men and with known facts in the case.
Roy Criner spent ten years in prison due to false witness testimony.
At trial, a forensic analyst with the Texas Department of Public Safety testified that numerous hairs collected from the crime scene and from Criner’s truck could not link Criner to the crime. Serology tests on semen from the crime scene did not yield probative results either. Further, several alibi witnesses testified that Criner was at work at the time of the crime. Despite the scant and questionable evidence tying him to the crime, Criner was convicted of murder and sentenced to ninety-nine years.
In 1997, DNA testing excluded Criner as the source of the semen found on the victim, but his ordeal did not end there. The prosecution said the semen found on the victim was the result of consensual sex the victim had before the rape, and they suggested Criner might have used a condom or simply did not deposit semen during the rape. As such, Criner was denied a new trial. Additional DNA testing on a cigarette butt found near the victim matched that from the semen, undermining the prosecution’s theory that the semen did not belong to the perpetrator. Based on these findings, Criner was released and he was granted an official pardon by Governor George W. Bush on August 15, 2000.
Because of faulty witness testimony, Roy Criner spent ten years in prison for a crime he did not commit.
