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Executed inmate was guilty, new tests prove

RICHMOND, Va. - New DNA tests confirmed the guilt of a man who went to his death in Virginia's electric chair in 1992 proclaiming his innocence, the governor said Thursday.

The case had been closely watched by both sides in the death penalty debate because no executed convict in the United States has ever been exonerated by scientific testing.

The tests prove Roger Keith Coleman was guilty of the 1981 rape and murder of his sister-in-law, Gov. Mark R. Warner said.

Coleman was convicted and sentenced to death in 1982 for the murder of 19-year-old Wanda McCoy, his wife's sister, who was found raped, stabbed and nearly beheaded in her home in the coal mining town of Grundy.

The report from the Centre of Forensic Sciences in Toronto concluded there was almost no conceivable doubt that Coleman was the source of the sperm found in the victim, saying the odds of it being someone else were "1 in 19-million."

A finding of innocence could have had a powerful effect on the public's attitude toward capital punishment.

"The confirmation that Roger Coleman's DNA was present reaffirms the verdict and the sanction." Warner said in a statement.

James McCloskey, executive director of Centurion Ministries, had been fighting to prove Coleman's innocence since 1988.

"I now know that I was wrong. Indeed, this is a bitter pill to swallow," McCloskey said. He said he felt betrayed by Coleman.

Death penalty proponents welcomed the results.

"Stop the presses - it turns out that rapists and killers are also liars," Michael Paranzino, president of a group called Throw Away the Key, said in a statement.

[Last modified January 13, 2006, 01:47:08]