Defense attorneys have asked that former Akron police Capt. Douglas Prade be immediately released from prison after a test showed that DNA found on clothing of his murdered ex-wife came from another man.
The DNA was found on the sleeve of Margo Prade's lab coat where her killer bit through the coat and into her arm before shooting her in 1997. Summit County prosecutors acknowledged Thursday that the DNA belongs to another man, but they intend to argue that does not mean Prade is innocent.
Previously, the large amount of Margo Prade's blood on her lab coat prevented scientists from isolating the DNA left in the bite mark.
But modern testing by the DNA Diagnostic Center of Fairfield was able to isolate the sample. The test was ordered in 2010.
Prade was found guilty of the murder in 1998. He has been in prison since. His attorney, David Al-den of Cleveland, said the DNA finding is momentous.
"This means Prade didn't bite her. The man who bit her, killed her. And it's not Prade," he said.
Margo Prade, a physician, was 41 when she was found dead in her minivan outside her Akron office. The county medical examiner testified she was shot first in the base of the skull, then through her heart.
During the trial, prosecutors built a case that showed Douglas Prade had an overwhelming desire to control the woman who had divorced him seven months before the Nov. 26, 1997, slaying. They had two children.
Her ex-husband was sentenced to life in prison with parole eligibility after 26 years. Prade, 66, has always professed his innocence. On the day of his sentencing, he said in court, "I did not do this. I am an innocent, convicted person."
" DNA prove what Prade has said all along, that he is 100 percent innocent," said Carrie Woods, a staff lawyer for the University of Cincinnati-based Innocence Project who is also representing Prade.
"We have asked the court that he be exonerated and released from jail, or at least give him a new trial. He should not spend another minute in prison."
A hearing to present this new evidence is scheduled for Aug. 21 but is likely to be rescheduled for sometime in September in front of Summit County Common Pleas Judge Judith Hunter, who presided over the original trial.
"Just because you don't find DNA, or have found someone else's DNA, does not mean Prade is innocent," Mary Ann Kovach, an assistant Summit County prosecutor, said Thursday. "The defense has the burden of proof. That [other man's DNA] could have been placed there at any time."
No identification has been supplied for the DNA.
Prade's defense team maintains the bite mark was a key element in the trial. The prosecution presented evidence that the teeth marks were a match for Prade. Defense lawyers dismissed the bite mark evidence as unreliable.
Both sides do agree that none of Prade's DNA was found on his ex-wife or her clothing, or even in scrapings under her fingernails from a possible struggle for her life.
During a 2010 hearing, the Summit County prosecutor argued that Prade was convicted because of a large amount of evidence. Yet Woods said on Thursday that several jurors polled after the trial said it was the bite mark evidence that led to their verdict.
There were no witnesses to the killing.
The 2010 hearing was over a request by the defense to allow new tests to be performed to look for DNA evidence on Prade's body and clothing. The hearing was ordered by the Ohio Supreme Court.
Maureen O'Connor, chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, was the Summit County prosecutor during the 1998 Prade trial. She did not prosecute the case. She has recused herself from Prade appeals that have come before the court.
Copyright 2012 Dayton Newspapers, Inc.
