dipity

For nearly three decades, Thomas Haynesworth has been locked in a Virginia prison for a string of rapes and other attacks. DNA evidence has since proven Haynesworth is innocent in two of the cases and his legal team is now preparing to ask a court for his freedom.

Created by washingtonpost on Feb 1, 2011

Last updated: 03/21/11 at 08:12 AM

• After 27 years, parole
  Mar 18, 2011

  After 27 years in prison for rapes and other attacks he says he did not commit, Haynesworth has been ordered released from the Greensville Correctional Center while a court considers his innocence claim, the office of Virginia Gov. Bob Mc­Don­nell (R) said.
  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/crime-scene/post/va-man-who-claims-innocence-paroled/2011/03/18/AB91gXq_blog.html

• Haynesworth's legal team petitions for his freedom
  Feb 2011

  Haynesworth, now 45, has never used an ATM machine, made a call on a cell phone or hugged many of his nieces and nephews. He prays he will be exonerated. His mother, Delores Haynesworth, has a room waiting for him in her Richmond home if he is released.

• Haynesworth passes 2nd polygraph test
  Oct 22, 2010

  Haynesworth takes a polygraph test in connection with the Jan. 30, 1984, case. Again, his answers indicate he is truthful.

• Haynesworth passes polygraph test
  Sep 2, 2010

  Haynesworth takes a polygraph test in connection with the Feb. 1, 1984, case. His answers indicate he is truthful.

• Leon W. Davis implicated in another 1984 attack
  Apr 2010

  A judge orders DNA testing in the Jan. 21, 1984, assault in which Haynesworth was acquitted. Again, the testing implicates Davis.

• Haynesworth cleared of one rape conviction
  Sep 18, 2009

  The Va. Supreme Court grants Haynesworth a Writ of Actual Innocence in the Jan. 3, 1984 rape after DNA testing implicates Davis.

• Va. governor orders testing of genetic evidence
  Dec 14, 2005

  In 2005, the exonerations of five wrongly-convicted men prompted then-Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner (D) to order a sweeping review of thousands of files from 1973 through 1988. Haynesworth’s case was among them.
  http://wpo.st/64U2

• Leon W. Davis arrested
  Dec 19, 1984

  Weeks after Haynesworth is convicted, Leon W. Davis is accused in about a dozen attacks that occurred between April and December 1984. Davis and Haynesworth lived in the same neighborhood and not only shared a physical resemblance but also the same blood type.

• Haynesworth convicted
  Oct 1984

  In the fall of 1983, one of Haynesworth's five accusers takes the witness stand in a Richmond courtroom and recounts the day she was raped at the daycare center where she worked. She identifies Haynesworth as her attacker, pointing to him in court. She says there was no question in her mind that he was the man in the blue ski mask.

• Attacks on women continue in Richmond
  Apr 1984

• Thomas Haynesworth is arrested
  Feb 5, 1984

  Haynesworth, an 18-year-old with no criminal record, was arrested that February afternoon when a woman who had been assaulted spotted him walking down the street.

• Richmond woman is abducted
  Feb 1, 1984

• 19-year-old abducted at gunpoint in Richmond
  Feb 1, 1984

• 18-year-old sexually assaulted in Henrico County
  Jan 30, 1984

• 19-year-old woman sodomized at knifepoint behind a grocery store
  Jan 21, 1984

• 20-year-old woman raped at Richmond daycare center
  Jan 3, 1984