On May 23, 1991, the victim, a social service worker, was found dead near her upstate New York farmhouse. According to Medical examiners she had been choked, stabbed, and beaten to death. The victim had also been bitten several times. Roy Brown was considered the prime suspect of the murder.
Just a year prior to the murder, Brown's daughter was placed into a residential care facility by the agency the victim had worked for. This infuriated Brown, causing an outburst of hostile phone calls toward the director of the social services agency. This resulted in Brown serving a short jail term. The murder occurring shortly after his release made Roy Brown a likely suspect.
During trial, the prosecution depended solely on the confirmation of the bite mark examiner who had stated the seven bite marks on the victim's body were "entirely consistent" with Brown. The prosecution had not uncovered that another analysis had analyzed the bite marks prier to the trial and had prohibited Brown as the cause. A defense professional stated that the six bite marks were inadequate for examination and the seventh excluded Brown because it had two more upper teeth than he had. The saliva from the shirt and bite imprint swabs were examined with uncertain results.
In 1995, Brown looked for testing on the bite mark swabs,
…show more content…
Brown requested duplicates of his documents under the Freedom of Information Act after discovering a fire had demolished the majority of his court papers at his stepfather's home. He discovered records that hadn’t been revealed to the defense. These documents involved another man, Barry Bench. Bench’s behavior had been reportedly very suspicious around the time of the murder and during the beginning of the investigation. Bench was irritated at the victim who had been dating Bench’s brother two months before the murder because the farmhouse that she lived in had belonged to the Bench