Innocence Project Marks First Successful Prisoner Release

An Ohio man behind bars for the last 25 years will soon be free, making his case the first successful intervention by the recently established Ohio Innocence Project at the University of Cincinnati College of Law.

The Ohio Parole Board voted unanimously this week for the release of Gary Reece, who was arrested in 1979 and charged with the rape and attempted murder of a woman who lived in his apartment building.

Four UC law students researched Reece’s case and developed new evidence that helped sway the opinion of the parole board, which had turned down Reece’s requests for parole five times previously.

"These students have been working on this for a year-and-a-half," said Mark Godsey, UC assistant professor of law and faculty director for the college’s Lois and Richard Rosenthal Institute for Justice, where the Ohio Innocence Project is headquartered. "The students put an impressive body of evidence together and filed it in a brief for the parole board."

Reece, who still had 50 years left on a 75-year sentence, is expected to be released on Feb. 22, 2005. The UC law students -- Allison DeVilliers, Megan Maag, Fred Sowar and Marion Haynes – plan to be among the party that will gather to greet Reece.

He is expected to relocate to Amelia, Ohio, to join his wife, Rita, who met Reece through Christian ministry work. It was a letter from Rita that initially got the Ohio Innocence Project involved with her husband’s case.

Reece’s conviction came about almost solely on the testimony of Kim Croft, the woman who claimed Reece attacked her. Croft created public campaigns against the idea of parole of Reece each time his case was heard by the board.

The filing in the latest successful hearing, however, introduced a number of substantial new points into evidence.

No forensic evidence linked Reece to the crime scene, a fact that a prominent forensic investigator brought into the case by the Ohio Innocence Project said would be virtually impossible given the status of the crime scene.

Additionally, when given voice stress analysis testing about the incident, Reece passed while Croft repeatedly failed it.

The students’ research also led to discovery of a former college boyfriend of Croft, who filed an affidavit about the nature of his relationship with her and cast doubt about her truthfulness, as well as revealing for the first time a history of self-mutilation practices she had engaged in that were consistent with the injuries she reported on the day that she alleges Reece attacked her.