DNA evidence clears US man after 41 years on death row

Douglas Stewart Carter, a 71-year-old Chicago-born man, was released on bail in Provo, Utah, on Monday, 29 September 2026, after prosecutors said newly analysed DNA evidence did not link him to the 1985 murder of Eva Olesen, ending 41 years of imprisonment while he awaits a new trial.

Carter was convicted of killing Olesen in February 1985 and sentenced to death, despite consistently maintaining that he was innocent and that a confession he signed during police questioning had been coerced.

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The latest DNA testing has excluded Carter as a possible contributor to blood found on a doorknob and genetic material recovered from the handle of a knife associated with the crime, according to prosecutors.

The development represents a dramatic turn in a case that has remained contested for decades.

Olesen was stabbed several times and shot in the back of the head at her home in Provo.

The murder weapon was not recovered, while a knife from the couple’s kitchen was found near her body.

Carter was living with his mother in Utah when the killing occurred.

Investigators suspected him of carrying out the murder during a robbery, but court records showed there was no physical evidence initially connecting him to the crime scene.

Carter later left Utah after believing he had become a suspect in an unrelated case.

He was eventually arrested in Nashville, Tennessee, where he signed a confession during police interrogation.

A jury subsequently convicted him on the strength of that confession and testimony from two witnesses who said Carter had boasted about killing Olesen.

The reliability of that evidence was later seriously challenged.

In 2011, the two witnesses said they had been directed to lie in court.

They alleged that police had offered them money and gifts and threatened them with deportation if they refused to testify against Carter.

Carter’s lawyers have also argued that investigators failed to disclose evidence that could have pointed towards Olesen’s husband, Orla Olesen, as a possible suspect.

Orla Olesen, who died in 2009, told police that he had discovered his wife dead inside their home.

Defence lawyers have further pointed to accounts from witnesses who reportedly saw a white man leaving the area around the time of the killing.

The Utah Supreme Court ordered a new trial for Carter last year after finding grounds relating to misconduct by investigators, according to reports on the case.

A judge subsequently granted Carter bail on Monday despite objections from Olesen’s family.

Carter must wear a GPS monitoring device while the legal proceedings continue.

The decision has not brought closure for the victim’s family.

Theresa Olesen, Eva Olesen’s daughter-in-law, told the bond hearing that the family had serious concerns about Carter’s release and argued that he should remain in custody until the new trial.

“We were hoping for a concrete match,” Olesen said of the DNA analysis. “It doesn’t mean he wasn’t there.”

The statement reflects the central distinction in the case. The latest testing does not identify who killed Eva Olesen.

It establishes that Carter was excluded from the particular biological evidence examined by prosecutors.

Carter’s defence lawyer, Neal Hamilton, has gone further and called for the prosecution to abandon the case.

“If the state of Utah had their way, he would have been executed 15, 20 years ago before we discovered the misconduct,” Hamilton told the Associated Press.

Carter has now spent more than four decades behind bars under a death sentence for a crime he has always denied committing.

His release on bail does not amount to an acquittal, and the murder case remains unresolved.

Carter is expected to face a new trial unless prosecutors decide to take further action.

The case also highlights the enduring significance of DNA testing in reviewing old convictions, particularly where earlier prosecutions relied heavily on disputed confessions or witness testimony.

For Carter, the new evidence has transformed the immediate circumstances of a case that once appeared likely to end with his execution.

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At 71, he now awaits another chapter in a prosecution that began more than four decades ago.