DNA test clears Texas man after death

DNA evidence has cleared another Texan of a wrongful conviction, but this time justice will be given posthumously.

In 1985, Timothy Brian Cole was arrested and accused of being the infamous "Tech rapist," who terrorized the Texas Tech University campus in Lubbock in the mid 1980s.

A year later, the U.S. Army veteran was convicted and given a 25-year prison sentence.

In December 1999, after serving about 13 years, he died after his heart was weakened by an asthmatic condition. He was 39.

Now the Innocence Project of Texas has filed a request for a court of inquiry to officially clear Cole’s name, based on the DNA test results.

"This case shows how the system has broken down and how we need to fix it by creating a process that allows innocent people to get their cases into court," said Jeff Blackburn, of the Innocence Project of Texas. "Looking at paperwork is not enough."

Staff Writer Max Baker reports.

-- Bill Miller

Comments

[Julie Holley]

The Texas Prison System needs to be evaluated. I just lost a very close friend who died in prison on Father's Day because he was not treated properly. I will fight for this to be done and for people's names to be cleared and for the terminaly ill to be sent home so they do not have to die and prison and can get the treatment they need.