Kenneth Tinsley plead­ed guilty on April 11 to the 1982 rape and cap­i­tal mur­der of a Culpeper woman — a crime for which anoth­er man, Earl Washington Jr., spent near­ly a decade on death row and was near­ly exe­cut­ed. Tinsley admit­ted to the rape of Rebecca Lynn Williams, a 19-year-old moth­er of 3, and con­ced­ed that DNA and oth­er evi­dence could have proved his guilt of her murder.

He was sen­tenced to 2 con­sec­u­tive life terms. Earl Washington, who is men­tal­ly retard­ed, had orig­i­nal­ly been con­vict­ed of the same crime and was sen­tenced to death before DNA evi­dence con­vinced Virginia’s gov­er­nor that he was inno­cent. Recently, Virginia ten­ta­tive­ly agreed to pay $1.9 mil­lion to Washington in compensation.

Tinsley, who is already serv­ing 2 life terms for anoth­er rape in Virginia, sat in a wheel­chair as he told the judge, ​“I’m sor­ry for every­thing I did. The pros­e­cu­tor said that he hoped the plea agree­ment would bring clo­sure to the vic­tim’s fam­i­ly and to the community.

(Associated Press, April 11, 2007). See Innocence and Arbitrariness.

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