Informant recants at wrongful conviction hearing
TALLAHASSEE (AP) – A jailhouse informant recanted and apologized Monday for falsely testifying against a man ultimately cleared by DNA testing after spending 27 years in prison for a wrongful murder conviction.
Roger Dale Chapman said investigators threatened him with prison on a bogus rape charge if he didn’t tell a jury back in 1981 that William Dillon, 50, had admitted to him that he beat James Dvorak to death on a Brevard County beach.
Dillon, who broke down in tears as he began his own testimony, forgave Chapman during a hearing on claims bills filed in the House and Senate that would compensate Dillon $1.35 million.
“I’m very sorry for what happened,” Chapman said from the witness stand.
He then walked over to Dillon, shook hands and wished him luck. Outside the hearing room, Chapman told Dillon “They put everybody on the spot.”
“I understand, believe me,” Dillon replied.
It was the first time they had seen each other since the trial. Chapman declined an offer to submit a written statement because he wanted to tell Dillon in person.
Chapman told a pair of special masters appointed by each legislative chamber that an investigator told him to get a confession from Dillon while in a large holding cell together.
“I said, ‘Look, he said he didn’t do it,” Chapman testified. “He said, ‘You are going to say this or you’re going to go back to prison.’ “
Chapman said he had been released four years earlier but was in jail on a rape charge. It was dropped several days later based on a blood test. Chapman said authorities, though, threatened to restore the charge if he didn’t testify against Dillon.
The key to the compensation case is DNA testing that resulted in Dillon’s release from prison last year. A judge ordered a new trial, but prosecutors then dropped the murder charge that had put Dillon in prison for 25 years to life.
Cassie Johnson, former supervisor for a private DNA laboratory, testified the testing excluded Dillon as having worn a yellow T-shirt splattered with the victim’s blood that the killer left behind.