Dean Gillispie released from prison after serving 20 years

LONDON, Ohio - Dean Gillispie has spent his last day in prison and was released Thursday around 8:00p.m.  He was left in the custody of his mother. This will be the first Christmas with his family in 21 years.

He was convicted of raping three women in 1988 in and around Montgomery County. But a federal judge threw out those convictions last week because police never shared critical information with his defense team.

There was no physical evidence linking Gillispie with the crimes -- just eyewitness testimony from the victims. Three women picked him out of a photo line-up two full years after the rapes.

"All someone has to do is point their finger at you, and you're done,"  said Gillispie from a prison conference room.

That photo array showed six men, five of them with blue backgrounds in their photos. Gillispie's photo had a yellow background, and his head was displayed much larger than the five filler photos.

That's what former WCPO investigator Laure Quinlivan revealed in a series of I-Team stories on the case she began in 1999. Her reports also demonstrated how unreliable witness descriptions can be, even minutes after an incident.

Gillispie's accusers identified him two years after the rapes, and that was the basis of the entire case.

He could have been released decades ago, if he agreed to plead guilty.

"My lawyers came to me and said they want to offer you 30 days," said Gillispie. "And I said '30 days, 30 minutes, 30 years -- I didn't commit this crime, and I'll never say I did.' "

The jury in his first trial initially voted eight to four for acquittal. Jurors eventually agreed to convict.

Gillispie had passed a polygraph test with flying colors, but lie detector tests are not admissible in court, no matter the result.

Gillispie has been eligible for parole for several years now. But the parole board requires inmates to show remorse for their crimes. Gillispie maintains his innocence -- so his parole applications have been denied.

"I've seen people whose done murders, and done less time than me," he said. "Until you go to the parole board and say what they want to hear, you're not going nowhere."

The break in the case came from the two detectives who first investigated the rapes back in the 1980s. They had eliminated him as a suspect, despite the fact that a former police officer had tipped them off he might be involved. That retired officer was Gillispie's supervisor at a security job -- the same supervisor who fired him for mouthing off.

The detectives say they had filed reports clearing Gillispie, because he didn't match the victims' description of their attacker in several ways, and he had an alibi for the times of the rapes.

Two years later, after those detectives had retired, a new investigator, Det. Scott Moore, began building a case against Gillispie based on the questionable photo line-up.

The Ohio Innocence Project and former Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro took up Gillispie's case, and began fighting for a new trial.

A federal judge vacated his convictions based on the fact Gillispie's defense team was never shown the reports clearing their client, or even told of their existence. He could be released before Christmas, but may also face a new trial. The state has also filed an appeal to reinstate the convictions.

"They have fought and fought and fought to keep an innocent man in prison -- knowing who did this -- and not doing anything about it, because they don't want to say 'we made a mistake.' "

A sign over the front door of the London Correctional Institute reads, "He who enters here leaves not hope behind."

Gillispie's case may fulfill that promise. "I knew that sign long before I got to this place," he said. "There's always going to be some hope, because I know I didn't do this."

To follow Gillispie's 20-year journey, as covered by former 9 News reporter Laure Quinlivan, go to Quinlivan's archived site at http://lqreportingtoyou.com/index.php?page=display&id=143 .