Dallas County man cleared in 1979 robbery, rape will be Texas' longest-serving exoneree
01:17 PM CST on Monday, January 3, 2011
By JENNIFER EMILY / The Dallas Morning News
jemily@dallasnews.com
A Dallas County man is expected to be exonerated Tuesday in connection with a 1979 robbery and rape.
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Cornelius Dupree Jr.
Cornelius Dupree Jr., the 21st man exonerated in Dallas County, will have served the longest prison term of any Texas inmate cleared through DNA evidence. He was paroled over the summer after serving 30 years of a 75-year sentence.
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Dupree, 51, was convicted of aggravated robbery after two men abducted a man and woman on Dolphin Road in Dallas, said Paul Cates of The Innocence Project in New York.
The two kidnappers forced the man out of the car and later sexually assaulted the woman before shoving her out of the vehicle.
Cates said the rape victim wrongly identified Dupree in a photo array. The man could not pick out Dupree in a photo lineup. At trial, both victims identified Dupree as one of the men who abducted them in court.
Another man, Anthony Massingill, was also cleared in the same case, said Nina Morrison, an attorney with The Innocence Project.
Massingill, 49, will not take part in Tuesday’s court hearing. He was convicted in a second rape case and is waiting to see if there is evidence that can be tested in that case.
Morrison said the two actual perpetrators have not been identified. She said she does not know whether authorities have searched the national DNA database to see if the perpetrators are in the system.
Dupree's exoneration is the first involving DNA in Dallas County since May 2009. Since then, three men have been cleared with other evidence.
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