Bloodsworth (32 page)

The year 2003 started well for Kirk and Brenda and then got better. From the day Kirk walked out of prison, he'd been asking who
the real murderer of Dawn Hamilton was. Since 1993 he'd called the state's attorney's office repeatedly, and since no one would take his calls he'd leave a message asking them to seek a match of the DNA sample with the other suspects. He called Judge Smith, who'd been elected as the Baltimore County executive, and left messages requesting that the DNA be put into the national database of criminal suspects called CODIS—Combined DNA Index System—to seek a match.

Kirk had become friends with Barry Scheck at the Innocence Project in New York, and Scheck had made several calls to Ann Brobst requesting that the DNA be put into CODIS. On one occasion Brobst told Scheck that her office and the police had limited funds, had other priorities. She told him that her office was still not convinced that Bloodsworth was innocent. She suggested that maybe the panties were tainted, that the sperm came from somewhere else. In late 2002 Scheck wrote a letter to Brobst demanding that the DNA found on Dawn's panties be run through the CODIS but got no response. Kirk called other times and left messages. Since 1993 the state's attorney's office had known Kirk was not the killer. For ten years it sat idly by while a child murderer might be stalking other kids, might be released any day into the community after doing time on some other charge. Why wasn't a DNA match being vigorously pursued?

In early 2003 Susan Levine, a
Washington Post
reporter, decided to write a lengthy piece on Kirk Bloodsworth. As part of her research she contacted the Baltimore County State's Attorney's Office and asked what had been done to follow up on Dawn Hamilton's killer. She received little in the way of a response. In June of 2003 the
Baltimore Sun
ran an article questioning why the DNA had not been compared to the state's DNA database of convicted felons, a database in place since well before Bloodsworth's release in 1993. Pressure on the prosecutors was mounting.

On September 4, 2003, following a long Labor Day weekend,
Kirk got a telephone call that scared him. After a morning spent crabbing on the river, he'd been watching television in his and Brenda's cottage in Cambridge. When the phone rang he picked it up.

“May I please speak to Kirk Bloodsworth?” he heard. He froze. He recognized the voice. His heart started racing.

“Who's calling?” he asked.

“Ann Brobst from the state's attorney's office.”

Kirk could hardly speak. Then it came to him. They had to have found the killer.

“I need to meet with you, Kirk,” Ann said. “It's about the Dawn Hamilton murder.”

“You found him!” Kirk screamed into the phone. “You found the bastard!”

“I can't tell you that,” she answered calmly. “I need to see you.”

Kirk could feel the blood rushing to his face. His ears burned. “Well, goddamn it, don't tell me no,” he cried out. “Don't you tell me no!”

Brobst heard the plea. “No, I won't tell you no,” she softly answered. “I just want to see you and tell you in person.”

“You haven't said a goddamn word to me or called me in twenty years and now you want to meet with me?” Kirk cried out.

“Calm down. Please calm down, Mr. Bloodsworth,” Brobst said. “I want to talk to you in person. I owe you that. You pick the time and place. Anywhere you want. It's important.”

Kirk didn't want Ann Brobst coming anywhere near his home. He agreed to meet her the next day in the Burger King parking lot, the one on the water with a small broken-down pier out back. He thought he knew what she was going to tell him, but he decided to take no chances. The parking lot had two different exits by car, and he'd have his boat anchored just off the pier. He wasn't going to let them take him back. That night he couldn't sleep. He knew something important was about to happen.

Kirk was nervous enough about the meeting to call his legal adviser in Washington, Deborah Crandall, and she drove to Cambridge to join him. Kirk's cousin, Cindy, came to the house also, and accompanied Kirk and Brenda to the Burger King parking lot. Kirk was dressed all in black. Brenda held Kirk's arm as they got out of the car and walked over to where Brobst and two detectives were standing.

Ann Brobst shook hands stiffly and introduced the two detectives to Kirk. Brenda, Cindy, and Deborah said hello. They all agreed to go inside. One of the detectives pushed two tables together where everyone could sit.

“So what's this about?” Kirk asked.

“We have a cold hit on the killer,” Ann Brobst said. “We've found more evidence on Dawn's clothing. We put the DNA into CODIS. We have the man. The evidence is unequivocal.”

Kirk started shaking. Tears streamed down his face. Brenda was crying and holding on to him tightly. The floodgates just burst. He couldn't stop himself. “Oh my God,” he cried. “Oh my God.” He began sobbing into his hands. “Who is it?” he asked. “What's the bastard's name?”

“Kimberly Ruffner,” one of the detectives answered. “He was in the prison with you.”

“No!” Kirk screamed out. “Kimberly Ruffner? I spotted weights for that man. Brought him library books.”

“We know,” Brobst said.

“There is no doubt whatsoever in our minds,” one of the detectives said.

“We've gotten three separate hits on him,” the other detective said.

It went unspoken, but everyone at that table knew that it happened only because of the persistence of Kirk Bloodsworth in trying to clear his name. Only because he and Bob Morin had refused
to quit, had found that unseen spot of semen on Dawn Hamilton's clothing. The crime was solved because of them.

“Believe it or not, I've been pushing for this to go into the database for years,” Brobst said.

Kirk made no reply.

“The database has been there, but we honestly didn't have the funds to test this DNA. We got a grant just a bit back,” the first detective added.

“Kirk, I'm sorry,” Ann Brobst said. “I wanted to come and tell you that personally. I am deeply sorry for what we did to you.”

Kirk was still shaking, almost convulsing. He pointed a trembling finger at Brobst. “I have hated you for twenty years,” he said in a loud, bellowing voice. He was almost shouting. “For twenty fucking years! You have called me a monster . . .” His words broke up. He was sobbing, choking back his heaves. It took some time for him to compose himself. “You have called me a child killer . . .” He could hardly continue. Brenda handed him some paper napkins and he tried to stanch his tears. “I am no angel, but I am not out killing little girls . . .”

Brobst sat there across from him. Controlled. Professional. Inside the Burger King it had turned stone quiet.

Kirk calmed some and studied her. It was just a gesture Brobst had made, coming to Cambridge. Not much after so much pain, so much arrogance. But it was something. “I don't hate you no more,” Kirk said more softly. He heaved a sigh. He nodded to her. “‘Cause of what you done in coming down here yourself to tell me this. I know it was hard. I know it took a lot. I forgive you.”

Ann Brobst sat there. She didn't know how to answer.

The detectives told Kirk what would probably happen. Kimberly Ruffner was being charged for the rape and murder of Dawn Hamilton. He would be brought to justice. Later Kirk learned that one of the original tips in the Hamilton slaying, from back in 1984,
concerned the fact that the composite resembled a man wanted in the Fells Point area for a number of child rapes. The lead had never been adequately chased down.

Before he got up from the table, Kirk asked Ann Brobst about Thomas Hamilton, Dawn's father. Word had it that he'd had a difficult time, had gone to prison himself. Brobst was surprised at Kirk's question. That Kirk would care enough at such a time to express concern for Hamilton. She told him the little she knew.

Outside the restaurant, Kirk excused himself for a moment, stepped away, and called his father on his cell phone. Curtis Bloodsworth shouted out loud when he heard the news.

As Kirk rejoined the group, the sun was high over the silver Choptank, winding wide and silent across the landscape. From the parking lot, Kirk could see his boat bobbing gently on the deep river. He inwardly laughed. Freedom was his.

Kirk asked one of the police officers, the one with the twang, where he was from, and Major Rufton Price told him: “West Virginia.”

“Took an old country boy from West Virginia to finally catch the son of a bitch, didn't it,” chuckled Kirk. “Figures. And thank you.”

Later Kirk likened that moment to having a million-ton ball of pig iron on his back and then having someone just kick it off. He felt like he had just walked through Alice's looking glass, back into the world. As everyone got ready to leave, Kirk shook the hands of the detectives, and said good-bye to them. He then turned to Ann Brobst. She stood there unmoving, small, diminutive. Kirk opened up his large bearlike arms. Brobst waited, uncertain. Kirk smiled, walked up to her, put his large arms around her and said, “Thank you for coming.” He squeezed her, and she tentatively raised her arms and then hugged him back. “It's over,” Kirk whispered. “It's finally over. And now we both can find some peace . . .”

Kirk Bloodsworth (far left), with his lawyer, Bob Morin (third from left), leaves the Maryland Penitentiary on the day of his release, June 28, 1993.

K
IMBERLY
S
HAY
R
UFFNER
had been twice charged with sexually assaulting children before Dawn Hamilton's slaying. He'd been accused of an attack on a young teenager in Baltimore City, a charge that was dropped, and then charged for sexually assaulting an eleven-year-old girl in November 1983. He was tried on that charge in the summer of 1984, but when the jury could not reach a verdict was set free. The date was July 12, two weeks before Dawn Hamilton was killed. Ruffner lived in East Baltimore, approximately six miles from Fontana Village. Six weeks after Dawn's death Ruffner was arrested for the attempted rape and stabbing of another woman in the Fells Point area of Baltimore. It was that crime that put him in the same prison as Kirk Bloodsworth. Following the match of his DNA with that from the Hamilton crime scene evidence, including semen recently identified on the sheet used to transport Dawn Hamilton's body to the morgue, charges were filed by the Baltimore County Police Department on September 4, 2003, against Ruffner for the rape and murder of Dawn Venice Hamilton. In November 2003 he was indicted for the crime by a grand jury.
The Baltimore County State's Attorney's Office initially indicated that it planned to seek the death penalty. Kirk Bloodsworth, while intent on seeing Dawn Hamilton's killer brought to justice, opposed this decision. During the months following Ruffner's indictment, and with the consent of Thomas Hamilton, the prosecutors decided to engage in plea negotiations with Ruffner's attorney. On May 19, 2004, Kirk was visited by several detectives, including Major Rufton Price, as well as a deputy in the state's attorney's office, Steve Bailey. They explained to Kirk that in order to avoid the wrenching ordeal of another trial the state had offered Ruffner a plea bargain that would allow him to escape a death sentence. Ruffner had agreed to accept it. In so doing he had acknowledged his sole responsibility for the crime, stating that he had smoked PCP and had drunk a large amount of rum the morning before he encountered Dawn Hamilton. He also admitted that he had slain Dawn with the rock that was found near her head. On May 20, 2004, almost twenty years after the murder, in Baltimore County Circuit Court, Kimberly Ruffner, standing about five feet eight inches tall, and with cropped dirty blond hair, entered a plea of guilty to the first-degree premeditated murder of Dawn Venice Hamilton. He was sentenced that same morning to life in prison, to run consecutively, or in addition to, the sentence he was already serving. In a press conference following the hearing, Steve Bailey told reporters that his office expected that Ruffner would never leave prison. He also said that it was absolutely clear that Kirk Bloodsworth was innocent of any involvement in the crime. He went on to acknowledge that the Bloodsworth experience had caused his office to reexamine its decision making in capital cases.

Judge Robert Morin, appointed by President Clinton to the Washington, D.C., Superior Court in 1996, continues to preside over legal matters. His prior law partner and friend, Gerry Fisher, was also appointed to be a judge in that same court and occupies chambers
not far from those of Judge Morin. Stephen B. Bright remains the director of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, maintaining the fight against death sentences and on behalf of equal justice nationwide.

Dr. Edward Blake continues his work in the field of DNA testing for forensic purposes. Dr. Blake recalls the Kirk Bloodsworth case well. When Dr. Blake received the panties of Dawn Hamilton for testing, black markings were on them, having previously been put there by the FBI. This is consistent with the testimony of Agent William McInnis at Kirk's first trial that he had made such markings. These markings included circles, some lettering, and an arrow pointing directly at the stain of semen that Blake's lab discovered, analyzed, and from which Blake obtained the DNA sample that freed Kirk Bloodsworth. Blake reports that at the time he received the panties, no fabric from the area of the stain had been removed. He concludes that the FBI, even though it drew an arrow pointing directly to the area where the semen stain existed, failed to test the stain to determine what it was. Blake has photographs of the panties vividly showing the markings and the arrow pointing directly to the semen stain.