Florida Teen’s Murder Case Takes a Wild Turn—After Wrong Guy Did 37 Years
After 19-year-old Barbara Grams was raped and murdered in August 1983 while walking home from her job at a Florida shopping mall, cops quickly rounded up a local man named Robert DuBoise.
DuBoise, who was 18 at the time, was fingered to detectives by a local resident who told them that he “caused problems” in the Tampa neighborhood. Under questioning by law enforcement, DuBoise agreed to let investigators take a dental mold to compare to a bite mark found on Grams’ cheek.
A forensic odontologist declared it a match, and, based on the bite mark evidence—a field which has since been debunked as junk science—as well as testimony from a jailhouse informant in exchange for their own plea deal, DuBoise was convicted and sentenced to death.