Thomas Webb III Lawsuit: DNA Exoneration and $175,000 Payout

Thomas Webb III is an Oklahoma man who served more than 13 years in prison for a 1982 rape he did not commit, and his wrongful conviction became the first in state history overturned by DNA evidence when his charges were dismissed in 1996. His case did not end there. A DNA match to the actual attacker sat unused for seven years, the state’s statute of limitations then blocked prosecution, and Webb himself waited more than two decades before Oklahoma paid him the $175,000 maximum allowed under its wrongful conviction compensation law.

How Webb Was Identified and Convicted

On March 20, 1982, a 19-year-old University of Oklahoma student was raped at knifepoint, robbed, and burglarized in her Norman apartment. Webb, then 22, was in the police photo system because of a prior arrest for a dormitory break-in.¹

The victim, identified in court records as K.C., could not identify anyone in a first black-and-white photo lineup. Police then showed her a second color lineup in which every subject from the first array had been replaced except for Webb and one man who did not match the perpetrator’s description. She identified Webb in that second procedure.¹

Webb’s first trial ended in a hung jury. A second one-day trial was held in January 1983 before Judge E.M. McDanel in the District Court of Cleveland County. The state’s case had two pieces: the victim’s identification, and testimony from Mary Long, an Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation criminalist, that two scalp hairs and one pubic hair recovered from the apartment were “consistent with” Webb’s samples. On cross, Long conceded she could not identify Webb as the source of the hair “with certainty.”² Microscopic hair comparison has since been widely discredited as unreliable forensic science.³

The jury convicted Webb on all four counts. His combined sentence totaled 60 years for first-degree rape, first-degree burglary, forcible oral sodomy, and grand larceny. Before trial, his court-appointed attorney had urged him to take a 15-year plea. Webb later said that moment convinced him his own lawyer did not believe him.⁴ The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction in November 1987.²

The DNA Test That Freed Him

Webb’s then-wife, Cynthia Gail Webb, cashed in her retirement savings to pay for DNA testing on semen samples recovered from the victim’s robe. The results excluded Webb. On May 24, 1996, after more than 13 years in prison, his charges were dismissed, and he became the first person in Oklahoma cleared by DNA evidence.⁵ The Innocence Project in New York assisted with the case.⁶

The Real Attacker Was Never Prosecuted

In 2002, DNA from the 1982 rape was uploaded to a national database. In 2006, Louisiana law enforcement collected a sample from Gilbert Duane Harris of Biloxi, Mississippi, and the database returned a match to the Norman case. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation and the Cleveland County District Attorney’s Office were notified. According to court records, no one contacted the Norman Police Department, which held the original evidence. No charges were filed.⁷

The match sat unused for seven years. In 2013, after an Oklahoma Watch journalist asked Norman police whether investigators had ever pursued other suspects, the department reopened the case, re-verified the hit, and issued a warrant.⁸ Harris had a prior Oklahoma conviction: in August 1983, while Webb was already in prison for the crime Harris had committed, Harris raped a girl under 14 in Norman while working as a city sanitation worker. He served seven years under a plea deal.⁷

Harris was arrested in Biloxi in October 2014 and charged in Cleveland County. In May 2015, Judge Lori Walkley dismissed the charges, ruling that the statute of limitations in effect at the time of the crime had expired in March 1985. No one has ever been convicted for the 1982 rape.⁷

Life After Release

Webb walked out of prison with no reentry program, no halfway house, and no institutional support. He was not from Oklahoma and had no local family or social network.⁴ He was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. He turned to alcohol, then marijuana, then methamphetamine. He lost a job at General Dynamics. His marriage to Cynthia, the woman who had spent her retirement to free him, ended in divorce in 2009. In 2007, he pleaded guilty in Oklahoma County to methamphetamine possession and received probation.⁵

Webb entered a 12-step program on January 24, 2013, a date he credits with saving his life. He also began attending retreats run by Healing Justice, a nonprofit founded in 2015 by Jennifer Thompson that uses restorative practices with exonerees and crime victims.⁹ In February 2015, the original victim approached him at a public panel. The two became friends. She said she “truly thought I was right for so many years, that he was my monster.”⁴

The Twenty-Year Fight for Compensation

In 2003, Oklahoma passed a law under the Governmental Tort Claims Act allowing wrongfully convicted people to seek up to $175,000 from the state. Webb and his wife had lobbied for it.¹⁰ When Webb applied, the state denied his claim, saying the law did not apply retroactively to convictions predating it. Webb later said he “disconnected with life” after the denial and stopped fighting, a period that overlapped with his worst years of homelessness and addiction.⁴

Attorney Rand Eddy and the Oklahoma Innocence Project eventually took up the case. In late 2016, Eddy obtained an order from a Cleveland County judge allowing Webb to refile. Then-Attorney General Scott Pruitt did not respond, and the claim was automatically denied a second time. In February 2017, Pruitt left to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. His successor, Mike Hunter, determined the compensation law could apply retroactively and authorized payment.¹¹

On March 29, 2017, an Oklahoma County judge approved a $175,000 settlement, the maximum allowed under state law. Webb agreed not to seek further claims against the state.⁵ He said he planned to reimburse Cynthia for the retirement funds she had spent on his DNA testing. “For the first time, the state of Oklahoma has accepted the fact that I have been wronged,” he told NBC News. “That gives me closure.”¹⁰

What Webb Has Done Since

Webb has spoken at the Oklahoma State Capitol in support of statewide best practices for eyewitness identification procedures, working with Innocence Project state policy advocates.¹ His case is now regularly cited as an example of both suggestive photo lineups and the risks of microscopic hair comparison. As of the most recent reporting, he was living in Oklahoma City, sober, and continuing to attend Healing Justice retreats.⁴

1
Innocence Project. Exoneree Thomas Webb Calls on Lawmakers to Prevent Eyewitness Misidentification
2
Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals. Webb v. State, 1987 OK CR 253
3
KGOU. After Slow Start, State to Probe 81 Convictions Involving Debunked Hair Analysis
4
NBC News. The Wrong Man: Thomas Webb III
5
The Oklahoman. Decades After Exoneration, Oklahoma to Pay Man $175,000
6
ForeJustice. Thomas Webb III
7
Oklahoma Watch. Rape Suspect Released Due to Expired Statute of Limitations
8
Norman Transcript. Mississippi Man Charged in 32-Year-Old Norman Rape Case
9
Innocence Project. Restorative Justice Helping Exonerees and Victims Heal
10
NBC News. Wrongfully Convicted Man Gets $175,000 for 13 Years in Prison
11
KFOR. Oklahoma Man Who Spent Years in Prison for Rape He Didn’t Commit Will Finally Receive Compensation From the State