Wilton Dedge

By: Sreya Subramanian

On August 12, 2004, Wilton Dedge walked out of a Florida courtroom, a free man. But freedom had not come easily or fairly. For 22 years, he had lived behind bars for a crime he did not commit, convicted on flimsy evidence, snitch testimony, and discredited science. He had fought for eight long years just for the right to test DNA evidence that would ultimately prove what he had said from the beginning: he was innocent. 

On December 8, 1981, in Brevard County, Florida, a young woman was attacked and raped in her own home. The assailant threatened her with a blade and violated her, leaving her shaken and traumatised. The victim had described her attacker as six feet tall and muscular enough to throw her around. None of it matched Dedge, who was 5'5" and 125 lbs. But four days after the attack, the victim saw a man in a convenience store and thought he resembled her assailant. Her sister mistakenly identified the man as Dedge’s brother, Walter. After seeing Walter’s photo, the police turned their focus to Wilton instead. 

The entire case was built on weak foundations. When something horrible happens, it is in human nature to block out or suppress details, making any memories around the incident blurry and unreliable. So, even though the victim was incredibly sure of her choice, maybe guided also by a sense of anger, her memory guided her into a false reality. One that forever changed an innocent man’s life. The victim identified Dedge in a photo lineup, and he was arrested. At trial, prosecutors offered microscopic hair analysis that claimed a public hair found at the scene was “consistent” with Dedge’s—even though such analysis is scientifically unreliable. They brought Zacke, a jailhouse informant who later received a drastically reduced sentence for his cooperation, to testify that Dedge had confessed to him. They even used a dog sniffing expert, whose pseudoscientific testimony had since been discredited in multiple wrongful convictions across the country. 

Still, it worked. Dedge was convicted in 1982 and sentenced to two life terms. His conviction was overturned once, but in 1984, prosecutors tried him again, this time adding new testimony from a police officer who claimed Dedge wore boots with extra-high heels to make himself look taller and match the victim's original description. Again, he was convicted. Throughout the process, Dedge never stopped insisting he was innocent. His mother and brother testified that he wasn't even in town that day. Multiple alibi witnesses backed him up, but none of it mattered. What mattered was closing a case. 

In 1996, long before Florida had any law allowing inmates to seek post-conviction DNA testing, Dedge became one of the first in the state to request such testing. He had to fight just to get the evidence tested. In 2001, the first round of DNA testing excluded him as the source of the hair. That should have been enough. But prosecutors claimed that because Dedge had requested testing before the 2001 DNA statute went into effect, he was not entitled to relief, even if the test proved he was innocent. In court, state attorneys went so far as to admit they would oppose Dedge’s release even if they knew he was absolutely innocent. This is not a statement to take lightly. It reflects a chilling disregard for truth, justice, and basic human dignity. In choosing to preserve a conviction over a life, they denied Dedge not only his freedom, but his humanity.

But the truth persevered. After three years of stalling by the State, Judge Silvernail and the 5th District Court of Appeals rejected those procedural arguments. A final round of Y-STR DNA testing on the semen found from the rape kit once again excluded Dedge. There could no longer be any doubt.

On August 12, 2004, exactly 20 years to the day after his second conviction, all charges were dropped, and Wilton Dedge was finally freed. “It was like I was dropped on another planet when I got out,” Dedge said at a Press Conference in Tallahassee, standing beside his parents and attorney Sandy D’Alemberte. “Everything has changed so much…It’s like I’m 20 years old in a 43-year-old body.”

Dedge lost over two decades to a system that chose convenience over truth. A system that relies on pseudoscience, incentivizes witnesses, and refuses to let go even in the face of overwhelming evidence. And yet, like so many exonerees, he was never compensated for the years stolen from him or the damage to his name. To break the cycle of flawed evidence, junk science, and systemic bias, stories like his must not only be heard but internalized. Change doesn't happen overnight—it requires persistence, awareness, and collective action.

For more information on wrongful convictions and how to help, visit youthforinnocence.org and the National Registry of Exonerations.