Love waited 14 years for inmate cleared of rape Dreams coming true: freedom, marriage

Taylor's first obligation is to the woman who waited for him for 14 years

Jeannette Brown says, "I know that man, and I know he is not capable of doing something that awful." Jeannette Brown says, "I know that man, and I know he is not capable of doing something that awful." Photo: BECKY STEIN, FOR THE CHRONICLE Photo: BECKY STEIN, FOR THE CHRONICLE Image 1 of / 6 Caption Close Love waited 14 years for inmate cleared of rape 1 / 6 Back to Gallery

TENNESSEE COLONY — Ronald Gene Taylor was engaged to be married 14 years ago when Houston police rousted him out of bed on a summer morning and told him he'd been accused of raping a woman who lived nearby.

"They took me to jail that day and I ain't been out since," Taylor said Friday during an interview at a Tennessee Colony prison where he has been serving a 60-year sentence for a crime that new DNA evidence shows he did not commit.

He expects to leave Texas for Georgia, once prosecutors follow through on a promise to recommend his release, and finally marry the woman who has waited for him all this time.

"The first thing I am going to do is get to Atlanta to see Jeannette and marry her like I should have years ago," Taylor said of his fiancee, Jeannette Brown, who has stood by his side throughout his ordeal. "Knowing that she was there for me all this time was such a blessing."

Brown, a 51-year-old nursing assistant, said she never once considered the possibility that Taylor was guilty.

"I know that man, and I know he is not capable of doing something that awful," she said by telephone Friday from Atlanta.

Freedom now should be just days away for Taylor, whose name was cleared by DNA tests completed this summer. Next week he will begin the journey from the Coffield Unit to Houston, where a judge is expected to release him on a personal recognizance bond.

Video lineup

Taylor, 47, is a quiet man with a quick smile whose face is framed with short salt-and-pepper hair more white than when he first was charged in 1993. During an hourlong prison interview he spoke of his conviction, time in prison and dreams interrupted.

Taylor was accused of attacking a woman while she slept in her Third Ward home. Taylor, who lived less than a mile from the site of the rape, was placed in a video lineup after a neighbor told police he had seen him in the area the night of the assault. The victim identified Taylor and he was charged.

Taylor maintained his innocence. "I was so sure that the truth would come out that they knew it was not me that I told my lawyer not to even tell me if (prosecutors) offered a plea bargain," Taylor said. "I did not want to hear it."

The case went to trial, with the victim's identification serving as the crux of the case against Taylor. An analyst from the Houston Police Department also testified, telling jurors that there was no semen on a sheet from the crime scene and that Taylor could not be eliminated as a suspect through DNA testing. Jurors sentenced Taylor to 60 years.

But 12 years later, with the assistance of the New York-based legal clinic the Innocence Project, Taylor won the right to have the sheet retested. A private lab, ReliaGene Technologies Inc., re-examined the samples this summer and found there indeed was semen on the sheet. The profiles they identified pointed not to Taylor but another man, Roosevelt Carroll.

Taylor is the third man to be exonerated after new forensic evidence discredited the work of the troubled HPD crime lab. The lab's analyses have been under scrutiny since late 2002 when news reports and an independent audit uncovered poorly trained personnel and shoddy work in the lab's DNA division.

Since then, errors have been exposed in the work of four other lab divisions, including those that test firearms and illegal drugs, casting doubt on hundreds of criminal convictions and affecting the criminal justice system in Harris County and statewide.

Harris County prosecutors this week agreed that Taylor is innocent and should be freed from prison. After Taylor's release, his lawyers and prosecutors will file paperwork with the state Court of Criminal Appeals, which will determine what to do with his conviction.

Assuming that he later receives a pardon based on innocence, Taylor would be eligible for compensation of $50,000 per year of incarceration — likely more than $600,000.

The real rapist

Meanwhile, Carroll, twice convicted of rape, will continue serving a 15-year sentence for failing to register as a sex offender. He cannot be prosecuted for the 1993 rape because the time frame for filing charges against him has expired. Prosecutors have vowed to work so that he stays in prison until 2019, though he could be paroled in 2010.

Carroll declined to be interviewed for this story, according to a Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman.

Taylor said he feels no anger toward Carroll.

"If he did it, then he is sick," Taylor said. "But it ain't going to do me no good to think about it. I just try to spend my time changing things that I can and not worry about those that I can't."

Still, Taylor finds it hard to reconcile the fact that Carroll was free, and committing other crimes, while he was an innocent man labeled as a rapist in prison.

"Rape is one of the worst crimes you can do," he said. "I don't even understand rape, but I have lived for all these years with that mark."

His hardship, Taylor said, has helped him have sympathy for the woman whom Carroll appears to have attacked.

During his time at the Coffield Unit, Taylor said he worked jobs such as cooking breakfast "because you have to keep your mind distracted," and wrote daily letters to his family and fiancee.

When he leaves, he plans to find a way to rebuild his life, likely in Atlanta. Mostly, Taylor said, he wants to "put away" his prison memories.

One thing, however, that he will be unable to leave behind is his haunting certainty that others are innocent like him but will never get help.

"I would almost bet my freedom that I could show you three or four guys who are in the same situation I was in," Taylor said. "But I wonder if anyone will ever help them."

roma.khanna@chron.com