Richard Alexander

Richard Alexander is an Indiana man who was wrongfully convicted of rape and later exonerated by DNA evidence. Years later, on September 17, 2020, Alexander was charged with the murder of Catherine Minix, who was found stabbed to death. Minix had previously filed a protective order against Alexander for domestic violence. Arrest and conviction In 1996 a suspected serial rapist dubbed by local media the "River Park Rapist" preyed on female residents of South Bend, Indiana. Police arrested Richard Alexander (then 30 years old) in August 1996 for four of the rapes, largely on the basis of the statements of the victims. DNA evidence definitively excluded him as a suspect in one of the rapes, although both the victim and her fiancé continued to insist that Alexander was the perpetrator. Not all of the investigators were convinced of his guilt, particularly as three similar rapes occurred while Alexander was in police custody. In the case of one of the rapes that took place while he was in custody, Alexander's picture was accidentally placed in a photo-lineup shown to the victim. She selected his photograph as that of her assailant, despite his incarceration at the time of the offense. Nevertheless, Alexander was prosecuted for the three rapes, with charges totaling two counts of robbery, two counts of criminal deviate conduct, two counts of attempted rape, confinement, attempted robbery, rape, burglary and auto theft. His 1997 trial ended in a hung jury, with the nine white jurors in favor of conviction for the charges brought and two of the three black jurors voting for conviction of lesser charges. He was re-tried for the crimes in 1998 by an all-white jury. At the second trial, one of the victims, though identifying Alexander as her assailant, asserted that he had a hairless chest without tattoos. When it was demonstrated that Alexander had a hairy, heavily tattooed chest, he was acquitted of that rape. Nevertheless, he was convicted of the other two and was sentenced to 70 years in prison.