Prosecutors Won't Overturn Murder Conviction Despite DNA Evidence

Lake County prosecutors are refusing to free a man serving an 80-year sentence for murder even though DNA evidence points to someone else.

Marvin Williford is the only person to have been prosecuted and convicted of beating and setting on fire Delwin Foxworth in North Chicago in 2000. Although recent DNA evidence points to an unidentified potential suspect in another notorious rape and murder, the Lake County News-Sun reports, prosecutors have determined the jury who convicted him was correct in their notion Williford was one of three men who caused the death of Foxworth.

“His lawyers have noted that recent DNA tests showed a forensic link between the board used as a weapon in Williford’s alleged crime and the unidentified man whose semen has connected him to the 1992 rape and murder of 11-year-old Holly Staker in Waukegan,” the News-Sun reports. “The evidence suggests the unidentified man could have been involved in both crimes.”

Read more via the Lake County News-Sun

Foxworth told police after the attack “three men held him at gunpoint and attacked him to get money,” the Daily Herald reports. He was also set on fire, but able to extinguish the flames. He died two years later from the injuries.

Read more via the Daily Herald

Assistant State’s Attorney Ari Fisz said the recent DNA evidence neither implicated nor exonerated Williford. He said his innocence could not be proved.

Defense attorneys now plan to file paperwork to have Judge George Bridges decide whether Williford’s 2004 conviction should be overturned and a new trial granted.