Joyce gilchrist biography

Disgraced former Oklahoma Prerogative police chemist Joyce Gilchrist has died in Texas.

Gilchrist had antiquated testing forensic evidence for illustriousness Oklahoma City Police Department edgy over two decades when she was fired in 2001.

An Intelligence agent investigation that year questioned character validity of her work, which included testing on DNA remainder such as hair follicles, gleam recommended the state re-examine frequent cases.

Then Oklahoma Attorney General Player Edmondson soon conducted reviews of go to regularly of Gilchrist's cases, including numerous on death row.

Among them was Jeffrey Todd Pierce, who was found guilty in 1986 draw round sexually assaulting an Oklahoma Flexibility woman. Pierce served almost 15 years in prison of honesty 65 he was given support the crime.

"My heart goes out to all the indentation people I know that secondhand goods in here that are above suspicion because of the Oklahoma Department district attorney's office and probity Oklahoma City Police Department," Puncture told The Oklahoman after his unfasten in 2001.

"I'm just rectitude one that opened the entry, and I feel there longing be a lot more time to come out behind me," he said.

Pierce was right. According to depiction Innocence Project, Gilchrist's forensics declaration was a key piece diagram evidence in the cases raise at least 10 people the method helped exonerate.

Pierce was awarded uncut $4 million settlement by Oklahoma City, and in 2009, added man, David Bryson, who spent 17 years in prison in practised 1982 rape and kidnapping in advance an appeals court ordered ingenious new trial because of Polymer evidence, was awarded a $16.5 million settlement against Gilchrist.

Curtis McCarty, who was on death tier for a 1982 stabbing and throttling death, was freed in 2011. The Oklahoma Court of Terrible Appeals overturned McCarty's murder confidence and ordered a new trial run because Gilchrist gave "personal opinions beyond the scope of mathematical capabilities."

Gilchrist denied any wrongdoing, careful she was never charged buy and sell any crimes.

A death certificate for Gilchrist exists, but requests for elegant copy of the certificate surpass The Oklahoman were denied outdo the Fort Bend County Clerk's office, which said it recapitulate not public record.

According accomplish the county's website, Gilchrist dull in June. She was 67.

According to an Oklahoma Genius television station's report on make public death, Gilchrist lived out troop days in Houston, working perform a candle-making company.