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The man spent 34 years behind bars before he was released in 2020 while courts considered granting him a new trial.
Thomas Rosa Jr. maintained his innocence for decades after he was convicted of murder in 1993. Suzanne Kreiter/The Boston Globe
Prosecutors will not retry a Chelsea man who spent more than three decades behind bars for a 1985 murder he claims he did not commit, his attorneys said Wednesday.
The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office formally dropped the charges again Thomas Rosa Jr., 64, records from Suffolk Superior Court show. The DA’s office cited new forensic testing, lost evidence, and changes in case law as the grounds for its decision.
“We are gratified that the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office decided to finally end this wrongful prosecution,” Radha Natarajan, Rosa’s attorney for the last ten years, said in a statement. “Given the new DNA and scientific evidence that dismantles the Commonwealth’s case against Mr. Rosa, there is no other just outcome but to exonerate him.”
Rosa was indicted in February 1986 for the December 1985 kidnapping and murder of Gwendolyn Taylor, an 18-year-old nurse’s aide. He faced three separate trials and was found guilty in February 1993, court records show.
In October 2020, after spending 34 years in prison, Rosa was freed due to the strength of new DNA evidence, along with further evidence which undermined eyewitness testimony. He was released to his family while the court considered his motion for a new trial.
Nearly three years later, a judge vacated Rosa’s conviction and granted a new trial. At the time, his lawyers from the New England Innocence Project and the Boston College Innocence Program called on District Attorney Kevin Hayden to “end this almost forty-year nightmare, rather than try him again for a fourth time.”
Prosecutors answered that plea Wednesday, declaring that they lack “a good faith basis to move forward with the prosecution against the defendant.”
“After a comprehensive reinvestigation of the case to prepare for the upcoming trial, the Commonwealth has concluded that it no longer can move forward with this prosecution,” the DA’s office said. “In the over forty years since the victim was murdered, evidence has been lost, additional forensic testing has been conducted, and case law and jury instructions have substantially changed. These factors, taken together, call into question the Commonwealth’s ability to prove the charges against the defendant beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Beyond these reasons, Rosa’s attorneys at the New England Innocence Project and the Loevy + Loevy law firm said in a joint statement that the remaining eyewitness testimony was both unreliable and inconsistent with Rosa’s appearance.
“The only remaining evidence was the testimony of two eyewitnesses who viewed the perpetrator at night for less than ten seconds under circumstances that we now know, based on numerous exonerations and research, create a high risk of misidentification,” the statement said. “In addition, Mr. Rosa did not have the one distinctive feature noted by an eyewitness — a missing tooth or gap in his teeth. Finally, the eyewitnesses described a scenario where the victim and assailant knew each other, but Mr. Rosa and the victim never knew each other.”
Rosa, who has always maintained his innocence, is now the 100th exoneree from Massachusetts since 1989, when the National Registry of Exonerations began collecting data, according to his attorneys. Since his release, he has become involved in the Exoneree Network community to support others who were wrongfully convicted or have trauma from long-term incarceration.
“This exoneration doesn’t erase the past, but it restores truth, dignity, and hope for the future,” Rosa and his wife, Virginia, said in the statement.
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