NBC12 Investigates: DNA may clear 5 more Va. inmates

RICHMOND, VA (WWBT) - Virginia is reviewing cases to check if there are any more people sitting in jail, wrongfully convicted of crimes.

NBC12 Investigates obtained the results for more than 70 people where testing of biological evidence kept in their files did not match their DNA.

Prosecutors in Norfolk and Carroll County are taking another look at five decades-old cases in which DNA was uncovered that could exonerate all five people from crimes.

There have already been 10 people cleared in Virginia because of this testing on evidence saved in cases from 1973 to 1988, before DNA testing.

Among those cleared, Richmond residents Thomas Haynesworth and Victor 'Bo' Burnette. Both served years in prison for rapes they did not commit.

"I feel good today. Today's a great day I'm a free man now," Bo Burnette told NBC12 in 2009 on the day he was exonerated.

"I always believed this day would come. I didn't think it would be 27 years but I knew it would come one day," Haynesworth told NBC12 the day he walked out of prison for the first time in 27 years.

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