Bladen County man suffers painful incarceration and triumphant exoneration

ELIZABETHTOWN – Keith Harward was born in North Carolina in 1956. At 67 he once again is a resident of The Old North State.

“Esse quam videri” is the North Carolina motto, which is a Latin phrase from Cicero’s essay on friendship and it means “To be, rather than to seem.” Bottom line, it means to be authentic. Genuine.

Apropos that Harward should be born under that banner and lives under it now.

In between North Carolina’s promising start and its promising end, there was a period of darkness that Harward traveled into as he took a path out from under his home to a very strange country indeed.

He joined the United States Navy and traveled to Virginia where he was ultimately stationed on the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson. As it came to port in the Newport News, Virginia, shipyard, Harward was unaware of the journey he was about to travel on for the next 33 years.

It would be decades before he could come home.

He describes that journey by prefacing the details that were about to be forged in evil Sept. 14, 1982.

“I was wrongly convicted for 33 years,” Harward said. “Expert witnesses were willing to put me to death.”

Another sailor who was serving with Harward on the USS Vinson went rogue and was believed to have stalked and raped Newport News resident 22-year-old Teresa Perron and bludgeoned her husband, 30-year-old Jesse Perron with a crowbar. During the brutal rape of Teresa Perron, the assailant, now known to be Jerry Crotty left bite marks on her legs.

According to The National Registry of Exonerations, (NROE) “Teresa and Jesse Perron’s home was located near an entry gate to the Newport News Shipyard where the U.S.S. Carl Vinson, a recently commissioned aircraft carrier, was harbored and where Perron worked as a welder. The day after the crime was reported in the media, Donald Wade, a security guard at that gate, told police that he saw a sailor with blood spatter on his uniform enter the shipyard through the gate at about 2:30 a.m.

“Police focused their investigation on the Carl Vinson and over several months bitemark impressions were taken from hundreds of sailors on the Carl Vinson before it finally left the harbor in December 1982 with its crew of more than 1,300 men. Police had no suspects at that time.

“In March 1983, 26-year-old Keith Harward, a Naval enlistee who formerly had been stationed on the Carl Vinson, was discharged from the Navy. At about the same time, his girlfriend accused him of assaulting her, including biting her during a fight.

“Harward had been among those whose teeth were examined in the immediate aftermath of the investigation, but he had been ruled out as the source of the bitemarks on Teresa by a civilian dental consultant working with the Newport News City medical examiner. When Harward came to court, Teresa was there, but could not identify him as the attacker. On May 16, 1983, police arrested Harward on charges of capital murder, rape, robbery and burglary.”

By October 1983, Harward’s second trial which was appealed and a slam dunk according to prosecutors was concluded with Harward was convicted of murder, robbery, burglary and rape March 6, 1986. He was for a final time sentenced to life in prison.

“In July 2015, the iNNOCENCE PROJECT obtained a court order for DNA testing of the physical evidence in the case. The DNA tests excluded Harward as the source of the biological evidence,” the NROE published. “The DNA profile that was recovered from the crime scene evidence was identified as that of Jerry L. Crotty, another sailor on the Carl Vinson at the time of these crimes. Crotty died in prison in Ohio in 2006 where he was imprisoned for numerous crimes, including abduction and attempted burglary.

“In March 2016, the iNNOCENCE PROJECT and the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom filed a petition for a writ of actual innocence. In April, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring said he believed in Harward’s innocence and joined in the petition. On April 7, the Virginia Supreme Court issued the writ of actual innocence, the convictions were dismissed and Harward was released after spending 33 years in prison.”

To take a personal look back, Harward said that he was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, the county of Guilford.

“Back in the day, Greensboro was known for the meals,” Harward said. “Blue Bell was there. Wrangler was there. Burlington Industries. They were involved in textiles. Now it’s a pretty happening town, a lot of stuff going on. I lived in the county, went to school, used to hunt and fish and graduated Southeast High School.”

Harward was brought up in the storytellers of the ‘70s music scene, but he had a wide variety of tastes including rock and roll, bluegrass, and his parents also brought him up on Big Band music.

“I got to listen to everything,” he said. “We had one of those big stereo consoles with the speakers built in and the turntable in the middle of it. I couldn’t tell names of the music or who did it; I just like to listen. When I got locked up, all I did was listen to music. I still do. I got ear buds, I got speakers everywhere. It kind of got me away and would dull the sound. A prison is open 24/7 so you have to fight that noise with something else. I play it loud now because I can.”

When Harward heard those doors lock behind him that first time, America was in an era of cassettes and albums. He speaks of a Walkman that he had in prison and still has it today. He showed it to his nephews and they had no clue as to what it was. He told them it was music in a little box.

Growing up wasn’t the idealistic Leave it to Beaver lifestyle and Harward said that two things that run in his family were heart conditions and alcoholism. He said that after high school he became somewhat of a functioning alcoholic, but always got his jobs done. Prison shut all that down.

“In prison, you can’t play your music out loud,” he said. “Now I got a place I can do it, and I like all kinds of music.”

After high school, he said that he fumbled around looking for his path.

“I got married and divorced,” he said “and I got to the point where I was tired of waking up not being me because of the drinking and the pot I smoked. I got up one day heading for the post office and I thought that the first door I came to I am going to sign up. It was the Navy, and so I signed up for the Navy. Three days later I was in my boot camp at Great Lakes.”

Harward said that he was glad to join the Navy to help him quit and get away from the alcohol.

“Lo and behold, I went to Norfolk at the time and they had three bars and a liquor store on the base. I could walk across the street and buy a pint of Everclear if I wanted. And yee-haw off I go.”

Harward waxed poetic and his hindsight was shaped by his events.

“We don’t know our future,” he said. “Everything in life is for a reason. I’m here today having to go through all the stuff I went through and back in those days I never imagined this would have happened. I mean, I wake up every day and think of how blessed I am.”

Harward was 26 years old when he was convicted and for the next 33 years, he was a ward of the state of Virginia. He describes it as a third of a century in a place where time passed him by and felt as if at times, people forgot about him.

His family remained faithful to him. To visit and to write letters and to try to make the best of a hopeless situation. The best he could hope for, knowing he was innocent was that someone would die with a deathbed confession absolving him of the charges. For years it just. Didn’t. Happen. He said he sat on his hands as the days turned into months and the months turned to years. Many years.

There was an eyewitness to the killer, but according to Harward, “had no clue.” As for what many are now calling “junk science” with bite mark analysis and testimony, Harward said that it was what convicted him. The damning evidence.

He was placed at a murder scene by a supposed forensic evidence expert who got rich on junk science and made a name for himself. According to Explorehealthcareers.org, “Forensic odontologists are highly experienced, specially trained dentists who use their expertise to help identify unknown remains and trace bite marks to a specific individual. The forensic odontologist may be called in to do so by police officers, the medical examiner or the coroner.”

The man who helped to convict Harward was the top respected odontologist in his field. He set himself up to be the supreme voice in bringing forth innocence or guilt. It simply all rested in his reputation. A man who didn’t care about truth as much as he did his reputation.

A bite mark impression is marked and compared to a victim’s bite marks. According to reports by investigators from Curiosity Stream, it’s based on two assumptions. That skin can reliably record tooth marks and that the arrangement and condition of individual teeth are unique, like a fingerprint. These fundamental principals have never been proven and for over 40 years, bite mark analysis has been used in court cases without scientific validation of its basic assumptions.

From the blood evidence at the scene of the crime, which showed not one trace of Harward’s type A blood, nor were there any matching fingerprints, the victim could not identify Harward in a lineup and he was initially eliminated from suspicion. When the dental odontologist came to check bite marks, there was a review of his reputation as the expert in his field and the judges, prosecutors and medical staff all sided with the “resident experts.” Lowell Levine and Alvin Kagley feathered their nests with the conclusions that Harward was the source of the bite marks on the victim.

After several years in prison, a true scientific breakthrough came along called Deoxyribonucleic acid and it set those who wrongly convicted Harward on their heels. At first it was said that there was no DNA samples to be found. The iNNOCENCE PROJECT arrived on the scene and found it. They concluded without a shadow of a doubt, it was NOT Harward’s DNA.

Due to dissent on the first jury, a unanimous decision could not be agreed upon which was what saved Harward from a death penalty. A death penalty that most likely would have been carried out long before DNA evidence was a reality.

“Had those jurors voted for the death penalty, I would not be here,” he said.

So, Harward lived, but the decisions made affected others around him. Such as his family.

After the years of watching his parents entering that little visiting room and then having to watch them walk away was tough on Harward. Having his mom look over her shoulder as she was leaving with tears in her eyes is something he will never forget.

And when they passed, he was not allowed to attend their funeral, but he remarked that he wouldn’t have wanted to have been there in shackles.

“The State of Virginia killed my parents,” he said. “They executed them. If you had children and someone said they did something and you knew they didn’t, how would you take that. You can’t imagine. My parents got the death penalty for what happened to me. And I am the baby, so how do you think my mamma took that?”

They never lived long enough to see their son pronounced not guilty.

“And this still happens,” Harward said. “Not to me, but there’s others still out there going through this.”

In addition to his hopes to travel, Harward has traveled the country speaking to law classes at major Universities, educating them on the importance of truth and getting to the bottom of things. He also is an advocate for the innocent. There are many on trial today that have been falsely accused by junk science. Evidence is set aside due to men’s reputations and degrees and they know not that they have within their hands the power to allow someone to live or to die.

This doesn’t set right with Harward. He said everything in life has a purpose and he realizes the calling he has had and a path to create a map for the innocent to make it back home to their families.

“I’ve toughed it out,” he said. “I’ve blocked stuff out. I didn’t give up. I knew I was innocent and I also know that life is worth living. I just kept a goin’. But looking at it, I was ‘set free’ they say, but how can I be free of this? How can you be free of your life? You can’t.”

Harward has settled into his new role as advocate and faithful companion to his friend Mary Dodd who didn’t know him in prison, but said that she was part of a prayer team that was praying for him. The couple plans on doing some traveling out west and Dodd hopes it’s Wyoming while Harward says he just wants to be a place where they have trees.

As far as the advocate side of his life, he grows serious and thinks of those who are still where he was.

“This is my job now,” he said. “I must do everything I can. I do it for all the people who were sent to help me out with fundraisers and donations. That’s how the iNNOCENCE PROJECT works. They don’t get any money from the state. Just a DNA test is between 5-$10 thousand. These people are my heroes and it’s all about their heart. It’s not about the money. It’s not about the fame. It’s all about the heart. It’s MY responsibility now. I have to do this.”

Harward said that his name isn’t important, it’s not about the town, but the story is what’s important. People need to be aware of what is happening in this arena and that there are people out there losing hope by the hour.

According to the iNNOCENCE PROJECT, they quoted Harward as saying, ““I have a unique life story and by telling it I can, maybe, change the course of other innocent people’s lives,” he said. “I believe that small changes can lead to the right results to correct and prevent wrongful convictions because the justice system is not one that works quickly,” Harward said, adding that what is needed are more unbiased people in positions of power.”

The iNNOCENCE PROJECT went on to say, “In particular, Harward would like to see fair compensation for exonerees become the norm. Though Harward received a settlement from the state of Virginia in 2017, many exonerees across the U.S. are not able to get compensated. Fifteen states do not have any kind of statutes to compensate those who are wrongfully convicted.

Harward has an episode on Netflix “The Innocence Files – episode 3” produced by the iNNOCENCE PROJECT, he was been interviewed with his story airing on NBC and the Curiosity Stream Documentary can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hs6nAmau9uw