Men wrongly convicted or arrested on bite evidence

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- Dale Morris Jr., of Blanton. Morris was arrested in 1997 after a 9-year-old girl in his neighborhood, Sharra Ferger, was found raped, bitten and stabbed 46 times in a field near her home in Blanton. Two forensic dentists, Drs. Richard Souviron and Kenneth Martin, agreed that a bite mark on her shoulder probably came from Morris. Morris spent four months in jail awaiting trial until DNA tests showed he was innocent, and he was freed.

Years later, the girl's uncle and a family friend were convicted in the killing and sentenced to life in prison. DNA matched the friend, Gary Steven Cannon, and the bite mark appeared likely to have come from the uncle, Gary Cochran, who admitted his involvement and pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty.

Souviron, widely considered a credible forensic dentist, pointed out to the AP that he never testified in the Morris case, but that Martin testified to a grand jury that only Morris could have been the biter.

Souviron said that Martin and a Florida investigator asked him to analyze 12 dental models and compare them to the bite mark found on Sharra, assuring him that it was a closed population of suspects and that one of them had to be the killer.

Souviron found that, out of the group of 12, only Morris could have possibly made the mark but said he never identified Morris as the definitive biter.

Souviron, who made his name in 1979 by testifying that serial killer Ted Bundy's teeth matched a bite mark on a murder victim, said he has regrets about the Morris case.

"You get hung out with the laundry on something like that," Souviron recently told the AP in an interview. "In retrospect, I should have said, `I need to do more homework.'"

Martin did not respond to a request for comment.



- Benny Starks, of Beach Park. Starks was convicted in 1986 of raping and assaulting a 68-year-old woman and sentenced to 60 years in prison. Drs. Russell Schneider and Carl Hagstrom, who are not certified by the American Board of Forensic Odontology, testified that bite marks matched Starks, despite a low forensic value as analyzed by two forensic dentists.

A judge later found that Schneider and Hagstrom intentionally "employed a method of comparison that has been rejected by the forensic dentistry community, and used flawed preservation and photography techniques."

A judge also found there was a wide range of prosecutor and police misconduct related to Starks' conviction and found it likely that they and the dentists "had all agreed among themselves to contribute to the effort to secure that conviction."

Hagstrom and Schneider did not return AP calls seeking comment.

An appeals court later ordered a new trial on the rape charges after DNA testing on semen excluded Brown. Starks was released from prison two decades after his conviction, and the last charges against him were dismissed in January this year.


