Richard Alexander

Richard Alexander (born December 1966) is an Indiana man who was wrongfully convicted of a 1996 rape and exonerated in 2001 by DNA evidence. Years later, on September 17, 2020, Alexander was charged with the murder of Catherine Minix, who was found stabbed to death. Minix had previously filed a protective order against Alexander for domestic violence.

Arrest and conviction In 1996, a suspected serial rapist dubbed by local media the "River Park Rapist" preyed on female residents of South Bend, Indiana. Police arrested Richard Alexander (then 30 years old) in August 1996 for four of the rapes, largely on the basis of the statements of the victims.

DNA evidence definitively excluded him as a suspect in one of the rapes, although both the victim and her fiancé continued to insist that Alexander was the perpetrator. Not all of the investigators were convinced of his guilt, particularly as three similar rapes occurred while Alexander was in police custody. In the case of one of the rapes that took place while he was in custody, Alexander's picture was accidentally placed in a photo-lineup shown to the victim. She selected his photograph as that of her assailant, despite his incarceration at the time of the offense. At the time of Alexander's original conviction, such testing was not available in the state of Indiana. The tests proved that the DNA did not match Alexander's profile, but did match Murphy's. Among the allegations in the 48-page lawsuit:

Police showed photos of Alexander to rape victims who said they had not seen enough of their attackers' faces for a positive identification. Police coerced or constructed the identifications of Alexander that were used at his trial. Police destroyed evidence and ignored Alexander's alibis.

Subsequent legal troubles On May 22, 2007, Alexander pleaded guilty to one count of battery for having beaten a former girlfriend with a lead pipe in 2005. As part of his plea bargain, a second count of battery was dismissed.

On June 14, 2007, Alexander was sentenced to eight years in prison, with two years suspended.

On September 17, 2020, he was charged in the stabbing death of his ex-girlfriend following a pattern of domestic violence. Midway through his trial Alexander took a plea deal for a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter. He was subsequently sentenced to 50 years in prison.

Trivia Alexander's case was made into an August 2002 episode, "Within a Hair", of the series Forensic Files. In February 2002, Alexander's name was invoked by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) in a floor statement in support of the Innocence Protection Act.