DNA evidence may hold the key to freedom for Kenneth Clair, who has spent nearly 40 years in prison for a 1984 murder he says he didn’t commit. Clair was convicted of the death of a 25-year-old nanny in Santa Ana, California.
What does the new DNA prove?
DNA evidence also failed to link Clair to the crime. Testing, including vaginal swabs taken from the victim, did not match his profile. Decades have passed since the murder, and advances in forensic technology have helped solve cold cases across the country.
Clair’s defense team asked an Orange County judge to approve testing of crime scene evidence that investigators couldn’t analyze during the original investigation. The judge granted the request in 2023. DNA experts tested 20 pieces of evidence from that collection, and Clair’s attorney says the results prove his client’s innocence.
According to the results, investigators found no fingerprint, blood or hair evidence linking Clair to the crime. In fact, not only is there no physical evidence placing Clair at the scene, but testing revealed two separate DNA profiles, suggesting the involvement of two unknown individuals in the murder.
The killing of Linda Faye Rodgers
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From 1989 to 2020, DNA evidence has exonerated at least 375 people who were wrongly convicted.
In 1984, authorities found Linda Faye Rodgers dead in the Orange County home where she worked as a nanny. Investigators said someone had bludgeoned, stabbed and strangled her while the children she cared for — and her own child — slept inside the house.
Clair, who was also 25 at the time, was homeless and living in an abandoned house next door, according to his defense team. Just hours before the killing, authorities released Clair from jail after arresting him days earlier as a burglary suspect at the same home.
During the trial, Orange County prosecutors relied significantly on circumstantial evidence, including testimony from Clair’s ex-girlfriend. She claimed he took items from the home during the murder. At the request of investigators, she later wore a wire in an attempt to get Clair to confess. While he didn’t admit to the killing, he also didn’t explicitly deny it.
The prosecution said the most incriminating statements Clair made were, ”Baby, what you fail to realize, how the m———–s they gonna prove I was there? . . . There ain’t no m———-n’ fingerprints, ain’t no f—-n’ where in there, and ain’t no f—-n’ body seen me go in there and leave out of there.”
One of the children in the home told police the attacker was white. Despite this, a jury convicted Clair, a Black man, and sentenced him to death. A court later overturned the sentence and resentenced him to life in prison without parole. According to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Clair’s original defense attorney failed to present evidence of his troubled childhood, including repeated sexual assaults he suffered while jailed as a teenager for purse theft.
Evidence previously tested not tied to Clair
In 2007, Orange County prosecutors sent crime scene evidence to a private lab during a reinvestigation of another 1984 murder, the killing of Elizabeth Mae Hoffschneider.
That case led to the arrest of convicted sex offender Gerald Go, whose DNA matched hair found near Hoffschneider’s body. Prosecutors then tested evidence from the Rodgers case to see if Go could be linked to her death instead of Clair.
The lab was unable to develop a full DNA profile from the Rodgers evidence, but it did extract a Y-STR haplotype from a vaginal swab. That DNA did not match Clair or Go. The haplotype is shared by about one in 700 males. Because the attacker used a foreign object to assault Rodgers, investigators theorized that Clair’s DNA might not have been present.
Clair’s growing support to release him
Over the years, Clair has maintained his innocence and gained growing support beyond prison walls. A Change.org petition urging his release has gathered more than 172,000 signatures, appealing to county prosecutors not to let him die behind bars.
C.J. Ford, a private investigator specializing in wrongful conviction cases, has worked for years to secure Clair’s release. Ford has cited the lack of evidence and the injustice Clair has faced as reasons for his continued advocacy.
What happens next?
Clair’s defense team is urging the Orange County District Attorney’s Office to review the new evidence and overturn his conviction. In a statement to the Orange County Register, Clair’s attorney said he will accept release only if he is fully exonerated and will not admit guilt.
“Either he dies in prison an innocent man and the world knows he is innocent, or the DA agrees to drop all charges or we litigate it and go to a new trial,” he said.
A spokesperson for the Orange County District Attorney’s Office said they follow a conviction review process. They will evaluate each request where wrongful conviction appears evident and take action based on the evidence to uphold justice and public safety.
Clair remains imprisoned at Pelican Bay State Prison while court proceedings continue. His fate depends on whether the district attorney’s office or judges maintain that the conviction still stands or move to have it overturned.
