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Nicholas J. Yarris was sentenced to death for the murder of Linda Mae Craig.� Four days after the murder, Yarris was arrested miles away from the crime scene after an altercation with a Chester policeman during a traffic stop.� Yarris was high on methamphetamine at the time of his arrest and forced to go through withdrawal "cold turkey."� Desperate to get out, Yarris tried to obtain special treatment from police by claiming a former associate he thought was dead had kidnapped, raped, and killed Linda Mae Craig, a murder victim he read about in the newspaper.� The former associate was a drug dealer who Yarris thought had overdosed.� Yarris's plan went awry when the associate was located still alive with an airtight alibi�his brother had overdosed.

Police told other inmates that Yarris was a snitch.� Inmates then regularly beat and tortured Yarris for days.� In order to escape the beatings, he suggested to police that he may have participated in the crime, but was not the murderer.� The beatings stopped, and police charged Yarris with murder.� A fellow inmate, Charles Cataleno, began giving false information about Yarris in exchange for conjugal visits and a sentencing deal.� This inmate later testified against Yarris at trial.� Yarris's alleged motive was that he was angry with his ex-girlfriend, and the victim allegedly looked like her.� Tests on the semen left by the killer indicated the presence of B+ antigens, suggesting that the killer's blood type was B+.� Yarris shared this blood type along with 15% of the population.� However the victim's husband also had a B+ blood type.� During the investigation, he stated that he had sexual intercourse his wife the night before her murder.� When it became clear that Yarris was a suspect, the husband claimed to have worn a condom that night, even though he and his wife were incapable of having children.� The prosecution failed to do other tests on the semen which might have eliminated Yarris as a suspect.

Yarris was the first American to request DNA testing which he did in Mar. 1988.� He faced years of obstruction from the prosecution and the courts, but eventually in 2004 became the 140th American convict to be exonerated by DNA tests.� Yarris currently resides in the UK and has authored a book there entitled Seven Days to Live to be published in July 2008.� (IP) (Post-Gazette)�(JD12)�(DPI)� [9/05]

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