http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/David_Ayers.

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Summary:
David Ayers was a security guard at Cleveland Metropolitan Housing Authority, a place where
Dorothy Brown lived. According to the Innocence project, Dorothy was found dead in her apartment and
naked from the waist down with pubic hair found in her body and in her dentures on December 17,
1999. Upon further investigation of her body, defensive wounds were discovered on her body. An empty
pocketbook was also found at the crime scene. Police arrested Ayers because they thought he was a
suspect after seeing him quivering and crying. They also believed that he was in an angry emotional
state. Upon questioning, Ayers and Harris, a tenant at the apartment, affirmed that they helped the
victim earlier after falling in her apartment. After misinterpreting a video, the police affirmed that Ayers
was lying and arrested him on March 14, 2000 with insufficient evidence.
The video was administered during the trial. Rape charges were not brought up because the
DNA samples did not match Davids. While in jail, a jailhouse informant told the detectives that Ayer had
confessed of murdering Brown. In exchange for getting released from all charges, the informant testified
against Ayer. According to the Innocence Project, Ayers was convicted of aggravated murder,
aggravated burglary, and aggravated robbery on December 11, 2000. In 2008, the Ohio Innocence
Project opened the case again and brought the case to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals because of new
DNA evidence. The court overturned Ayers conviction and sent the case back to state court. The circuit
court also declared that the informants testimony was unreliable and that the information that the
informant got after returning to the jailhouse was unconstitutional because it violated the sixth
amendment.
Physical Evidence Discussion
The evidence that incriminated him was practically a faulty testimony. The testimony of the
jailhouse informant was faulty at best. The whole premise was based on a supposed confession of
Ayers which ultimately swayed the court into the guilty ruling. The evidence that got Ayers out of jail
was the DNA evidence. The DNA evidence excluded him from being one of the suspects to the murder of
Brown.