DNA links murder and rape of Holly Staker, 11, to second murder 8 years later

Two murders, eight years apart, have been connected, by DNA evidence. 11-year-old Holly Staker was raped and killed while babysitting in Waukegan back in 1992. Delwin Foxworth was beaten to death with a board in 2000. DNA taken from holly's body, and the

More than two decades after 11-year-old Holly Staker was raped and killed in what became one of Lake County's most contentious prosecutions, DNA evidence from her 1992 case has been matched to a potential suspect in a second slaying that took place nearly a decade later, attorneys said Tuesday.

DNA evidence from blood obtained from a two-by-four used to beat Delwin Foxworth in early 2000 before he was doused with gasoline and set on fire matches DNA from semen taken from Holly's body, according to the attorneys and court documents.

A lawyer for the man convicted of Foxworth's murder said the evidence shows that his client, Marvin Tyrone Williford, is innocent as he has long insisted.

The DNA match also buttresses evidence that Juan Rivera was wrongly convicted of Holly's rape and murder and that the failure to identify and arrest her real killer allowed that same person to take part in Foxworth's murder eight years later, according to one of Rivera's attorneys.

While Mr. Rivera fought to clear his name and officials fought to keep him in prison, the man who really committed the crime was free to commit this additional crime, said Steven Art, one of Rivera's attorneys. It's the antithesis of good policing in our society. The community suffers as well.

Despite the DNA match, the identity of the one potential suspect in both killings remains unknown. Authorities have entered the genetic profile into DNA databanks of convicted criminals but have not obtained a match.

The DNA represents a break in a case that long has been hamstrung by law enforcement focusing so much of its attention and energy on Rivera and undermines its recent claims that he still remained a potential suspect in Holly's rape and killing 21/2 years after his release from prison. It adds to the woes of Lake County prosecutors and police who have earned a reputation for bungling and ignoring DNA evidence when it contradicts their theory of a prosecution.

Indeed, the case bears troubling similarities to that of Jerry Hobbs, a Lake County father who was wrongly accused of the murder of his daughter and another young girl in 2005 in Zion. DNA later connected Jorge Torrez to the two murders. The former Marine was sentenced to death in April for the strangulation murder of a sailor in Virginia in 2009. Torrez also was convicted of attacking three women in Virginia in 2010.

Holly was baby-sitting two younger children when she was raped and fatally stabbed in 1992. Rivera was convicted three times at trial, largely on the strength of a confession he disavowed. After his third conviction and life sentence, the Illinois Appellate Court in 2011 again threw out the conviction and barred prosecutors from trying Rivera again, saying there was insufficient evidence of his guilt. The court also faulted detectives with the Lake County Major Crime Task Force for interrogating Rivera over four days and using psychological techniques to manipulate him into confessing.

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DNA links murder and rape of Holly Staker, 11, to second murder 8 years later