Evidence was shipped for forensic testing last week to see if its genetic blueprint matches that of a Gary man who claims he has been wrongly imprisoned for almost two decades.

"The tests will prove I'm innocent," Willie T. Donald, 41, said from the Miami Correctional Facility in Bunker Hill, Ind. "I want the evidence to reveal the true story of what happened."

Donald was convicted of murder and armed robbery in 1992. More recent developments have led Lake County prosecutors to approve forensic testing, including notes that point to prosecutor misconduct during trial, lingering questions about the investigatory procedures of Gary police and the recantation of a key eyewitness who originally testified against Donald.

However, a woman who witnessed the murder of her fiance has not recanted her testimony against Donald.

Indiana State Police found hairs containing genetic material on the victim's jacket this past fall, when it was examined for the first time in about 17 years. 

"Over the last couple of months it was agreed for it to be tested," said Thomas Vanes, Donald's Merrillville-based defense attorney. "It took a while to work out the mechanics of who was going to pay, how much could be tested and where it was going to be tested."

Northwestern University's Medill Innocence Project will pay thousands of dollars for the testing, said Vanes, who is working on the case pro bono.

The Medill Innocence Project looks into potential wrongful convictions through an investigative journalism class. The project and its students became involved in Donald's case about two years ago and helped discover the new evidence.

"Of course, resources are scarce in Lake County for forensic testing and crime fighting, generally," said David Protess, director of the Medill Innocence Project. "So I'm happy to assist in that effort, especially because it's a joint effort by both the defense and the prosecutors to find out the truth."

Sergio Serritella, an investigative journalism instructor with the project and private investigator, shipped the evidence to Mitotyping Technologies in Pennsylvania for testing. He said the evidence had sat in his corporate safe at Tactical Solutions Group in Chicago for more than a year.

"The results of this testing will give certainty to two families who desperately need it," said Serritella, who interviewed a key eyewitness and obtained a recantation of her trial testimony. "I expect getting the results to be another powerful moment that will bring us closer to justice."

Donald said he was "elated" to hear from his sister that the project would be funding the testing.

"I was excited because I knew they believed in me from the start," Donald said of the Medill Innocence Project.

Donald said he hopes to be released after the tests come back.

The Lake County prosecutor's office did not return a call seeking comment. Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Mark Watson is handling the case, and according to court records he did not object to the request for the forensic testing.

The testing

Samples of hair found on the Chicago Cubs jacket worn by victim Bernard Jimenez at the time of the crime, along with hair from Donald and from the sister of a possible alternative suspect, will go through mitochondrial DNA, or mtDNA, testing.

The alternative suspect, Lavelle Thompson, was introduced to the court in August as part of Vanes' motion to seek DNA testing. When Jimenez was killed, Thompson was an 18-year-old with a drug reputation. Thompson was murdered shortly thereafter.

But because mtDNA is passed down from women to their children, Thompson's sister should have the same mtDNA as her brother.

"Mitochondrial DNA testing has found an important niche in the forensic DNA testing field," said Mike Coble, research section chief for the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory in Maryland. "One thing about the mitochondrial DNA is that they have their own genome, they have their own DNA and it's separate from the nuclear DNA that we traditionally test in forensics."

MtDNA is preferable to DNA testing when a sample is degraded, Coble said. There are hundreds of thousands of copies of mtDNA molecules per cell -- compared with only two copies of nuclear DNA -- so when the nuclear DNA is gone there still could be mtDNA.

The cost of the testing can range from $3,000 to $5,000 per hair, Coble said, and about $2,000 for each additional sample for comparison.

Coble said hair is a very common type of crime scene evidence, and hairs are almost always the focus of mtDNA testing. Once shed, hair lacks the root that contains the nuclear DNA used more commonly in forensic testing.

As part of the mtDNA testing process, hair samples are ground up and the mtDNA is extracted and then copied.

"It is kind of like a Xerox machine, because it takes one copy of DNA and makes millions of copies of DNA," Coble said.

The tests are laborious, requiring scientists to read the four base combinations that make up the mtDNA sequences, he said.

Scientists process the crime scene evidence first, Coble said, and then the suspect's sample.

"If they don't match, you can conclude the suspect is not the contributor of the hair," Coble said. "If they do match, you have to do some statistics. You have to come up with a statistic that basically asks the question, 'How frequently would I observe this particular mitochondrial sequence?' "

More than half the time a person has a unique type of mtDNA, Coble said. However in some situations that is not so. For example, about one in14 Western Europeans, share the same mitochondrial sequence, he said.

"Sometimes you can have mitochondrial sequences that are quite common in the population," Coble said. "That is simply something you have to report to the jury and let the jury take that information as weight to the evidence."

The results

Coble said it can take four to six weeks to complete mtDNA testing.

Though it is unknown when the results from the Donald case will come in, the next court hearing is scheduled for March 12.

"This will be the last continuance of the hearing on the petition for post-conviction relief, barring any extraordinary circumstances," court documents state.

Donald said he had wanted the jacket examined for genetic evidence ever since it was discovered a few years ago.

"I've been incarcerated for a long time," Donald said. "I want the process to speed up, but everybody keep telling me everything goes at a snail's pace and it's a process you got to go through, just like when you was a child waiting for Christmastime to come to open the toys."

Donald referred to the testing as a "belated Christmas present" of more than 17 years. He said he is anxious for the results to come back, but will pass the time by keeping busy.

"I always pray," he said. "It gives me assurance that one day I'll be vindicated."