Date: Saturday, June 8, 1996 Source: By Andrew Fegelman, Tribune Staff Writer. Section: NEWS Parts: 1 Copyright Chicago Tribune DNA MAY CLEAR 4 IN GRISLY '78 MURDERS The murder of Carol Schmal and her boyfriend, Lawrence Lionberg, in Ford Heights occurred nearly two decades ago during a night of terror and brutality. The details of the case--the abduction of the two from a Homewood gas station at 2:15 a.m., the rape of Schmal and the slaying of the couple in an abandoned townhouse, where both were shot in the head--were disturbing enough. But the aftermath of the crime has been troubling in its own way, with arrests, convictions, then reversals of the convictions, and years later, new trials and new convictions. Still, doubts have lingered--and grown in some quarters--over whether the right men were convicted. Much of the skepticism focused on the prosecution's star witness, who kept changing her story. Critics said she had been bullied by investigators into giving statements implicating the four men ultimately convicted. But now new DNA evidence may finally exonerate the four, Dennis Williams, William Rainge, Kenneth Adams, and Verneal Jimerson. Williams is on Death Row. On Friday, attorneys for the four men said reports they received from a DNA expert Thursday discredit a key piece of evidence used to convict their clients. The test, they said, shows that semen samples taken from the body of Carol Schmal could not have come from any of the four men. ..................... Adams is serving a 75-year sentence at the Danville Correctional Center; Rainge was sentenced to life in prison and is incarcerated at the Pontiac Correctional Center. Jimerson was freed on bond last year after the Illinois Supreme Court overturned his conviction because the key prosecution witness, Gray, had lied. The high court in ordering a new trial, said Gray had been offered a deal by prosecutors that murder charges against her would be dropped in exchange for her testimony. But at Jimerson's 1985 trial, she denied there was any arrangement. ..................... David Protess, a journalism professor at Northwestern University, said investigators early on ignored evidence that linked four other men to the murder. One of those men, currently serving a 74-year sentence for murder, has given Protess a sworn statement saying that the man's older brother killed Schmal and that he and another man killed Lionberg. "What the DNA evidence shows is that these four men collectively spent 65 years of their life for a crime they didn't commit," said Protess. "This is the most egregious case of a wrongful conviction I have ever found." ------------------------ COPYRIGHT - CHICAGO TRIBUNE This excerpt was obtained from the Chicago Tribune's archives in the Newstand section of AMERICA ONLINE (aol.com). It may not be reproduced without Tribune permission. For more information about the Tribune's aol.com services, contact: TribLetter@aol.com Or: http://www.tribune.com Additional information about Chicago Tribune electronic resources can be found on page 4 of the daily Tribune.