Provo Man Freed on Bail After DNA Excludes Him in 1985 Murder He Confessed To

A man who spent nearly four decades under sentence of death for the 1985 killing of a Provo woman was released on bail late Monday after DNA testing excluded him as the source of genetic material found on the murder weapon and at the crime scene.

Douglas Stewart Carter, 71, must now wear a GPS monitor while he awaits a new trial in the death of Eva Olesen, who was found tied up, stabbed and shot in her Provo home on Feb. 27, 1985. Investigators at the time believed the killing occurred during a robbery. A judge barred Carter from contacting Olesen’s family, who objected to his release.

The case against Carter always rested on a confession, not physical evidence. No forensic material at the scene ever tied him to the crime. He was convicted based on that signed confession and the testimony of two witnesses who said he had bragged about the killing. Carter has long said the confession was coerced, obtained after Nashville police, at the request of a Provo detective, interrogated him and, he said, repeatedly threatened him.

In 2011, those two witnesses were located in Mexico. They admitted they had lied in court, saying police had paid them in cash and gifts, instructed them to hide the payments, and threatened them and their son with deportation if they refused to implicate Carter.

Last year, the Utah Supreme Court ordered a new trial, citing what it called “multiple instances of intentional misconduct” by police and a prosecutor. That order triggered a fresh DNA analysis of evidence from the scene. Prosecutors said the results, received Sept. 22, excluded Carter as a match to blood on a doorknob and to genetic material on the handle of the knife used to stab Olesen.

Utah County Judge Derek Pullan said the findings further weakened the case against Carter, though he noted a jury could still convict him. Utah County prosecutor Erwin Petilos told the judge Monday that revisiting Carter’s bail was “necessary and fair” while the state continues examining the remaining evidence.

Carter’s attorney, Neal Hamilton, said his client will need therapy after his extended incarceration and will stay in an extended-stay hotel near his son, Tyler Anger, who was adopted as an infant and did not learn of his father’s conviction until years later.

“If the state of Utah had their way, he would have been executed 15, 20 years ago before we discovered the misconduct,” Hamilton said.

“This is going to be a lot for him,” Anger said Monday as he waited for his father’s release.

Hamilton has also called on prosecutors to drop the aggravated murder charge still pending against Carter. A two-month retrial had been planned for next year, but county prosecutors withdrew notice last week that they intended to seek the death penalty.

Carter, who is Black, was living with his mother in Utah at the time of the killing and fled the state by April 1985 after coming to believe he was a suspect in an unrelated assault case. He was detained two months later in Nashville. Court documents cited by his attorneys say witnesses reported seeing a white man fleeing the crime scene, and that an investigator suppressed evidence potentially implicating other suspects, including Olesen’s husband, Orla Olesen. According to Carter’s defense team, prosecutors were close to charging the husband before a Provo police lieutenant urged them to hold off so he could keep investigating; Carter was identified as a suspect afterward.

Orla Olesen, who died in 2009, told police he had discovered his wife’s body, partially undressed, with her hands bound behind her back.

Theresa Olesen, a daughter-in-law of Eva Olesen, told the court Monday that the family had “serious concerns” about Carter’s release.

“By golly we were hoping for a concrete match,” she said of the DNA results. “It doesn’t mean he wasn’t there. We just want justice for Eva. And if he had any part of it we want that to be known.”

Prosecutors declined to say whether the DNA evidence will be used to search for other potential suspects.