The Wrongful Conviction of Robert DuBoise

In August 1983, 19-year-old Barbara Grams was walking home from her job at the Tampa Bay Mall when she disappeared. The next morning, her body was found behind a dental office. She had been beaten and sexually assaulted.

Investigators focused on a faint mark on her cheek that they believed was a bite. Forensic experts at the time claimed the mark could be matched to a suspect’s teeth — a technique once considered reliable science.

Police zeroed in on 18-year-old Robert DuBoise, a local teenager with no criminal record and no connection to Barbara. When a forensic dentist said his teeth matched the mark, Robert was arrested and charged with murder.

In 1985, he was convicted and sentenced to death.

But decades later, that so-called forensic evidence would completely fall apart.

Flawed Forensics

At trial, the state’s expert testified with “a reasonable degree of dental certainty” that Robert had made the bite mark. Another expert for the defense argued the opposite — that Robert should be excluded entirely. But the jury sided with the prosecution, trusting the science they were told was reliable.

The problem? Bite-mark analysis has since been discredited as junk science. Human skin is not a stable surface for making dental comparisons. Even the American Board of Forensic Odontology has now banned the language of “reasonable dental certainty.”

In Robert’s case, it was later proven that the mark on Barbara’s cheek wasn’t even a bite mark at all.

Modern Science Redeems What Was Lost

For nearly 37 years, Robert maintained his innocence. He spent time on death row and decades more in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. In 2018, the Innocence Project took on his case. When prosecutors re-examined the forensic evidence, a new team discovered preserved slides from the original rape kit.

DNA testing excluded Robert — and identified another man through CODIS.

On August 26, 2020, Robert DuBoise walked out of Hardee Correctional Institution a free man. Two weeks later, his conviction was officially vacated.

The Cost of Bad Science

Robert lost nearly four decades of his life to a flawed forensic technique that no longer has a place in modern science. Bite-mark analysis once promised certainty — but in reality, it destroyed lives.

Today, his story stands as a powerful reminder: forensic evidence can be one of the strongest tools in criminal justice — but when used irresponsibly, it can be devastating.

Robert DuBoise is finally free. But the cost of that freedom is something no one can ever repay.

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