Thomas “Tommy” Rosa recalled the day he was called to the second floor of the Massachusetts prison where he was incarcerated. There, an officer asked whether he had a son named Jonathan. He did.
“And like nothing, they said, Well, he died today,” Rosa recalled. “It, like, hit me in the gut. Because after that, I just really gave up on life till I met all these beautiful people behind me.”
In 1993, after three trials, Rosa was convicted of the 1985 murder of Gwendolyn Taylor in Boston. But Rosa, now 65, maintained his innocence during his more than three decades in prison. Standing behind him on Sept. 17 as he briefly recounted his experience were the lawyers, private investigators, and expert witnesses who got his conviction overturned. Rosa was on stage at Voices of the Innocent in Boston, an annual fundraiser by the New England Innocence Project, whose director, Radha Natarajan, represented him for a decade.
Superior Court Justice Michael Ricciutti threw out Rosa’s convictions on Sept. 6, 2023. The judge found that new DNA testing of key evidence and new research about the unreliability of eyewitness testimony called the prosecution’s case into question. The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office dropped the charges against Rosa in March, two-and-a-half years after the ruling.
“Tommy was just 24 years old [when he was charged with the murder],” Natarajan said. “He had a young son and another on the way. He had enlisted in the military and had never been arrested for a crime of violence. When he learned that the police were looking for him, Tommy called the police himself to let them know where he was. He had nothing to hide.”
Rosa waived his right to a lawyer, answered the police’s questions, and provided them with blood and hair samples, Natarajan said.
“Tommy was told that he had the right to remain silent,” she said. “But Tommy believed that because he was innocent, he did not need to exercise those rights.”
Rosa first went on trial in October 1986, but the presiding judge declared a mistrial when the jury could not reach a verdict. Rosa was tried again that November and convicted of kidnapping, aggravated rape, and first-degree murder. However, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court overturned the verdict on appeal because the prosecution improperly used hearsay testimony from a Boston homicide detective to undermine Rosa’s alibi that he was home at the time of murder.
“By Tommy’s third trial in 1993, he had already been incarcerated for seven years. He had missed the birth and early childhood of his second son,” Natarajan said. “There had been significant advancements in forensic science, including DNA, but this didn’t benefit Tommy because, in violation of a court order, the prosecutor’s office lost critical physical evidence, including the murder weapon.”
The third jury convicted Rosa of kidnapping and murder but acquitted him of rape. The judge sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The prosecution argued that Rosa was the perpetrator using testimony from two eyewitnesses, both of whom identified him after seeing the assailant with the victim for about 10 seconds in the dark. The prosecution also used blood-typing evidence to corroborate the testimony.
Natarajan said that investigators commonly used blood-typing evidence at the time, but the results were of limited value because so many people share the same blood type. According to Natarajan, “most people believed that eyewitnesses would not identify someone unless it was accurate, but that was wrong.”
The New England Innocence Project took on Rosa as a client in 2016 and later worked with the Boston College Innocence Program. Rosa’s lawyers brought forward new evidence, including new DNA test results, in a June 2020 motion for a new trial. Supreme Judicial Court Justice Frank Gaziano released Rosa from prison in October 2020 while the motion was pending.
“When the pandemic hit, we panicked for Tommy,” Natarajan said. “His health had deteriorated significantly, and we didn’t believe he would survive COVID in prison.”
In June 2020, Rosa’s lawyers asked Ricciuitti to suspend his prison sentence while the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office investigated the claims raised in the motion for a new trial. They argued that Rosa was particularly susceptible to dying from COVID in prison because of his age and medical conditions, which included chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and Gorlin syndrome, a genetic disorder. Prosecutors did not oppose the request.
When Ricciutti declined to rule on the issue, it was the district attorney’s office that filed an appeal to get Rosa out of prison, which Natarajan said was highly unusual. The appeal led to Gaziano ordering Rosa’s release on Oct. 14, 2022.
“Unfortunately, the fight was not over even then,” Natarajan said. “Not even close.”
‘Scientifically erroneous’
During the early morning hours of Dec. 7, 1985, a roommate of Gwendolyn Taylor, the victim, saw her at the entrance to their apartment building, according to court records. The roommate testified that she saw a man holding “a shiny object to [Taylor’s] shoulder.” The roommate said Taylor was visibly frightened and asked for $100. The man told the roommate not to call the police, and Taylor said that he wasn’t kidding.
The witness did not have the money, and went inside to wake her two other roommates in their third-floor apartment. The three went onto the porch and saw that Taylor and the man had moved to the other side of the street. Taylor again asked for $100, but one of the other roommates said he didn’t have the money. The man and Taylor then walked around before heading down an alley.
The first roommate called the police while another rushed down to try to find Taylor. However, efforts to locate Taylor and the assailant were unsuccessful. The next morning, an employee of a nearby auto body shop found Taylor’s body inside a vehicle that was there for repairs.
The first roommate spoke with police and selected Rosa’s picture from a book of mugshots when asked to identify the man she had seen. A woman who lived downstairs and saw Taylor and the man while she was walking home also picked Rosa’s photo. But according to Natarajan, there were problems with the identifications of Rosa that police should have noticed as soon as they arrested him.
“One witness noted that the man had a distinctive feature—a missing right front tooth,” she said. “When the police took [Rosa’s] booking photos, they asked him to smile wide so they could see if he had the missing front tooth, like the eyewitness had described. He did not.”
At trial, the prosecution argued that the stress and trauma experienced by the eyewitnesses improved their memory and made their identification of Rosa reliable. According to the prosecutor’s closing argument, “the more dramatic and traumatic the experience, the more the mark becomes indelible and you’ll never have it erased from your life.”
In Ricciutti’s ruling overturning Rosa’s convictions, the judge said that this argument was “scientifically erroneous.” According to the decision, courts have recognized in the decades since Rosa was convicted that research has shown stress and trauma make eyewitness identifications less reliable.
Ricciuitti also said there were other factors impacting the reliability of the identifications in this case, including the short amount of time the witnesses saw the perpetrator, testimony that he appeared to have a weapon, testimony that he was wearing a hat, and testimony showing he appeared to be a different race than the eyewitnesses.
‘The fiercest resistance’
In addition to the eyewitness testimony, the prosecution used blood-typing evidence to argue that Rosa was the killer. Testing of fluids found in and on the victim showed they were consistent with Rosa’s blood type.
Two of Taylor’s roommates, including the one who identified Rosa, said that the perpetrator was wearing a brown coat. Police found a brown coat belonging to Rosa in his apartment. The prosecution argued that a stain on the coat was the victim’s saliva because testing showed it was consistent with her blood type.
But in 2001, Rosa obtained DNA test results that excluded the victim as a contributor to the stain on the coat. The testing could not exclude Rosa as a possible contributor to the fluids found in the victim.
“Tommy thought that would be enough to overturn his conviction, but it was not,” Natarajan said. “It was a big blow.”
In 2017, Rosa obtained new DNA results using a different testing method, but they did not exclude him from any of the results. However, Rosa also hired a DNA expert who concluded that the lab that conducted the 2001 testing was incorrect. According to the expert, their results showed two male DNA profiles and excluded Rosa as a contributor to the major profile.
The district attorney’s office hired its own DNA expert, Karl Reich, to review the evidence. Reich determined the lab that conducted the 2017 testing was also wrong. In a July 2021 report, he said that Rosa was excluded from one of the fluid samples taken from the victim.
On Jan. 7, 2022, the district attorney’s office filed a court document agreeing that Rosa was entitled to a new trial based in part on Reich’s opinion about the DNA evidence. But three days later, a new district attorney took office.
Then-Governor Charlie Baker appointed Kevin Hayden as the Suffolk County district attorney after former District Attorney Rachael Rollins left for a job as the US Attorney for Massachusetts. Hayden was then elected to a full term in November 2022 and won the Democratic primary for the office this year.
“With a change in administration in the district attorney’s office, we saw the fiercest resistance I have ever experienced in my 23 years as a criminal lawyer,” Natarajan said. Under Rollins, Rosa’s case was being handled by the office’s Integrity Review Bureau, according to the New England Innocence Project director. But after Hayden was appointed, the case was assigned to new prosecutors, she said.
At a 2022 hearing, Hayden’s office declined to call Reich as a witness. Natarajan said that the New England Innocence Project had to pay to fly Reich from Chicago so he could testify as a defense witness, and prosecutors cross-examined him to challenge his reliability. After the hearing, the district attorney’s office filed a court document arguing that Rosa had not shown Reich’s methodology was sufficiently reliable.
Despite the challenge from prosecutors, Ricciuitti ruled in an April 20, 2023, decision that Reich’s methodology was reliable and his testimony was admissible. During a subsequent hearing in June 2023, the district attorney’s office agreed that Rosa was entitled to a new trial but reserved its right to challenge Reich’s DNA analysis at trial.
Reich appeared at the fundraising event, where Natarajan said that the New England Innocence Project was “grateful for his integrity.”
‘We were all crying’
After Ricciuitti overturned Rosa’s convictions, the district attorney’s office planned to put him on trial again.
Rosa’s lawyers “sent numerous emails to the court and the prosecution to address lingering issues before the fourth trial, all of which had remained unanswered,” Natarajan said.
“It was as if no one but us could be bothered to communicate about this case, even though another wrongful conviction would mean a death sentence for this wonderful man,” she continued.
Finally, the district attorney’s office sent the lawyers an email in March, one month before the trial was scheduled.
“All of a sudden, with no explanation, no court date, the prosecutors responded to a chain of unanswered emails with an attachment,” Natarajan said. “That attachment was a piece of paper indicating that all charges would be dropped against Tommy Rosa. This one paper signaled the end of this 40-year-old saga that harmed so many people and had so little to do with justice.”
Natarajan said she called Rosa and told him the news. Then there was a long silence. She asked Rosa’s wife, Virginia Rosa, what he was doing.
“She told me he was crying,” Natarajan said. “We were all crying—tears of relief and also extreme joy at a life that could finally be lived after so much suffering. And since that time, Tommy’s been able to feel joy without weight on his shoulders.”
In May, Thomas Rosa filed a pending lawsuit against Massachusetts under a state law that allows victims of wrongful incarceration to seek financial compensation, according to court records. The law caps compensation at $1 million, which Natarajan said “is woefully inadequate for all that Tommy has suffered.”
After Natarajan told Rosa’s story, her client got on stage with his wife, his son Emmanuel “Manny” Rosa, and his son by marriage Angel Lopez.
“The greatest fan of my life, my mom, she died a little before I got out,” Thomas Rosa said. “You know, I’m a God-fearing person. She’s up there watching with a smile.”
“But I have this beautiful family around me,” he continued. “I have grandchildren now [and] I’m glad I get to see them smile when they see me. … I’m so happy to be up here thanking everybody.”
The attendees clapped for Rosa.
“I love you too,” he told the crowd. “And I get to spend all these years looking at these beautiful faces.”
