2 Men Charged After 4 Freed in Homicide

Two men have been charged with killing a medical student in 1986, a crime that four other men spent years in jail for before they were exonerated last year, authorities said Thursday.

Duane Roach, 46, and Eddie Harris, 38, were arrested Monday in Chicago. It was not immediately clear whether they had attorneys.

Cook County prosecutor Dick Devine said police immediately began investigating the case anew after DNA evidence cleared the other four and charges were dropped in December.

“We owe no less to the community and to the family of Lori Roscetti,” Devine said. “We are satisfied that these two individuals are responsible.”

He said a witness tipped authorities to Roach and Harris, but he refused to release further details.

Roscetti, 23, was abducted as she drove home from school after a night of studying. Police say she was taken to a railroad trestle and was sexually assaulted, kicked and bludgeoned to death with a chunk of concrete.

The four men cleared in the case--Marcellius Bradford, Omar Saunders, Larry Ollins and his cousin Calvin Ollins--have sued police, prosecutors and crime lab workers who convicted them. Three of the men spent more than 14 years in prison and were serving sentences of life without parole; Bradford served more than six years after testifying against the others in what he said was a deal made to spare him a life term.

Prosecutors said the initial investigation linking the men to Roscetti’s slaying was based on the best evidence available. A crime lab analyst testified that semen found on Roscetti’s body could have belonged to the men.

But a DNA expert later found that none of the four men had a blood type matching the samples. DNA tests ordered last spring found that hairs and semen stains on Roscetti’s jacket were not from any of the defendants.