. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . "34238704"^^ . . "Clarence Arnold Elkins Sr. (born January 19, 1963) is an American man who was wrongfully convicted of the 1998 rape and murder of his mother-in-law, Judith Johnson, and the rape and assault of his wife's niece, Brooke Sutton. He was convicted solely on the basis of the testimony of his wife's six-year-old niece who testified that Elkins was the perpetrator. Brooke later voiced doubts about her identification, claiming that in her initial statement when she said \"He looked like uncle Clarence\", she simply meant that he reminded her of Elkins as opposed to being a positive identification and that she only identified him in her testimony at the urging of Summit County Prosecutor Maureen O'Connor (now Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court) and the main courtroom prosecutor, Michael Carroll. Brooke recanted her statement and Elkins appealed on that basis, but his appeal was denied. The family finally gathered funding to test DNA found at the scene and he was excluded. Once again, his appeal was denied. The judge ruled that because the jury convicted Elkins without the DNA results, it was likely that he would have been convicted even if the DNA did not match. Elkins' wife, Melinda, conducted her own investigation. She eventually identified Johnson's next door neighbor, Earl Mann, a convicted sex offender, as a likely suspect. Elkins collected a cigarette end from Mann, who was serving time at the same prison, and provided it to his defense attorney for testing. Mann's DNA from the cigarette end was found to be a match to the DNA found at the crime scene. Elkins was finally exonerated after serving 6.5 years in prison. Elkins now works as an advocate to halt wrongful convictions and was instrumental in getting Ohio to pass Senate Bill 77, also known as Ohio's Innocence Protection Act. This bill contains provisions requiring the police to follow best practices for eyewitness identifications, provides incentives for the videotaping of interrogations, and requires that DNA be preserved in homicide and sexual assault cases. A 2009 documentary was made about the case titled Conviction: The True Story of Clarence Elkins. He was also featured on Crime Watch Daily with Chris Hansen in 2017. Also in 2017, Fox 8 Cleveland covered Elkins' trip to Chicago, where a procedure called \"Stellate ganglion block\" was performed on both him and his wife Molly, by Dr. Eugene Lipov. This procedure was done in order to reduce symptoms of PTSD."@en . . . . . . . "Clarence Elkins"@en . . . . . . . . . . . . "Clarence Arnold Elkins Sr. (born January 19, 1963) is an American man who was wrongfully convicted of the 1998 rape and murder of his mother-in-law, Judith Johnson, and the rape and assault of his wife's niece, Brooke Sutton. He was convicted solely on the basis of the testimony of his wife's six-year-old niece who testified that Elkins was the perpetrator."@en . . . . "Clarence Elkins"@en . . . . . . . . "1121165324"^^ . . . . . . . . . . . . . "Clarence Arnold Elkins"@en . . . . . . . . . . . "1963"^^ . . . . . . . . . . "Clarence Arnold Elkins"@en . . . "Clarence Elkins"@en . . . . . . . . "1963-01-19"^^ . . . "29020"^^ . . . "Clarence and wife Molly Elkins ."@en . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . "2"^^ . . "Wrongfully convicted of the rape and murder of his mother-in-law; activist against wrongful convictions"@en . . . . . . . "1963-01-19"^^ . . . . .