Fate of killer convicted in 1981 Orlando-area case lies in DNA

Innocence Project pursues a 1981 case involving questionable testimony.

Laurin Sellers | Sentinel Staff Writer

December 10, 2007

COCOA BEACH - For 26 years, Bill Dillon has insisted he was not the person who beat a man to death in the palmettos along Canova Beach. Dillon, now 48, is serving a life sentence for the August 1981 slaying of James Dvorak, 40, of Melbourne Shores.

Prosecutors said recently that Dillon received a fair trial.

But evidence against him began crumbling within weeks of the jury's guilty verdict.

Key witnesses recanted their testimonies, a nationally known dog handler who linked Dillon to the slaying was discredited, and a sheriff's investigator was demoted after it was revealed he had sex with the state's main witness before the trial.

Now, the Innocence Project, a New York-based legal center that uses DNA to overturn convictions, is working on Dillon's case.

The same group helped exonerate another Brevard County man after he served 22 years in prison for a rape he didn't commit.

Attorneys are awaiting the results of DNA testing on several pieces of evidence in Dillon's case, including a pair of black-and-blue flip-flops found at the scene and a yellow T-shirt, fished from a dumpster about a mile away and stained with blood that prosecutors now say didn't come from Dillon or Dvorak.

Dillon's family members said they don't need tests to find the truth.

"I know my brother is innocent," said Dillon's stepbrother Joe Dillon of Palm Bay. "My mom has a tumor on her brain, and I pray she will see him get out. I pray that when she dies, she'll be able to know her son was cleared of this."


Disputed trial tactics

Lawyers for the Innocence Project said there are striking similarities between Dillon's case and that of Wilton Dedge, the Port St. John man who was released from prison in 2004 after DNA tests on semen proved he was not the one who raped and tortured a teenage girl in 1981.

In both cases, according to local defense attorneys, prosecutors used two disputed trial tactics that were common practice in Brevard courtrooms in the early 1980s.

One tactic involved offering deals to cellmates in exchange for their testimony, a strategy that became so frequent a Brevard judge complained to the governor.

The other was the use of Pennsylvania dog handler John Preston, whose claim that his dogs could track a human scent years after a crime prompted another judge to halt a 1984 murder trial, ordering Preston to perform an independent tracking test before testifying. The handler, who had helped Brevard police and prosecutors in at least 60 felony cases, left town before taking the stand after his dog failed the test, unable to follow a 4-day-old scent over a 1 1/2 -mile route.

"It was the order of the day back then when there was a weak case to sweep the jail and make fantastic deals with inmates for their testimony," said longtime Brevard-Seminole Public Defender J.R. Russo, who noted that the inmates often recanted.

"They also would bring in John Preston, whose dog always proved whatever the state wanted it to prove," Russo added. "I can't think of a case where the dog was used and they didn't get a conviction. He put on a good show, and that's all it was."

Brevard Assistant State Attorney Michael Hunt, who helped prosecute Dillon in 1981, said recently that the state uses credible, admissible evidence in every case. The cellmate used in Dillon's case, Hunt said, was not rewarded for testifying.

Also, in 1981, using dogs to gather evidence was new. And although it was challenged by defense attorneys, it was not discredited until three years later, he said.

Preston, who boasted that his dog could track a suspect's scent over water and more than eight years after a crime, was further discredited in 1985 when it was revealed on national television that he had no formal training, despite his claims.

Efforts to locate him for this story were unsuccessful. In 1981, Preston and his dog traveled the country wowing juries, winning convictions and charging $300 an hour.

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