State balks at DNA test from 1981 murder

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Laurin Sellers | Sentinel Staff Writer
July 29, 2008

A bloody T-shirt helped convict Bill Dillon of murder more than two decades ago. But test results released Monday show his DNA was not on it.

His attorneys hope to use those tests to free him after 27 years in prison.

But even they don't expect the prison door to swing open any time soon for the 48-year-old man from Brevard County.

"If the state is not going to release Mr. Dillon immediately, absolutely we will go into court and ask the judge to vacate the sentence based on his innocence," said Seth Miller, executive director of the Innocence Project of Florida, which is part of a national network that uses DNA testing to free wrongly convicted people.

The State Attorney's Office discounts the significance of the tests in Dillon's case and points to other evidence, including items that haven't been tested for DNA and statements from witnesses, as reasons to keep him behind bars.

"It would be irresponsible to release him immediately," Assistant State Attorney Wayne Holmes said. "What I'm looking for is DNA evidence of actual innocence, and so far I haven't seen it."

Dillon is serving a life sentence for the Aug. 17, 1981, murder of James Dvorak, whose nude body was found in the palmettos along Canova Beach in southern Brevard.