Mystery 3rd man revealed in DNA tests for 2017 Worcester bridge attack
The list of people tested for a DNA match to sperm found on a 7-year-old girl's underwear — after she was thrown from a Worcester bridge in 2017 — includes not just the child's father and the defendant, Joshua Hubert , but a third man not previously mentioned in the trial.
His name surfaced on the sixth day of Hubert's trial Friday, when Judge Karin Bell gave the Worcester Superior Court jurors a set of "stipulations" after their lunch break. Bell explained these were facts both the prosecution and defense had agreed on, and the jury was required to accept them as true.
Earlier in the week, the jury was told by prosecutors that there is no forensic evidence linking Hubert, 43, to the charges of rape, attempted murder and kidnapping related to the Aug. 27, 2017 incident. Hubert has been accused of taking the girl from her grandparents' home in the middle of the night, assaulting her and throwing her off the Interstate 290 overpass in Worcester.
However, sperm cells found on the girl's underwear were identified as belonging to her father. He does not face any charges in connection with the incident, and gave several explanations to the courtroom on Monday how his sperm may have gotten on his daughter's underwear.
According to Hubert's attorney, Kevin Larson, the third man who was tested — whose name was revealed in court Friday but who MassLive is not naming because he has not been charged — also had some type of involvement the night of the crime.
A woman who found the child that night in 2017 and called 911, Maeve Geary, had actually made another call before she called police, Larson said — and it was to that third man.
No additional information was given by the judge or prosecutors on the man's identity, other than that he voluntarily gave his DNA sample on Dec. 14, 2017 to the Worcester Police Department, Bell told the jury.
This sample was then sent to the Massachusetts State Police Crime Laboratory and a DNA profile was created from his sample. State police forensic scientist Alanna Frederick testified Friday that she tested the DNA samples of Hubert, the girl's father and the third man against the sperm found on the underwear, and that it was the girl's father who came back as a match.
The Worcester District Attorney's Office declined to comment on the third man.
It's yet another confusing piece of information in the trial, which was delayed earlier in the week due to previously undisclosed evidence coming to light — that has yet to be brought up in testimony since an adjournment filing Wednesday — after it already took eight years from when the child accused Hubert for proceedings to start.
Larson shared his frustrations outside the courtroom on Friday.
"What are we doing here? I don't know," Hubert's attorney said.
"That's why I said in my opening statement that I've been screaming into the abyss for eight years ... Everything that comes up points to Joshua Hubert's innocence," Larson said.
The trial is expected to wrap up at the beginning of next week, Bell told the jury Friday, and closing statements are expected from both sides before she allows the jury to begin deliberations.
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