BOSTON, Dec. 2, 2013—More than two decades after 38-year-old Richard Gleason of Cambridge was stabbed to death inside a Dorchester apartment, the man long suspected of killing him finally admitted his guilt, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.

EUGENE SUTTON (D.O.B. 5/16/65) pleaded guilty to a charge of manslaughter in Gleason’s 1989 slaying.  Judge Christine Roach imposed the maximum sentence of 19 to 20 years in prison.  Sutton went to trial on a murder charge last year, but that trial ended in a hung jury exactly one year ago today.  Jury selection in his re-trial was scheduled to begin tomorrow.

Had the case proceeded to trial, Assistant District Attorney Ian Polumbaum of the DA’s Homicide Unit would have presented evidence and testimony to prove that on May 16, 1989, both Gleason and Sutton were inside a School Street apartment that was frequented by drug users.  The evidence would have shown that Sutton demanded money from the victim and attacked him repeatedly.  Sutton was then seen leaving the apartment as Gleason lay bleeding on the floor.

Though investigators considered Sutton a potential suspect at the time, evidence available through the 1980s and 1990s was insufficient to charge him.  Members of the Boston Police Department’s Cold Case Squad and Suffolk prosecutors began to re-examine the case in 2009 and undertook forensic testing with an eye to finding biological evidence from a source other than Gleason.

Criminalists of the Boston Police Crime Laboratory found just such a piece of evidence – a bloodstain from the exterior of Gleason’s jacket that contained Sutton’s DNA profile, on file because of his conviction on unrelated drug charges. Meanwhile, investigators re-interviewed witnesses who had been inside the apartment at the time of the killing.  Those efforts led to a grand jury investigation and Sutton’s indictment in 2011.

“Richard Gleason’s family has been waiting for this day for more than 24 years,” Conley said. “They never forgot him or gave up hope that justice would be done in his name. Today, thanks to a new generation of police and prosecutors with a new generation’s scientific tools, we were able to secure an unequivocal admission of guilt from his killer, and deliver some long overdue closure to his family.”

Michael Schultz was the DA’s assigned victim witness advocate.  Sutton was represented by Michael Doolin.

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All defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.