Dail -- Timeline
By Kenneth Fine
Published in News on November 19, 2013 4:59 PM
* Sept. 4, 1987 -- A 12-year-old girl tells police that a man climbed into her bedroom window in Jefferson Park and raped her.
* May 9, 1988 -- A Wayne County grand jury returns a true bill of indictment against Dwayne Dail on charges of first-degree burglary, first-degree sex offense, first-degree rape and taking indecent liberties with a minor. This is the day he is formally charged with the crimes.
* March 30, 1989 -- A Wayne County jury finds Dail guilty on charges of first-degree burglary, first-degree sex offense, first-degree rape and taking indecent liberties with a minor. He is sentenced to serve the rest of his life in prison for the crimes.
* Aug. 27, 2007 -- Wayne County District Attorney Branny Vickory receives verbal confirmation that semen found on the victim's nightgown excluded Dail as the perpetrator in the case.
* Aug. 28, 2007 -- Vickory asks Superior Court Judge Jack Hooks to dismiss the charges against Dail and release him from the Nash County Correctional Institute in Nashville. Dail is now free.
* Oct. 10, 2007 -- Gov. Mike Easley grants Dail a full pardon.
* January 2008 -- Dail is awarded $368,493.14 by the N.C. Industrial Commission -- compensation, they say, for the years he spent in prison for a crime he didn't commit.
* April 27, 2010 -- William Jackson Neal is convicted of the rape Dail spent nearly two decades in jail for.
* October 2010 -- Dail sues the city of Goldsboro and several members of the Goldsboro Police Department for violating his constitutional rights.
* Monday -- Members of the Goldsboro City Council agree to settle with Dail for $7.5 million and a typed apology.