TAMPA, Fla. — A Tampa man who spent 37 years in prison for a crime he did not commit says he’s not angry about the time he lost behind bars. 

“I can’t get it back,” Robert Duboise said. “Being mad doesn’t get it back.”

Duboise was arrested in 1983 for the murder of Barbara Grams, 19, who was killed behind a dental office in Tampa.

Prosecutors linked him to the crime by suggesting a bite mark on the victim matched Duboise’s jaw and teeth — a method of identification that experts have since discredited. They also claimed a jailhouse informant had said Duboise was guilty.

A jury convicted Duboise of first-degree murder and attempted sexual battery. The judge sentenced him to death, though the Florida Supreme Court later changed the sentence to life in prison.

For Duboise, the sentence was irrelevant.

“If I got executed, I did. So what?” he said. “I need to prove I didn’t do this. I’m not worried about the sentence. And I wasn’t.”

Instead, Duboise said he spent his time behind bars doing maintenance work at the prison and writing letters about his innocence to anyone he thought would listen.

Decades later, the Innocence Project — a nonprofit that works to exonerate people who have been wrongly convicted of a crime — took up his cause. They used DNA evidence, which was unavailable at the trial, to prove it was not possible for Duboise to have committed the murder. The DNA evidence instead linked two other men to the killing.

Our news partners, the Tampa Bay Times, spent the last year with Robert Duboise. The first article of their four-part series came out Wednesday, May 29. The articles will come out every Wednesday and Sunday through June 9. Watch our interview with their reporters above.

In 2020, Duboise was freed. He later sued the city of Tampa, which approved a $14 million settlement, some of which he has already received.

“I knew I was innocent," Duboise said. "I was hoping and keeping faith I would be proven innocent someday. I just chose not to be bitter about it.”

Instead, Duboise spends his time working and trying to understand the massive changes to the world he’s re-entering — he said learning how cell phones worked was a significant effort.

He does maintenance work at a local country club, odd jobs for friends and work on his house in Tampa. He recognizes that many people might be surprised he doesn’t put his feet up and relax, using the $14 million settlement to pay his bills.

“I’m sure they would (think that),” Duboise said. “But that’s what I do. What else am I supposed to do? I can’t calm myself down enough to go to Disney World, relax and have fun. I haven’t learned to do that yet.”

Though he may be at peace with what happened, Duboise said he still has things he'd like to do with his newfound freedom.

Duboise said when he was arrested at just 18 years old, his only goals in life were to get married, have kids and raise a family. Now in his late 50s, he hasn’t given up on the possibility of someday adopting a child.