Ex-soldier serving life for teen’s ’82 murder seeks DNA test

HONOLULU (AP) — A former U.S. soldier has been imprisoned for nearly 40 years for the attempted rape and murder of an Army officer’s teenage son, who was found dead in a bunker at a Hawaii base.

The Hawaii Innocence Project says Clifford Hubbard didn’t commit those crimes and is asking a judge to order DNA testing, which wasn’t available at the time. In a motion filed Friday, his lawyers say there’s no direct evidence linking Hubbard to the 1982 suffocation of 14-year-old Derek Kusumoto.

The motion says military prosecutors relied on a strand of hair and a soldier, who changed his statement six times, then went AWOL before Hubbard’s trial.

Innocence project co-director Kenneth Lawson says the motion took years to complete because they can only communicate with Hubbard via mail.

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AP investigative researcher Randy Herschaft in New York contributed to this report.