Douglas Echols - The Charges

The Charges

On February 1, 1986, a young woman, Donna Givens, was leaving a Savannah nightclub in the early hours of the morning. As she left, three men accosted her, forced her into a car and drove her into an unknown neighborhood. Two of the men brought her into a house and raped her. Later, while they were arguing, Givens managed to escape and called the police. When asked to show police the location of her rape, Givens brought police to the house of Samuel Scott, where he and Echols were inside. She identified Echols as the man who held her down during the rape. Scott fled the scene because he had cocaine on him. Echols gave a false name. Even though Echols and Scott claimed mistaken identity and had two people testify to their whereabouts at the time of the incident, the court convicted them both based on Givens’ eyewitness identification and identification of the house. In the trial, Echols refused to testify against Scott. On March 26, 1987, Scott received a life sentence plus 20 years. Echols received concurrent sentences of 15 years for rape, 15 years for kidnapping, and one year for false statement.