GOLDSBORO - Science freed Dwayne Dail last summer after he spent half his life in prison for rape. On Monday, it helped indict a man investigators say eluded them for 20 years.

William Jackson Neal Jr., a 52-year-old Goldsboro man, was charged with several child sex offenses stemming from the September 1987 attack on a 12-year-old girl. Neal is three years into a seven-year term in state prison for a string of burglaries.

A single droplet of semen on the girl's nightgown -- forgotten for two decades -- upended the lives of three families. Investigators tested the droplet last summer, years after science became sophisticated enough to match a man to his fluids. The DNA test proved Dail wasn't the rapist. Neal's name arose after investigators matched the droplet with his DNA profile in a database of North Carolina's convicted criminals.

Neal's arrest marked a quiet moment in the tale that has captivated the region since last summer. In August, shrieks and sobs pierced the same courtroom as a judge freed Dail.

On Monday, as Neal came to court, there were no tears or speeches. Just a short man scooting across a courtroom floor in slippers and an orange jumpsuit. Strangers, in court to deal with their own troubles, looked on and whispered, searching his face for the similarity that caused a little girl to mistake Dail for him.

Dail has been eager for another man to feel the weight of the charges he bore for 18 years.

"This brings me a small sense of justice," Dail said by phone from Florida on Monday. "What he did to me and my family is absolutely criminal. We will never be able to get over this."

Neither will the woman who, as a child, watched a stranger slip through her bedroom window and force himself on her. Now a 33-year-old woman, she is desperate to see Neal punished.

"I hate this man. Not even so much for raping me but for letting me send an innocent man to prison. He knew the truth, and he didn't tell it, and I disrupted another man's life," said the woman, who is not being identified.

The N&O does not generally identify those who report being sexually assaulted.

Broken hearts

Neal's indictment blindsided his family, who are longtime Goldsboro residents well regarded in the community. They have watched Neal battle a drug addiction that drove him to convenience markets in the dark of night to steal cigarettes, said his sister, Robin Bjorling. Twice, prosecutors persuaded judges to declare him a habitual felon, a label saved for those who rack up so many charges that court officials fear they will never get on track.

Neal's family tried to get him into drug rehab, Bjorling said. Instead, his family spent weekends visiting him across steel tables in prison. Bjorling told her children their uncle was on a trip.

"He has broken our hearts a million and one ways over the years," Bjorling said. "This we didn't count on. I know they say DNA evidence is a guarantee, but it's just too hard to believe a family member could do this. I guess I'll never fully accept it."

Bjorling watched the news last August and saw clips of Dwayne Dail being released. Her heart ached for him. She had no idea his tragedy would soon envelop her family.

"It's a horrible nightmare for all of the families involved," Bjorling said. "I just never thought our family would be pulled into it."

Bjorling said her mother started to worry last fall that her son might be implicated in the Dail case. Prison officials moved him to a facility in Smithfield. Investigators kept visiting him. He told his mother they came to talk to him about the case because he'd known Dail's brother.

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