North Carolina prosecutors say there is no doubt that scores of people are guilty despite the use of questionable blood evidence in their cases.

The North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys released its review of 147 cases Tuesday, saying each conviction has additional overwhelming evidence of guilt. That evidence includes confessions, eyewitnesses, ballistics, DNA or a combination.

Seth Edwards, district attorney for the 2nd Prosecutorial District, which includes Beaufort County, addressed two Beaufort County cases that were reviewed in a news release issued Tuesday.

“Two of the Beaufort County cases reviewed by Edwards included the prosecutions of Patricia Hopkins and Terry Ball. In the Hopkins case, the decomposed body of Regina Whitfield was found near the airport in Washington in September, 1992. Whitfield had been reported missing about 10 days earlier,” reads the release. “According to Edwards, the blood evidence in question arose from a few drops of what appeared to be blood on a trash can in the house where Whitfield was killed. Based upon a complete review of the case file, Edwards determined this blood evidence played little or no part in the prosecution of Hopkins. ‘The evidence was not introduced at trial, and there were numerous other items of physical evidence tying Hopkins to the crime,’ he said, ‘not to mention an eyewitness that saw her disposing of the dead body.’”

On Nov. 3, 1993, Hopkins pled guilty to aiding and abetting second-degree murder.

In the case of Terry Ball, he was convicted of first-degree murder for the killing of Laura Krantz. During the early morning hours of June 17, 1993, Ball appeared at the front door of the Rev. Tony Krantz’s residence and asked him for money, the release reads. Krantz invited Ball inside. Later, Ball later pulled a knife on Krantz and stabbed him. Laura Krantz was awakened by the commotion, at which time Ball chased her down the hall and stabbed her numerous times, killing her, according to the release. Ball was sentenced to death.

According to Edwards, the blood evidence in question in the Ball case was not introduced at trial and played no part in the outcome of the case.

These prosecutions occurred prior to Edwards becoming district attorney.

District attorneys began their review last year after an analysis of the State Bureau of Investigation’s crime lab found that officials improperly reported results from blood testing in some 200 cases. Attorney General Roy Cooper asked for the analysis after testimony by an SBI agent at the hearing of a man wrongly imprisoned nearly 17 years for a murder conviction.

That man, Greg Taylor, was exonerated and freed.

Associated Press writer Mike Baker contributed to this article.