In a result that has shocked hundreds of his supporters, DNA testing of evidence from a 1983 rape has failed to exonerate long time Massachusetts prisoner Benjamin LaGuer. Instead it has strongly implicated him in the robbery and rape of a 59 year old mentally disturbed woman of which he has always maintained his innocence.

LaGuer's case has all the classic elements of a wrongful conviction.

A black man convicted by an all white jury on nothing but the testimony of a schizophrenic victim, LaGuer's exoneration seemed certain last month when testing of forensic evidence which prosecutor John Conte had insisted came from LaGuer was shown to have been from the victim. A set of four fingerprints was found on the phone, the cord of which was used to bind the victim, none matched LaGuer. The fingerprint evidence has since 'disappeared', as has several other vital pieces of forensic evidence.

When the victim told police that her assailant was 'black skinned', LaGuer was immediately arrested as the only black living in the same apartment block. LaGuer immediately offered to have a photograph taken which could be shown to the victim for identification and seemed sincerely shocked when she confirmed that the man in the picture was her attacker.

LaGuer still insists he is innocent, although few of his former supporters now believe him.

''I was brutally disappointed,'' said Allen Fletcher, who had written several articles early in the LaGuer saga for the Worcester Telegram and Gazette and now publishes Worcester magazine. "There is no way he is innocent," he told the Boston Globe.

Adding credence to LaGuer's claims is the longstanding campaign waged by the Worcester County district attorney to prevent the evidence in his case from being tested.