Kevin Strickland, 62, was exonerated Tuesday morning after serving more than 42 years in prison at the Western Missouri Correctional Center in Cameron, Missouri, CNN reports. The man was convicted in 1979 of a triple homicide, for which he was sentenced to 50 years in prison without the possibility of parole. Kevin Strickland has always vehemently denied committing this crime.
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On April 25, 1978, four people who were in a Kansas City home drinking and smoking were hit by bullets from four men. Three of them had been shot: Sherrie Black, 22, Larry Ingram, 22, and John Walker, 20. The fourth victim, a young woman, had been injured in the leg and arm and had named Kevin Strickland as the killer, as he explained that he was at home watching television.
At the trial, which opens in 1979, she reiterated her accusation, as detailed on Washington Post. Vincent Bell, one of the attackers, had assumed his responsibilities and tried to counter the miscarriage of justice that he felt was coming: “You made a hell of a mistake. I’m telling you the truth here, Kevin Strickland was not with us in the house, “he said in court. Nothing helped, the man had been convicted and will spend 15,487 days in prison for this crime of which he is not the author. “My father warned me to stay away from Bell, that he was only going to bring me trouble,” recalls Kevin Strickland.
15,487 days in prison for a crime he did not commit
On Tuesday, Senior Judge James Welsh dismissed all charges against Strickland and ordered his immediate release after 15,487 days in prison. It is the longest unjustified incarceration in the history of the state. According to data from the National Registry of Exonerations, which has recorded exonerations since 1989, it is also the seventh longest wrongful conviction recognized in the United States. Kevin Strickland said outside court: “I didn’t think that day would come.”
He will not receive a penny in compensation from the state
Lawyers for the Midwest Innocence Project, an association that has been working for months on Kevin Strickland’s release, told the BBC they were “delighted” with the news. “We were confident that any judge who saw the evidence would conclude Mr. Strickland was innocent and that is exactly what happened,” Tricia Rojo Bushnell, legal director of the Midwest Innocence Project, said in a statement. She added: “Nothing will give him back the 43 years he lost and he is going home to a state that will not pay him a dime for the time he stole from him. It is not justice. “.
According to the Midwest Innocence Project, the state of Missouri only compensates exonerated prisoners with DNA evidence, not eyewitness testimony. Fortunately, solidarity took over and this Friday, more than a million dollars in donations had already been collected in favor of the former convict.
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His first stop? His mother’s grave
Kevin Strickland immediately went to meditate at the grave of his mother, who died in August. “This is the first stop we’ve made,” said her lawyer, Tricia Rojo Bushnell, in an interview. The former prisoner had not been able to get there until now.
Then, the man planned to take the road towards the ocean, which he had never seen in his life.
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