Mo. Man Jailed 42 Years After 1978 Triple-Murder Is Innocent, Prosecutor Says

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

A Missouri man who has served more than 42 years in prison for a triple-murder should be set free because the evidence used to convict him doesn't add up, says the prosecutor whose office put the man behind bars.

"All those who have reviewed the evidence in recent months agree -- Kevin Strickland deserves to be exonerated," Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said in a statement released Monday. "This is a profound error we must correct now."

Strickland was 18 in 1978 when the sole surviving witness of an attack in a Kansas City home that killed three others — Sherrie Black, John Walker, and Larry Ingram — identified him as a participant in the shooting. The witness, Cynthia Douglas, was shot in the leg and said she survived by playing dead.

-snip-

Douglas — whose testimony proved pivotal in Strickland's conviction for the murders — eventually recanted after hearing the confessions of others, including Bell, who said in 1979, "I'm telling the State and the society out there right now that Kevin Strickland wasn't there at that house," reports KCTV.

In 2009, Douglas herself contacted the Innocence Project, according to the TV station.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/mo-man-jailed-42-years-after-1978-triple-murder-is-innocent-prosecutor-says/ar-BB1gCmox

And it took 12 years to correct that mistake?

[brush]

1. I suspected strongly, but just had to check at the link...

the innocent guy is a Black man. They took his life from him and no amount of money, if the do grant it to him, can give that back to him.

[LenaBaby61]

2. How'd I know he'd more than likely be African-American?

[malaise]

4. More likely

I didn't even check - I just knew

[pansypoo53219]

3. well, if it was texas, he'd be dead already.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. We can do better.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

6. And this is why we shouldn't have a death penalty.

In 1944 South Carolina executed by electrocution a 14 year old black boy who was found guilty of murder by an all-white jury which deliberated 10 minutes before returning a verdict.

The boy was so small he had to sit on a stack of books to fit the chair.

70 years later his conviction was overturned.

BTW, South Carolina last month approved the use of a firing squad for executions.