First love wins out after 36 years wrongly jailed
Over the decades Alfred Chestnut served in prison for a murder he did not commit, he carried around a photograph next to his inmate card, of a girl he met when he was 14 years old.
After 36 years behind bars, Chestnut, 53, spent his first Thanksgiving out with his ‘‘first love’’ and now fiancee, Angela McKnight.
‘‘I carried a picture of her on my ID forever, and I always thought about it,’’ he told The Times. ‘‘Me putting that out there in the universe, God already knew what I needed. It was ordained.’’
Chestnut was 16 when he, Ransom Watkins and Andrew Stewart, were convicted of the murder of 14-year-old DeWitt Duckett. But last week they were freed after investigators confirmed one of the most stark miscarriages of justice in US history.
For the couple it is the chance to begin again. Both say they will continue to fight for other victims of injustice.
Speaking for the first time since his release, Mr Chestnut said: ‘‘It was like I was caught in a nightmare and couldn’t wake up. It was a struggle for me. I had to try to cope, it was an every-day process. They put me in an adult prison and back in those days, you hear a lot of stuff about how prison was, so you’re afraid.’’
Chestnut never forgot McKnight, however. ‘‘She was always on my heart,’’ he said, and in adulthood, they rekindled the romance that was stolen from them as children.
McKnight began working with a group to support families of prisoners and Chestnut never gave up attempting to clear his name, using funds his mother and McKnight raised to obtain court documents. It emerged that evidence had been hidden from the defence lawyers and another teenager, Michael Willis, later confessed to the killing. He died in a shooting in 2002, and witnesses from the case later recanted their testimony.
Chestnut, Watkins and Stewart were arrested for the murder of Duckett, who was shot in a Baltimore school in November 1983. Despite conflicting reports, the three were convicted and sentenced amid intense public pressure to resolve in the case.