Wrongly convicted ‘killer’ finally free after 40 years
A PRISONER found guilty in 1979 of three murders has finally been freed after the verdicts were overturned.
Kevin Strickland, 62, had always said he was at home watching TV on the night of the shootings in April 1978, when he was 18.
Now Missouri judge James Welsh has ruled there is ‘clear and convincing evidence’ to undermine his conviction.
No physical evidence linked him to the murder scene, a house in Kansas City.
And key witness Cynthia Douglas – the sole survivor – later recanted, saying police pressured her to name him.
Mr Strickland was watching a TV soap with other inmates when the news he had been cleared scrolled across the screen.
‘I’m not necessarily angry. It’s a lot. I think I’ve created emotions that you all don’t know about just yet,’ he said as he left jail. ‘Joy, sorrow, fear. I am trying to figure out how to put them together.’ His
first trial ended in a hung jury when the only black juror called for acquittal.
He was later convicted by an all-white jury of killing Larry Ingram, 21, John Walker, 20, and Sherrie Black, 22.
Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said: ‘This brings justice – finally – to a man who has tragically suffered so greatly.’