Man exonerated in 3 killings, free after 4 decades in prison
A Kansas City, Missouri, man who was jailed for more than 40 years for three murders was released from prison Tuesday after a judge ruled that he was wrongfully convicted in 1979.
Kevin Strickland, 62, has always maintained that he was home watching television and had nothing to do with the killings, which happened when he was 18 years old. He learned of the decision when the news scrolled across the TV screen as he was watching a soap opera. He said inmates began screaming.
“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 told reporters as he left the Western Missouri Correctional Center in Cameron. “Joy, sorrow, fear. I am trying to figure out how to put them together.”
He said he would like to get involved in efforts to “keep this from happening to someone else,” saying the criminal justice system “needs to be torn down and redone.”
Judge James Welsh, a retired Missouri Court of Appeals judge, ruled after a three-day evidentiary hearing requested by a Jackson County prosecutor who said evidence used to convict Strickland had since been recanted or disproven.
Welsh wrote in his judgement that “clear and convincing evidence” was presented that “undermines the Court’s confidence in the judgement of conviction.” He noted that no physical evidence linked Strickland to the crime scene and that a key witness recanted before her death.
“Under these unique circumstances, the Court’s confidence in Strickland’s convictions is so undermined that it cannot stand, and the judgment of conviction must be set aside,” Welsh wrote in ordering Strickland’s immediate release.
Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker, who pushed for Strickland’s freedom, moved quickly to dismiss the criminal charges against him so he could be released.
“To say we’re extremely pleased and grateful is an understatement,” she said in a statement.