The consolation may not live up to the decades lost, but it will at least allow him to bounce back. As France Info spotted, the American Kevin Strickland was released from prison last week and cleared after 43 years behind bars in Missouri. According to the BBC, it is the longest unjustified incarceration in the history of the state and the seventh in the whole country.
Except that Missouri only provides financial compensation for miscarriages of justice in very specific cases. And after all this time, the now 62-year-old man has no home, no job, no savings. A pot was therefore launched by the Midwest Innocent Project association, which defends it, and, very quickly, solidarity operated. In a few days, 1.6 million dollars were collected (about 1.4 million euros), reports the news site.
On his release from prison, Kevin Strickland declared, in front of the journalists present, to feel “of the joy, of the sadness, of the fear” and to wish above all that what he suffered “will never happen again. anybody “. During a summer interview with ABC, when his innocence had already been recognized, he explained that if he was released, the first thing he would do would be to go see his mother. But the process to release him was delayed, and she died on October 21, a month before his actual release.
No fingerprint, no proof and an alibi
His arrest dates back to 1978. At the time, an armed gang entered a Kansas City house and shot dead three people. Another, injured, survived and described the scene to the police. Two men were first arrested, reports France Info. Then it was Kevin Strickland’s turn. However, he was with his parents, watching television, at the time of the facts.
The only element against him: he had crossed the two suspects that very morning. Apart from this meeting, neither imprint nor tangible proof. Yet at the time, the jury – all white while Kevin Strickland is African-American – sentenced him to life in prison.
It was ultimately an investigation by the Kansas City Star newspaper that led to the reopening of Kevin Strickland’s case, following, in particular, the discovery of letters that had been sent by the only living witness attesting that the one who is now in his sixties is innocent.
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