Washington, November 23, 2021 – Free after 43 years, Kevin Strickland he was acquitted of the triple murder charge of which he had always pleaded not guilty. His case is the longest detention of an innocent in Missouri history and one of the longest in the entire United States.
Kevin Strickland is African American, in 1979 he was sentenced to life imprisonment, with no possibility of having parole for the first 50 years, by a jury composed exclusively of whites because accused by a witness, who had later retracted, of having killed in 1978 of Sherrie Black, 22 anni, Larry Ingram, 21, e John Walker, 20 anni. But against Strickland there was no evidence, and his family and other witnesses had declared that he was not at the scene of the crime, but that was not enough. In fact, the case was built on the testimony of Cynthia Douglas, sole survivor and eyewitness, who later changed her testimony several times, claiming she was under pressure from the police.
Kevin is now 62 years old and, as the Washington Post writes, has expressed two wishes: to go to his mother’s grave, and to see the ocean for the first time. The judge who released him, James Welsh, declared with a wooden gavel: “The conviction must be overturned immediately”, underlining that “in this unique circumstance the confidence of the Court in Strickland’s conviction is so undermined that can’t hold up. ”
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