People Who Got Imprisoned for Crimes They Didn’t Commit

Published July 24th, 2019

After languishing in jail for 39 years, Craig Coley (now 71) finally found justice. He was arrested for the murder of his wife and son in 1978.

The conviction was based purely on circumstantial evidence and inconsistent testimonies by witnesses. And even though Coley had an iron-clad alibi, he was still sentenced to life without parole.

Results of the DNA tests conducted with samples found in the crime scene proved conclusive: he is innocent. To compensate for his ordeal, the city of Simi Valley awarded him $21 million. Though money can never compensate for the injustice done to him, it will help him with legal costs and (hopefully) to start a new life.

This might be a very sorry tale but Coley’s case is not a first. In fact, he is only one of the thousands who had been wrongly convicted in the country’s judicial history. Here are four other people who were imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit:

William Jackson Marion

He’s one of the people who got imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit. Imagine convicting and hanging a man for the murder of his close friend. Then for that “murdered” friend to turn up many years later alive and well. That is what the jury at William Jackson Marion must have felt.

Marion and his friend, John Cameron, both left their hometown in Nebraska to work for a railroad. However, only Marion made it back home with Cameron’s horses nonetheless. Naturally, this created suspicions.

When human bones were found at the site near where the two men worked, witnesses identified them to be that of Cameron’s. Marion was arrested and subsequently hanged based on circumstantial evidence.

Four years later, Cameron turned up alive. He later explained that he was traveling the continent during the time he was thought to be dead. Adding that he was avoiding a paternity allegation so he sold his horses to Marion and went off.

In 1987, a century after his hanging, the State of Nebraska finally granted Marion a posthumous pardon.

Charles Hudspeth

Some circumstances of Hudspeth’s case echoed that of Marion’s. One is that they were both executed based on flimsy evidence. Another is that their supposed “victims” later turned out to be alive and unharmed.

Charles, who also goes by the name of Andrew J. Hudspeth and one of the people who got imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit, was convicted for killing George Watkins. Rebecca Watkins, George’s wife, alleged that they are lovers and that he killed her husband to get him out of the way. She said that they are planning to get married and George’s death is essential to that.

Her testimony became the basis of Hudspeth’s conviction even though George’s body was never found. He was hanged on December 30, 1892.

Never giving up, Hudspeth’s attorney tracked George after 6 months. He was happily living on a farm in Kansas after leaving his wife behind in Arkansas. Unfortunately, Hudspeth’s conviction was never overturned. Nor has he been granted an official pardon by an Arkansas governor.

James Joseph Richardson

October 25, 1967 was a sad day for the Richardsons. Six of their seven children died from poisoning. The last one would die the day after. Worse, that incident, which ripped the family apart, would also send their father James Richardson to prison. He would suffer there for 21 years before the conviction would be overturned.

Richardson was an African-American migrant farmworker who was living in Florida at the time of the incident. He and his wife, Annie, were both working at the orange groves 16 miles away from their home. Suddenly, a call came in from their children’s school saying that one of their children was ill. When they arrived at the hospital, all six of them died and another one was barely hanging on.

Investigations were made and the police found a sack of parathion in the shed. Parathion is a highly toxic insecticide used in agricultural crops. Testimonies gathered from the children’s caretaker Bessie Reece points at Richardson as the culprit.

Even though her statements are inconsistent and she was on parole at the time of the trial, the jury believed her. Richardson was sentenced to death and was even on death row for five years. He was only saved when in 1972, the Supreme Court ruled that death penalties were unconstitutional.

In 1988, Reece confessed to poisoning the children to her caregivers at a nursing home in Arcadia. But no one took her confession seriously because she is already suffering from Alzheimer’s. It would, however, proved useful when Richardson was granted a retrial years later.

Due to inconsistent evidence and many other loopholes including evidence of a cover-up by the local sheriff, the conviction was overturned. Richardson was released and is now a retired ranch caretaker in Wichita, Kansas.