World News | Donations Pour in for Missouri Man Freed After 43 Years
Get latest articles and stories on World at LatestLY. More than USD 1.4 million has been raised for a man who spent 43 years behind bars before a judge overturned his conviction in a triple killing.
Kansas City (US), Nov 28 (AP) More than USD 1.4 million has been raised for a man who spent 43 years behind bars before a judge overturned his conviction in a triple killing.
The Midwest Innocence Project set up the GoFundMe fundraiser as they fought for Kevin Strickland's release, noting that he wouldn't receive compensation from Missouri and would need help paying for basic living expenses. The state only allows wrongful imprisonment payments to people who were exonerated through DNA evidence, so the 62-year-old Strickland wouldn't qualify.
Judge James Welsh, a retired Missouri Court of Appeals judge, ordered his release on Tuesday, finding that evidence used to convict Strickland had since been recanted or disproven. By Saturday evening, more than USD 1.45 million had been donated to help Strickland.
Strickland has always maintained that he was home watching television and had nothing to do with the killings, which happened in 1978 when he was 18 years old.
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As he left prison, he said he was “thankful for God walking me through this for 43 years." (AP)
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)