Wrongly convicted NYC murder suspect to be released after nearly 30 years

NEW YORK, Oct. 15 (UPI) -- David McCallum, a confessed New York City murder convict jailed since 1985, will be released and his conviction overturned, the Brooklyn district attorney's offices announced Wednesday..

MaCallum and friend Willie Stuckey were convicted for the October 1985 kidnapping and murder of 20-year-old Nathan Blenner, who was discovered in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn with a gunshot wound to his head.

Stuckey and McCallum both confessed, but their stories were contradictory as the confession was coerced. Both men were sentenced to serve 25 years to life in prison. Stuckey, whose conviction will also be overturned, died while in jail.

McCallum could have been freed years ago, but by maintaining his innocence, parole boards felt the inmate was not expressing appropriate remorse for the crime he was convicted of.

"At no time then or since has a single piece of forensic evidence -- or evidence of any kind -- ever tied McCallum or Stuckey to the crime," Oscar Michelen, McCallum's pro-bono attorney, wrote in a letter to Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson in January.

"My single regret in life is that David McCallum ... is still in prison," echoed boxer and fellow false-convict Rubin "Hurricane Carter" in a New York Daily News editorial two months before his April death.

"Knowing what I do, I am certain that when the facts are brought to light, Thompson will recommend his immediate release."