CLEVELAND, Nov. 21 (UPI) -- Two men who spent almost 40 years behind bars for killing a Cleveland businessman were released Friday after being cleared of the crime.
Prosecutors in Cuyahoga County dropped the charges against Wiley Bridgeman, 60, and Ricky Jackson, 57. Bridgeman's brother Ronnie, who now uses the name Kwame Ajamu, was also convicted and had been released earlier.
Ajamu and his brother hugged after Bridgeman was freed.
The three men were identified as the killers of businessman Harold Franks in 1975 by a 13-year-old boy and received death sentences, later converted to life in prison. The witness recanted recently and said he was pressured by police to make the identification.
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Franks, a collector on money orders, was attacked outside a convenience store by killers who threw acid on him and shot him. They also wounded the wife of the store owner before taking off with Franks' briefcase.
Common Pleas Judge David Matia ordered both men released after brief separate hearings. He vacated their convictions for aggravated murder and aggravated robbery.
"The bitterness is over with; I carried that too long,'' Bridgeman said.
Brian Howe, a lawyer for the Ohio Innocence Project, said a minister helped persuade the witness, Eddie Vernon, to change his story.
"The first time the witness recanted was to his pastor in a hospital bed in 2013. And it was his pastor who encouraged him to come forward, to speak about his involvement in the case back in 1975. The pastor encouraged him to admit he did not really witness what happened back in 1975," Howe said.
The men's case was also helped by an article in Cleveland Scene by writer Kyle Swenson titled :"What the Boy Saw: A child's testimony put three men on death row."
"The neighborhood saw it differently," Howe said. With no DNA evidence, the recantation and supporting testimony from others was critical.
