PERSONAL ACCOUNTS OF HOW WRONGFUL IMPRISONMENT AFFECTED THE LIVES OF INNOCENT PEOPLE
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WILLIE GRIMES

‘ GHOST OF THE INNOCENT MAN’ : A STORY OF 24 YEARS OF WRONGFUL IMPRISONMENT

North Carolina native, Willie Grimes, spent a quarter of a century in prison for a crime he did not commit. Grimes was arrested and sentenced in 1987 to prison on charges of rape and sexual assault of a 69 year old woman. In Hickory, North Carolina, on the eve of October 24, 1987, a caucasian woman answered her door to an African American man who threatened her with a knife as he weaseled his way into her home and brutally raped her. The victim described the perpetrator as a tall black man in his mid 30s with dark skin and bushy hair. The victim was shown a lineup in days following but was unable to make an identification. About a week after the attack, the victim spoke with her neighbor, Linda McDowell, who turned out to be an informant for the police. After acquiring new details about the attack, McDowell, conferred with the police, bringing up Willie Grimes. Police returned to the victim’s house with a lineup that included Grimes. The victim correctly identified him but also mentioned that her attacker had longer hair. Grimes was arrested despite his numerous alies that all said he was at a party with them on the night of the crime.

PHOTO OF GRIMES BEFORE INCARCERATION

Despite the small amount of evidence, solely reliant on an eye witness identification, Grimes was found guilty on two counts of rape and one count of kidnapping and spent 24 years of his life locked away as a result. Grimes’ lawyer requested the physical evidence be kept. This evidence might have served useful in proving Grimes’ innocence after the North Carolina General Assembly enacted the DNA testing Statute in 2001, but it turned out the evidence had been destroyed.

PHOTO OF GRIMES DURING TRIAL

In 2003 the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence finally got around the reviewing Grimes’ case. The fingerprint card, containing the only preserved data, showed the print of a different suspect, thus proving Grimes’ was innocent the entire time. Some years later, In October of 2010, Grimes filed a petition to overturn his conviction. Not until 2012, when a hearing in front of 3 judges occurred was Grimes officially declared innocent and exonerated.

PHOTO OF GRIMES AFTER EXONERATION

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MARVIN MUTCH

In 1975, 19 year old Marvin Mutch was convicted of a crime he did not commit and served 41 years in prison for it. Mutch was charged with the Union City murder of Cassie Riley, a 13 year old girl. Witnesses placed Mutch at the scene and someone had seen his car at the park where she was said to be seen earlier that day. Also, Mutch’s clothes were wet and dirty, creating enough circumstantial evidence to find Mutch guilty. Not to mention, the shady techniques of the prosecution. Mutch’s younger sister was taken into the home of a prosecutor working on the case against Mutch based on claims that Mutch’s sister was not safe and in great danger. This situation very likely skewed the latter’s view of her brother, the situation, and her testimony.

PHOTO OF MUTCH BEFORE INCARCERATION

Despite the unjust outcome that made Mutch spend the majority of his life in prison, he continued to fight. He visited the law library ever so frequently, becoming a self taught legal expert. Once eligible for parole in the 1980s he sat in a room full of parole board officials pleading his innocence. Despite the numerous efforts he made to prove his innocence the parole board told him he would have to confess to the crime in order for them to consider his release. He finally caved to this advice and created a story in which he stated his (false) guiltiness. After this very whimsical, made up story was told, the parole board poked holes in it, causing him to admit he made it up. Despite Mutch doing just as the parole board had advised him to do after numerous visits to them, this broke his credibility in their eyes and did not get him anywhere.

Despite getting nowhere with the parole board, new evidence surfaced in a book entitled, “Hunting Evil” that delved back into the Cassie Riley case. The book helped unveil the true guilty party, James Daveggio. Daveggio was a former boyfriend of Cassie’s who committed many sexually oriented crimes. If the police had not been so eager and pressured by society to get a conviction, their investigations would have gone in a completely different direction. Although Daveggio was questioned back in 1974 nothing came of it.
This new twist of the evidence caused Mutch’s story to grow in support tremendously. “The Innocence Project,” a group who helps to free innocent people, took Mutch’s case and Mutch no longer had to fight for his freedom alone. They put their energy into the parole board because it seemed too difficult a task to prove his innocence through the circumstantial evidence. They spent 2 years preparing for Marvin’s 2006 parole board hearing. After that hearing Mutch was deemed suitable for a parole and the tough fought journey seemed to be coming to a close. However, there was one last step in this tedious process. The governor, at the time, Arnold Schwarzenegger, must review all parole decisions and sign off on them. Schwarzenegger denied Mutch’s parole on the day before his intended release, causing Mutch to spend another 10 years before he was released on governor Jerry Brown’s sign off.

PHOTO OF MUTCH AFTER EXONERATION

VIDEO DOCUMENTARY ON MUTCH’S STORY AND LIFE WITHIN THE PRISON SYSTEM
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STEVEN AVERY

On July 29, 1985, at approximately 3:50 p.m., Penny Ann Beernsten was out running along the Lake Michigan shoreline and was apprehended by an unknown man who forced her into a wooded area and sexually assaulted her.

Based on a physical description of Beernsten’s attacker, police provided a photo array of nine men. Beernsten selected the photograph of Steven Avery, who was arrested the following day.

AVERY’S MUG SHOT

At trial, Beernsten identified Avery as her attacker. A state forensic examiner testified that a hair recovered from a shirt of Avery’s was consistent with Beernsten’s hair, but did not present qualifying information about the limitations of hair microscopy.

Avery presented 16 alibi witnesses, including the clerk of a store in Green Bay, Wisconsin, who recalled Avery, accompanied by his wife and five children, buying paint from the store. A checkout tape put the purchase at 5:13 p.m. Beernsten put the attack at 3:50 p.m. and estimated it lasted 15 minutes, which meant that Avery would have had to leave the scene of the attack, walk a mile to the nearest parking area, drive home, load his family into the car, and drive 45 miles in just over an hour.

The jury deliberated for only four hours and convicted Avery almost exclusively on the eyewitness account, on December 14, 1985. He was sentenced to 32 years in prison.

After losing several appeals, a petition for DNA testing was granted in 1995 and showed that scrapings taken of Beernsten’s fingernails contained the DNA of an unknown person. The tests were unable to eliminate Avery, however, and a motion for a new trial was denied.

In April of 2002, attorneys for the Wisconsin Innocence Project obtained a court order for DNA testing of 13 hairs recovered from Beernsten at the time of the crime. The state crime laboratory reported that, using the FBI DNA database, it had linked a hair to Gregory Allen, a convicted felon who bore a striking resemblance to Avery. Allen was then serving a 60-year prison term for a sexual assault in Green Bay that occurred after the attack on Beernsten.

On September 11, 2003, a request brought by the Manitowoc District Attorney’s Office and the Wisconsin Innocence Project to dismiss the charges was granted and Avery was released.

AVERY AFTER EXONERATION

In 2005, with support from Beernsten and Avery, the Wisconsin Department of Justice adopted a model eyewitness identification protocol.

On October 31, 2005, 25-year-old Teresa Halbach was murdered. Avery and his nephew were convicted in separate trials and were both sentenced to life in prison.

(Story provided by the Innocence Project)

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