Wiley Bridgeman Ricky Jackson - Two men, who were convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1978, have been released from the Cuyahoga County Jail on Friday, after the main witness in their case confessed to lying in his testimony.
Wiley Bridgeman, 57, and Ricky Jackson, 60, have both spent over 39 years in prison for the killing of Harry Franks--a Cleveland businessman. But as it turns out, that was a crime they did not commit.
A Supreme Court ruling largely based on the testimony of a witness, who was 12 at the time, sentenced the men to death under an Ohio capital punishment law.
Ronnie, Wiley Bridgeman's brother, was also convicted of the killing, after the witness, Eddie Vernon, who is now 52, said he saw the three men murder Franks on May 19, 1975.
In January 2003, Ronnie Bridgeman, 57, who has changed his name to Kwame Ajamu, was released from prison. He was present at the hearing.
According to local sources, Wiley Bridgeman, Ricky Jackson and Ajamu's wrongful conviction was revisited after Scene Magazine published a story about the case in 2011. The story, which led to a three years long court case, questioned the inconsistency of Vernon's testimony.
In 2013, Vernon came forward and retracted his testimony, explaining that the police had manipulated and fed him information.
He added that a Cleveland detective investigating the case forced him to testify. They allegedly also threatened that his parents could be convicted of perjury if he confessed that he was lying.
"All the information was fed me - I don't have any knowledge about what happened at the scene of the crime," Vernon said.
On Thursday, Judge Richard McMonagle freed the men after Cuyahoga County prosecutors filed a motion to have the charges dismissed.
"The English language doesn't even fit what I'm feeling," Ricky Jackson said after the ruling."I'm on an emotional high. You sit in prison for so long and think about this day but when it actually comes you don't know what you're going to do, you just want to do something."
Vernon, the witness in the Wiley Bridgeman Ricky Jackson case, said he had lived with the burden of the truth for many years and had suffered terribly. He asked for forgiveness and explained that he received several threats from police officers not to come clean.
"Life is filled with small victories, and this one is a big one," Judge McMonagle said after his ruling that ended the Wiley Bridgeman Ricky Jackson case by exonerating both men.
Wiley Bridgeman, Ricky Jackson said they were grateful to be free and held no bitterness or malice against Vernon. On the contrary, Jackson said Vernon's decision to retract his statement after all these years was admirable.
"It took a lot of courage to do what he did," Ricky Jackson said. "He's been carrying a burden around for 39 years. Like we have. But in the end, he came through and I'm grateful for that."
The Wiley Bridgeman Ricky Jackson case has been widely covered by the press. Reports indicate that the Ohio Innocence Project represented Ricky Jackson in court while a Cleveland attorney took up Wiley Bridgeman and his brother Ajamu's case.
With the closing of the Wiley Bridgeman Ricky Jackson case, it is unclear if the investigation into the murder of Franks would be reopened. Reports indicate that Franks was brutally killed after two men attacked him while he was on his way to a local store. The attackers threw acid on his face and shot him with a .38-caliber.
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