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The Pledge of Allegiance clearly states “…one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” But sometimes, the justice system fails its innocent citizens, in almost every corner of the world. The next 12 tales of people are perfect examples of this, wrongly accused victims whom, despite enough evidence on their side to prove their innocence, still went to jail to serve for crimes they did not commit.
See how these people lost years stuck behind bars, and how thankfully, they were finally exonerated and rightfully set free.
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George Allen, Jr.
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George Allen Jr. happened to be one of those people who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. On February 4, 1982, Mary Bell was a 31-year old woman who had been found dead in her apartment, raped and stabbed to death. Their initial suspect, a convicted rapist who had just gotten out of jail who also happened to live in the same apartment complex as Bell, Kirk Eaton, had gone missing after Bell’s body was discovered. George Allen Jr., a diagnosed schizophrenic, had been walking near the area on March 14, as he lived around 10 blocks away from where Bell lived. Police officers took him in for questioning since he resembled Eaton, and strangely, he had admitted to forcing women to have sex with him, but then later on denied ever saying that. It was also noted that he was intoxicated at the time of the interrogation.
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The Evidence Was In His Favor
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Despite the fact that the evidence showed that there was a very slight chance that Allen could have been at Bell’s apartment on the day of her death, Allen was charged with ‘capital murder, sodomy, rape and first-degree burglary.’ His trial commenced on April 20, 1983, where Allen pleaded not guilty to the charges. In fact, even the fingerprints found in Bell’s apartment were that of her boyfriend, as well as a few police officers who happened to be at the scene, while the other fingerprints that were found were “of no value.” During the murder, Allen also said he had been stuck at home due to a snowstorm, helping his sister shovel her car out of the heavy snow. In spite of everything, Allen was found guilty and sentenced to 95 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.
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The Innocence Project
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The Innocence Project, which is an organization that ‘exonerates the wrongly convicted through DNA testing,’ began looking into Allen’s case. And in 2003, they were able to prove that the semen found on Bell’s clothing on the day of the murder did not belong to that of George Allen, Jr. They matched those of her boyfriend, whose prints had also been found in her apartment on the day of her death. Finally, on November 2, 2012, Allen’s conviction was overturned and he would be set free. After 30 years in jail, on January 18, 2013, Allen was able to leave the Jefferson City Correctional in Missouri. On the day he left, he shared, “I have spent 30 years in prison as an innocent man, and those have been difficult years for me and my family, but I never gave up hope. I knew that some day the truth would come out… Thank God this nightmare is finally ending.”
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Rubin “Hurricane” Carter
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Rubin Carter’s early life was riddled with petty crimes and time spent in a juvenile facility for a stabbing he committed when he was just 11 years old. After he was released, he joined the Army and ended up training in professional boxing. His career was taking off, already placing him in the Top 10 Contenders for middleweight, which quickly earned him the nickname “Hurricane” for his strength and punching power. But soon things would all come crashing down.
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Sent To Prison For 20 Years
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On June 17, 1966, in the middle of the night, a triple homicide occurred at a place called Lafayette Bar and Grill. Carter and his friend, John Artis, happened to be at a nearby bar, when they decided to leave and were on the road when police stopped them. Authorities were looking for a car with 3 occupants, and since Carter and Artis were only two, they were let go. But then police would radio that they were looking for a car with the same make as Carter’s, so they stopped them again. This time, they would find weapons inside the car, and despite not taking any fingerprints, they brought them in for questioning. Aside from the fact that eye witnesses had seen two black men running away from the scene, as well as the same car that Carter had been in, nothing else was the same as the evidence they were looking for, including the difference in the brass casings of the bullets which were also not a match to the guns that Carter had in his vehicle. There were even testimonies from people saying that Carter and Artis had been in the other bar during the time of the crime. Despite that, the trial which ensued would find Carter and Artis guilty, and both of them were given life sentences for each victim.
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Becoming A Motivational Speaker
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While serving time in Rahway State Prison, Carter’s lawyers would continue to appeal his case, which ended up going to trial once more, where he was unbelievably convicted again. Then in 1985, the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey went over Carter’s attorneys writ of habeas corpus, and after reassessing the case, shared “predicated upon an appeal to racism rather than reason, and concealment rather than disclosure,” which ended up in granting Carter his freedom in November of the same year. Carter’s story not only inspired music legend Bob Dylan to write a song about him and his case called “Hurricane” while he was actually serving time in jail, but a movie about his life was also made. He eventually moved to Canada where he became a motivational speaker, and later on he sadly lost his life to cancer, but at least it was known that he was innocent the entire time.
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Tammy Marquardt
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In October of 1993, Tammy Marquardt was a young mother of three from Oshawa, Ontario in Canada. Tammy’s son, Kenneth was a toddler who often had asthma, pneumonia and would often suffer from epileptic seizures. When he was just 2 years of age, Tammy had gone into his room after hearing him cry out for her, finding him tangled up in his sheets. By the time paramedics arrived on the scene, he was no longer breathing.
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Dr. Charles Smith, Pathologist
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Kenneth was brought to the hospital in order to see if they could revive the young boy. Sadly, after 3 days on life support, doctors declared that there was no longer any hope for him, taking him off the machine. After he died, he was put through an autopsy to try and reveal what had truly caused his death. Dr. Charles Smith, a well-respected pathologist at the time, claimed that the boy’s ‘cause of death was asphyxia, likely the result of smothering or suffocation.’ Tammy was accused of murdering her own 2-year old son out of anger by suffocating him. But it would later be found out that Smith’s pristine reputation would be tarnished, his license actually taken away from him when increasing information would come out that while ‘Smith was trained to study disease in children. He had no training to study cases when a crime was suspected. Even worse: Smith lied, hid evidence and used junk science. He did what it took to get a conviction.’
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14 Years Later
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After spending 14 years in jail after being wrongly accused, upon Tammy’s parole, two neurologists who went back to look at her case would prove that her son had truly died of an epileptic seizure. People would finally know that she did not kill her own child, just like what she had been saying for the entire 14 years that she was imprisoned. Tammy had said about the entire experience of her young son dying and her other two kids taken away from her due to the conviction was like “having your heart ripped out and having someone squeeze it in front of your face.” But now, after everything, she shares, “Finally, the nightmare is coming to an end and I’m waking up.”
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Bennie Starks
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On January 18, 1986, a 69-year old woman had been grabbed and dragged to a nearby ravine where she was beaten, raped and bitten by a man she described as an ‘18-year old, clean-shaven black male.’ When police searched the area where the assault took place, police would find a number of items like a coat, a pair of gloves, a watch and a scarf. Inside the coat was a dry cleaning slip with Bennie Starks’ name on it. But when authorities would catch up to Starks, he didn’t match any of the descriptions given by the victim. Starks happened to be 26 at the time, with facial hair, plus he had been out to a few bars that night where witnesses claimed they saw him during the time that the attack was said to have happened. And to make matters even worse, Starks had been mugged that same night, his coat, gloves, scarf and watch all taken by the assailant.
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She Claims It Was Him
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Aside from other evidence, prosecutors would use the dental marks from the victim and compare them to that of Starks. And while the ‘expert concluded with a reasonable degree of dental and odontological certainty,’ it’s been said that this form of proof could not be considered 100 percent reliable. Plus there were many other inconsistencies in the supposed evidence against Starks, but the one that would conclude his guilty conviction was that the victim identified Starks as the man who had attacked her that night. So on September 25, 1986, Bennie Starks was found ‘guilty of two counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault, one count of attempted aggravated criminal assault, one count of aggravated battery and one count of unlawful restraint.’ He was given 100 years in prison for these crimes that he did not do.
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Finally Freed
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Starks decided to get in touch with the Innocence Project to help him overturn his conviction. In 2004, they were able to obtain the vaginal swab taken from the rape kit performed on the victim at the time of the assault, and it was found that the semen did not belong to Bennie Starks. Although the rape charges against Starks were now dropped, the battery ones remained. But finally, in 2006, he was let out on bail, and then in May of 2012, Starks was finally exonerated for all the charges placed against him, finally able to walk free at the age of 53, all thanks once again to the Innocence Project, which has helped many wrongly accused citizens for quite some time.
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