A man who was released after spending 25 years on death row has been killed while attending a funeral of his fellow inmate.
62-year-old Christopher Williams was shot dead on December 16, only 22 months after his release from state prison.
It was in 1989 when he was convicted of six murders but freed after 25 years behind bars when his final murder charge was dismissed due to evidence of prosecutorial misconduct.
Williams was reportedly released from death row when a District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit reviewed his claim and found lying informants, hiding exculpatory evidence, and prosecutorial misconduct, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
The DA’s office then announced in court that the case against the father-of-six was “built on a house of cards,” involving comprehensive undisclosed evidence, false informant testimonies, and forensic proof that instantly contradicted an informant’s story.
After he was freed, Williams said, as per Daily Mail: “Never in the history of the Pennsylvania judicial system has someone been charged with six murders, acquitted of two, and now exonerated of four.”
Speaking to Philadelphia Inquirer, Williams’ friends said that he was part of a funeral procession for a fellow inmate Tyree Little.
But after he stepped out of the car, he was shot once in the head.
He was rushed to Temple University Hospital where he was pronounced dead. Police is yet to arrest anyone and it is not determined why Williams was targeted.
Pennsylvania is one of the states that doesn’t give compensation to wrongfully convicted individuals.
In 2021, Williams filed a suit in a US District Court and named District Attorney Lynne Abraham, trial prosecutor David Desiderio, and more than 15 police detectives as defendants.
“What brings me happiness is my spirit being at peace, and right now it’s not,” he said in February. “Out here, life is running a hundred times faster than up in that cage and you have to stay on pace or else.”
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