““Sorry” for 16 years in prison” and other stories of innocently convicted people (14 photos)

The story of the innocently convicted Anthony Broadwater attracted the attention of the whole world, because it was on his name that the American writer Alice Sebold earned millions.





The man was unjustly accused of raping the author of The Lovely Bones, after which he spent 16 years in prison and sought an acquittal. After all, no one wants to walk around with the stigma of a criminal, even after prison.



Despite the fact that Broadwater was released in 1998, he received an acquittal only at the end of November. Sebold, who made a fortune from this story, only dryly apologized and expressed hope that the family would heal from this.





Or maybe it would be better to share the money? After all, a man was imprisoned simply because the writer pointed her finger at him, although she herself did not even see the rapist’s face. Alas, this is not the only case where people had to go to prison for acts to which they had nothing to do.



62-year-old Kevin Strickland spent 42 years behind bars and was released only in November of this year. He was imprisoned back in 1978 for allegedly shooting a group of young people. The only survivor of the shootout, Cynthia Douglas, identified him as the perpetrator.



Two of the real killers claimed that Strickland had nothing to do with the crime. Later, Douglas herself realized her mistake, but the man had to serve 42 and 50 years without the right to an acquittal. Only this year the court decided that there was insufficient evidence of his guilt.



25-year-old Timothy Cole was jailed in 1985 on charges of raping a classmate. The victim did not see the perpetrator, but remembered that he was smoking. The young guy was among the suspects only because of the color of his skin, and the girl said that it was him.



Cole was sentenced to 25 years in prison, but 13 years later he died behind bars from asthma. The real rapist was identified only in 2008, but the innocent man no longer needed an acquittal.

The Guildford Four became Britain's most famous miscarriage of justice and formed the basis of the film In the Name of the Father.



In 1974, four 14-year-old Irish boys were detained and charged with a series of terrorist attacks in the London suburbs of Guildford and Woolwich. The only thing that saved them from the death penalty was the fact that they were minors.



The guys were released only in 1989, when they were 29-30 years old. It later turned out that then, at the height of the conflict in Northern Ireland, confessions were extracted from them. However, they received an official apology only in 2004.

In 1948, a simple worker, Sakae Menda, was convicted of the double murder of a priest and his wife. He was not caught in the act, but simply arrested when he unsuccessfully walked out of his house.



They beat confessions out of him, did not allow him to eat or sleep, and in the end he confessed to something he had not done. The Japanese spent 34 years on death row, but miraculously managed to escape execution.



In 1979, the lawyers achieved an appeal and found out that the man had a cast-iron alibi, which they decided not to mention at the trial.

In 1944, 14-year-old George Stinney was sentenced to death for the murders of two girls, ages 8 and 11. This happened because he was the last one to see them alive.



The investigation proceeded record-breakingly quickly. The police said that the boy confessed (although this was not the case), the jury of 10 made a decision and Stinney went to the electric chair. Only in 2013 did the court begin to review the case, and it turned out that the boy was innocent. He was completely acquitted posthumously.



“The Count of Monte Cristo” by Alexandre Dumas is known to many. However, few people know that the book is based on the story of shoemaker Francois Picot. He was sent to prison for 7 years, exposed as a spy opposing Napoleon.



Several people wrote a denunciation against him because their friend was in love with the same girl along with Pico. True, the prototype of the book hero punished everyone involved in his arrest much more severely.