Photo: Rich Sugg/The Kansas City Star via AP
A Missouri man has been exonerated after spending more than two thirds of his life in prison for a crime he said he didn’t commit.
On Tuesday, Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker announced that Senior Judge James Welsh filed a ruling to set aside Kevin Strickland’s 1979 conviction for a triple homicide, according to apress release.
“To say we’re extremely pleased and grateful is an understatement,” Baker said in the release. “This brings justice – finally – to a man who has tragically suffered so so greatly as a result of this wrongful conviction.”
According toThe National Registry of Exonerations, Strickland’s release marks the longest wrongful imprisonment in Missouri history.
On Tuesday, Strickland said he was “still in disbelief” about his exoneration before thanking his attorneys and those who believed him while he maintained his innocence over the years.
“I didn’t think this day would come,” he said,BBCreports.
Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Strickland was 18 in 1978 when Cynthia Douglas, the sole surviving witness of an attack in a Kansas City home that killed three others — Sherrie Black, John Walker, and Larry Ingram — identified him as a participant in the shooting.
Immediately after the shooting, Douglas named two other men, Vincent Bell and Kilm Adkins, who both pleaded guilty.
Kevin Strickland.Courtesy Midwest Innocence Project
“I am seeking info on how to help someone that was wrongfully accused, this incident happened back in 1978, I was the only eyewitness and things were not clear back then, but now I know more and would like to help this person if I can,” she wrote.
Want to get the biggest stories from PEOPLE every weekday?Subscribe to our new podcast, PEOPLE Every Day, to get the essential celebrity, entertainment and human interest news stories Monday through Friday.
Douglas has since died, but “for many years until her death in 2015, Douglas repeatedly expressed to her family members and others both her doubts about her identification of Strickland and her wish to see him exonerated,“according to the Innocence Project.
The Innocence Project and its partner attorneys first filed a petition asking the Missouri Supreme Court to release and exonerate Strickland in May.
source: people.com
