Articles
Man Wrongly Convicted of a Carjacking Freed From Prison
A Missouri man who spent the last 11 years in state prison for a crime he didn’t commit was released last week after a DNA test analysis absolved him of all charges.
Forty-one-year old Antonio Beaver was convicted of armed robbery in 1997 after a victim of a carjacking identified him in a lineup. According to the woman, Beaver threatened her with a screwdriver and took off with her vehicle after a struggle. The carjacker was stabbed with the screwdriver and traces of his blood was left behind in the car.
Defense lawyers claimed the lineup was flawed during Beaver’s trial, but DNA testing methods during that time could not provide definite results. Beaver was sentenced to 18 years in prison—11 of which he served before being exonerated.
In 2001, the inmate filed his own motion requesting new DNA testing. He later received help from the Innocence Project, a legal organization that sets out to free wrongly convicted inmates.
“This feels strange,” said Beaver in his first minutes of freedom. “I’d like to give my thanks to God, because there is a God, and he knew I was innocent from the start.”
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