CLEVELAND, Ohio — After nearly 40 years behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit, Ricky Jackson is now a free man.
Jackson and two other men were convicted of a murder in 1975 that they did not commit. It was finally revealed this week when a lone eyewitness confessed that he lied.
Eddie Vernon, who was 12 at the time, said investigators pressured him to testify that he saw Ricky Jackson and two brothers kill a money order collector. There was no physical evidence connecting the men to the crime, and informants tried to tell police that the murder was committed by known stick-up men.
Ricky and the brothers, however, were all convicted and sentenced to death.
The hearing for Ricky Jackson began around 9 a.m. Friday. After paperwork, he was free to leave.
Another of the wrongly-convicted men, Wiley Bridgeman, was also set to appear in court today and be set free.
The third, Kwame Ajamu has already been released.
