For decades, Isaiah Andrews maintained his innocence in the 1974 murder of his wife, unaware that the key to his acquittal was buried in the archives of the Cleveland Police Department.
The Cleveland police decision not to release important information in the case resurfaced Thursday, when an Ohio court ruled that Mr. Andrews, now 84, was wrongfully jailed for 45 years.
Mr Andrews, who is ill and uses a wheelchair, has been at large since May 2020. He was later found not guilty at a second jury trial in October, but the court had to declare him wrongfully imprisoned so he could seek damages from the state. Ohio.
“I won the battle for this,” Mr. Andrews told reporters after Thursday’s court hearing.
According to court documents, Mr. Andrews and his wife, Regina Andrews, had just married when he reported her disappearance from the Cleveland hotel room they were staying in while looking for a permanent home.
On September 18, 1974, Mr. Andrews told investigators that he had last seen her just before 8 am that day and that, according to court documents, he ran errands until late in the evening.
Miss Andrews’ body was found the same day in Forest Hill Park by a worker during his lunch break. She received several stab wounds and was wrapped in bed linen.
At the time of the murder, detectives wrote that they believed the crime was committed by Willie H. Watts, who, according to court documents, was trying to sell his mother’s valuables to escape town. He was arrested, but his name was not mentioned in court, and there was no indication that he was mentioned in the investigation, according to court documents.
Detectives produced no physical evidence linking Mr. Andrews to his wife’s murder, and police found no blood in his car or hotel room, but he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1975. He previously served 15 years in prison for the murder of his senior Marine sergeant, according to the Cuyahoga County Attorney’s Office.
According to court documents, investigators released Mr. Watts after he provided an alibi for the time of death originally set by the coroner. The score was revised after the autopsy.
Mr. Watts was later accused of kidnapping four times and was sentenced to more than 20 years in prison for aggravated arson. The two kidnapping cases were later dropped. Watts died in 2011, according to Cleveland.com.
The Ohio Innocence Project, which aims to get wrongfully convicted people out of prison, was unaware of Mr. Watts when it decided to reopen Mr. Andrews’ case in 2015.
“You would never know from the court records that the police arrested someone else for this,” said Brian Howe, the project’s staff lawyer.
This information only became available in 2019, after Mr. Andrews’ lawyers requested a DNA test in the case. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation requested initial medical records and received police files that shed light on another man’s arrest.
A Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge vacated Mr. Andrews’ 2020 conviction and ordered a new trial.
Lawyers for Mr. Andrews said a retrial was not necessary and that they were surprised that the Cuyahoga County District Attorney’s office decided to proceed with the case rather than drop the prosecution.
Prosecutors said in an emailed statement that they weighed Mr Andrews’ previous conviction for murder in their decision to hold a retrial. “When this sentence was overturned, we were under an obligation to seek justice on behalf of the victim and her family,” the statement said.
At the second trial in October, the hearings mainly included the reading aloud of the transcripts of the original trial in March 1975. The jury found him not guilty.
Mr. Andrews’ wrongful imprisonment ranks as the third longest known in the United States, according to the National Excuse Registry.
Thursday’s wrongful confinement filing allows Mr. Andrews to continue his lawsuit seeking damages from the state.
Mr. Andrews also filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city of Cleveland in February, accusing local police of failing to provide information about another suspect.
Sara Gelsomino, a lawyer for Friedman, Gilbert and Gerhardstein who represents Mr. Andrews, said he is entitled under state law to $56,752.36 for each year spent in prison, or more than $2.5 million. Lawyers will also demand money for lost wages, legal fees and expenses to prove his innocence.
However, the money cannot make up for Mr. Andrews’ years in prison.
“He lost everyone while he was in jail,” Ms. Gelsomino said. “So he didn’t have a family waiting for him to return.”
Instead, Mr. Andrews has been supported by a community of others who have been rehabilitated in Ohio or are still seeking rehab. The Ohio Innocence Project has released 34 people, including 14 cases filed in Cuyahoga County, since its inception in 2003.
Three members of that community sat behind Mr. Andrews in court Thursday: Lamont Clark, Reuel Saylor and Charles Jackson, who was exonerated in November 2018 after 27 years in prison and lives with and helps care for Mr. Andrews.
The men told reporters after Thursday’s hearing that it was a day they should all celebrate.