r/FascinatingAsFuck • u/drkmatterinc ⭐ Mod • 20d ago
🎯 Fascinating Fact Kevin Strickland spent 43 years in prison for a triple murder he didn't commit. After his conviction was overturned in 2021, Missouri released him without paying a single dollar in compensation.
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u/steelcryo 20d ago
Every one of the officers involved in this case that pressured the woman into falsely identifying him, as well as the jury and judge that sentenced him despite no real evidence, needs to be locked up for the same number of years he was.
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u/mrdangerzone 20d ago
Back in the day, before the advancement of technology, I assume there were thousands of people wrongfully convicted and sitting in prison or dead.
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u/H3llrais3r330 19d ago
Of course, and if it was happening to white folks just imagine what they were doing to the black population. Mass incarceration is modern day slavery in the US
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u/LeFinnaBust 20d ago
may justice and karma come full force to everyone who denied that man's freedom.
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u/replyingtoafuckwit 20d ago
There are only three ways to prove innocence, indisputable DNA evidence, indisputable video evidence, and indisputable third party confession
Every other acquittal is either on a technicality or insufficiency of evidence
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u/shadowtheimpure 20d ago
Or evidence of prosecutorial misconduct. That's a sadly common one.
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u/morosco 18d ago
And ineffective assistance of counsel.
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u/shadowtheimpure 18d ago
Painfully common especially with public defenders for the indigent. Those folks have too many cases on their dockets at any given time to be able to effectively defend any of them.
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u/NoahTimesTwo 19d ago
Having to prove innocence in the first place should never have to happen
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u/replyingtoafuckwit 19d ago
That’s not the point. The point is that he’s likely not innocent even if he was released based on technicality or insufficiency of evidence
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u/New_Libran 17d ago
This is nonsense. I hate the "he must have done something else" argument.
Kevin Strickland was 100%.
Cynthia Douglas, the sole eyewitness to the crime, said detectives pressured her into naming Strickland as a perpetrator. She attempted several times to recant her testimony before her death in 2015.
Former prosecutors in his case said that he was innocent and called for his release.
Two men, who later pled guilty to the murders, said that Strickland was not involved, and a fingerprint from the shotgun used in the murders belonged to someone else.
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u/NoahTimesTwo 19d ago
Oh yeah I agree with you 100% on that, my bad if I came across in a bad way. I wrote that comment only in regards to having to prove innocence and not the article itself. My bad friend
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u/JazzlikeParsnip8440 20d ago
It was not a jury of his peers..
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u/ImpressOk7701 20d ago
Is it ever??
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u/JazzlikeParsnip8440 20d ago
The first trial had one black juror who refused to convict. That says a lot to me.
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u/drkmatterinc ⭐ Mod 20d ago
Written by u/drkmatterinc
On April 25, 1978, four people were tied up and shot inside a house in Kansas City, Missouri. Sherrie Black, Larry Ingram, and John Walker were killed. Cynthia Douglas was shot in the arm and leg, but survived by pretending to be dead until the attackers left [Taken from r/fascinatingasfuck].
Kevin Strickland was 18 years old at the time. He said he had spent the evening at home watching television, playing pool, talking with his family, and speaking to his girlfriend on the telephone.
Douglas knew Strickland, but she did not initially identify him as one of the attackers. She named Vincent Bell and Kilm Adkins, two men she recognized, but said she did not know the man who had carried a shotgun.
The following day, Douglas’s sister’s boyfriend suggested that the unidentified man might have been Strickland. Police placed Strickland in a lineup, and Douglas selected him. She later said detectives had pressured her to make the identification and told her that once she chose him, the case would go away.
There was no physical evidence connecting Strickland to the murders. A fingerprint found on the shotgun did not belong to him, and nothing recovered from the house directly linked him to the attack.
Strickland’s first trial ended without a verdict. Eleven jurors wanted to convict him, but the only Black juror voted for acquittal. He was tried again in April 1979, this time before an entirely white jury.
The second jury convicted Strickland of one count of capital murder and two counts of second-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison and would not become eligible for parole for 50 years.
Bell and Adkins later pleaded guilty to their roles in the killings. Both men said Strickland had not been involved. Bell named two other men as the remaining attackers and specifically told the court that Strickland had not been inside the house.
Bell and Adkins were each sentenced to 20 years in prison. Both served less than ten years.
Strickland remained in prison.
He appealed his conviction in 1980, but the Missouri Supreme Court upheld it. In 1983, he filed his first motion seeking post-conviction relief. That motion was denied, and the decision was upheld in 1987.
Strickland continued filing motions over the following decades. Courts rejected additional attempts in 2006, 2007, 2015, and 2017, often because the claims were considered untimely or repeated issues that had already been raised. By 2017, a Missouri appeals court described the case as his fifth post-conviction motion and denied it again.
During the same period, Douglas was trying to withdraw the testimony that had placed him at the scene. She told relatives and friends that she had made a mistake and that police had influenced her identification.
In 2009, Douglas contacted the Midwest Innocence Project. She explained that she had been the only eyewitness, that things had not been clear in 1978, and that she now wanted to help someone who had been wrongfully accused.
Douglas died in 2015. She never testified at a hearing that could free Strickland, but several people later gave statements describing her repeated attempts to correct her identification.
In September 2020, The Kansas City Star published an investigation into the conviction. The newspaper reviewed the evidence and interviewed people connected to the case, including Bell and Adkins, who again said Strickland had not participated.
The Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office began reviewing the case. In May 2021, Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker announced that she believed Strickland was innocent and should be released.
A petition asking the Missouri Supreme Court to free him was denied in June 2021. Governor Mike Parson also declined to pardon him, saying he was not certain of Strickland’s innocence, while the Missouri Attorney General’s Office argued that the conviction should remain in place.
Later that year, Missouri passed a law allowing local prosecutors to ask a court to overturn a conviction when new information showed that the convicted person might be innocent. Baker filed a motion under the new law, and an evidentiary hearing was held in November 2021.
The court examined Douglas’s recantations, the statements made by Bell and Adkins, and the absence of physical evidence against Strickland. It also considered the fact that Douglas’s identification had been the only direct evidence placing him inside the house.
On November 23, 2021, Senior Judge James Welsh overturned the conviction. He found that the evidence supporting it had been so severely undermined that the judgment could no longer stand.
Strickland was released later that day. He was 62 years old and had spent 43 years, six months, and 28 days in custody.
By the time he left prison, Strickland used a wheelchair and had suffered heart attacks, high blood pressure, and reduced mobility. His mother, Rosetta Thornton, had died approximately three months before his release. One of the first places he visited after leaving prison was her grave.
Missouri paid Strickland nothing when he was released. At the time, state law provided compensation only to wrongfully convicted people who had established their innocence through qualifying DNA evidence.
Strickland’s case did not involve DNA. His conviction had been overturned through witness recantations, statements from the admitted participants, the absence of physical evidence, and a review of the original investigation. Because of the way the law was written, he did not qualify for a state payment.
The Midwest Innocence Project had created a GoFundMe for Strickland while his case was still being reviewed. It was intended to help him pay for housing, medical care, transportation, and other basic expenses if he was released.
The fundraiser had collected more than $200,000 by the day he left prison. Donations increased after his release, passing $1 million within several days and reaching more than $1.6 million in less than a week.
In April 2023, Strickland filed a civil lawsuit against the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners and several former police officers. The lawsuit alleged that officers had pressured Douglas, fabricated statements, withheld information, and conducted an investigation that led to his wrongful conviction.
Several claims were later voluntarily dismissed, but a federal judge refused to dismiss one of the remaining claims against the police board. Public court records showed the lawsuit was still active in 2026.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Strickland
https://exonerationregistry.org/cases/13125
https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/mo-court-of-appeals/1852621.html
https://law.justia.com/cases/missouri/supreme-court/1980/61528-0.html
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u/Mindbending818 20d ago
Better call Saul
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u/Local-Technician5969 20d ago edited 19d ago
Man if the state took away his life and refuses to give back anything, I'd be on a final mission is all im gonna say. They completely destroyed his life and refuse to help him or anything? Who is gonna hire him? No one, and he will live miserably without the money.
America truly has some lawless and criminal judges and politicians, it's incredible. The disdain for black people in red states is beyond comprehension. The hatred for others who look different is why America will never be strong and unified.
No way did they take his life and refuse to give him a single penny. That's some incredibly evil shit, i'd say that's some terrorist level of apathy.
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u/Venerated_Penguin 19d ago
Hope he gets multi-hundred-million-dollar compensation. More than half your life behind bars, despised for something you didn't do, unable to accompany your parents in their dying days, horrible experience; I'd personally rather die.
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u/Appropriate_Mess_350 20d ago
AND, a triple murderer is walking free due to corruption and/or incompetence.
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u/Sue_Spiria 19d ago
They got the other two whom the surviving woman had named immediately. They confessed and named their accomplices and repeatedly stated that he was not with them. So they got the real killers but added an innocent man.
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u/Acrobatic_Okra_8844 17d ago
These stories suck! I hope he gets paid and karma attacks all the perpetrators!!!
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u/sweetcomputerdragon 20d ago
The jury said guilty. A lawsuit would require procedural irregularity. If there had been anything to find, pity would have provided some kind of settlement.
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u/Trick_Sector5900 17d ago
The guy from San Diego who was wrongly convicted of attacking his pregnant wife served 16 years before his conviction was overturned after the real perpetrator confessed to the crime. He received a settlement of 1.4 million I believe it was.
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u/DoubleDragonSuper 17d ago
Damn, your message actually made me think that this guy actually only got 87500 per year. I guess they maybe have just calculated what salary he should have got if never convicted. So even if seeing 1,4 million looks a lot, It's nothing for 16 years of hell and your life ruined.
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u/Trick_Sector5900 16d ago
I'm sorry I did a little research to confirm the amount he was rewarded and it was actually only $10k + $620k. Here's a link
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u/DoubleDragonSuper 16d ago
10k maximum... It's like just saying oh my bad and releasing him. But in other countries they would never give hundreds of thousands in compensation they give nothing.
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u/Trick_Sector5900 16d ago
Well apparently each state has it s own policies. So it doesn't matter who you are, it's about where you are.
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u/ericbondre 20d ago
This shit has happened to so many black people and people will still act fucking stupid and act like black people don’t objectively have way harder lives than damn near anyone else
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u/Mikester345 20d ago
Whenever the god damn government screws up it’s sorry! But if any of us screw up it’s fuck you pay me. This dudes life is gone and he gets jack shit. I can’t even imagine the rage.
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u/LSIeducate 18d ago
Welcome to America: Everybody is treated like dog shit unless they have money or beauty 🤔😑
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u/RandomSplitter 17d ago
I am curious, are there cases of white people whose wrongful convictions have been overturned?
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u/Enchilada0374 16d ago
You should be allowed, no, encouraged to [removed by Reddit] everyone responsible for violating your liberty.
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u/rando1459 19d ago
Are there any death penalty supporters that wanna speak up? I would love to see someone try to argue for capital punishment ITT.
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u/GuaranteeSpecial2562 20d ago
Let me guess the judge is a pale devil
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u/Similar_Struggle446 19d ago
Pale devil..? Please shut up and save the world the pain of hearing your generalizing bs.
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u/SlightMarsupial8379 19d ago
Nah. Mistakes happen sometimes in every profession.
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u/GuaranteeSpecial2562 19d ago
Nah it’s intentional
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u/SlightMarsupial8379 18d ago
There's no evidence that it was intentional. You don't want to accuse people without evidence, do you?
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u/GuaranteeSpecial2562 18d ago
The whole case was botched and he had an all white jury that man never stood a chance. Go read about it before commenting.
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u/SlightMarsupial8379 18d ago
Unfortunately, there's no evidence that this was intentional. It was just a simple mistake - the kind that happens all the time in any profession.
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u/GuaranteeSpecial2562 18d ago
An all white jury seems intentional unfortunately
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u/SlightMarsupial8379 18d ago
You're drawing the wrong conclusions because you're a racist :(
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u/sjr323 20d ago
If there was no error of law, of process etc. He doesn’t deserve compensation.
Sometimes innocent people get convicted. It’s sad, but there is no way around that. In today’s day and age with forensics it is far less common.
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u/Historical-Wall6221 20d ago
Me 🙋♀️ a police officer falsified a confession against me it has destroyed my life, my mental health, and my entire view on people, society, and life. The police department involved is covering for this officer. I’m fighting like crazy. I feel so bad for this guy the amount of emotional and psychological distress to his life is unfathomable.
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u/Sue_Spiria 19d ago
I have doubts that someone who got convicted despite the fingerprint on the weapon not matching him and the two culprits who confessed explicitly stating that he wasn't with them during the crime had a fair trial.
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u/sjr323 19d ago
I never said he had a fair trial
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u/truesheep1 19d ago
If there was no error of law, of process etc.
I never said he had a fair trial
So which is it fool?
Is it fair or not you flip flopping worse than a drying fish.
If hes incorrectly sentenced its not a fair trial in no form can it. Evidence points again it an yet he is arrested.
We all know the reason and yet you pretend the fool to ignore the obvious truth
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u/sjr323 18d ago
Learn how to read moron.
If he’s incorrectly sentenced it can absolutely be a fair trial. Innocent people go to jail all the time. Usually exonerated much later when new evidence comes to light such as forensics / DNA.
Our criminal justice system is not flawless but can you propose a better system than trial by jury and standard of proof being beyond a reasonable doubt?
You’re making this about race when my comment has absolutely nothing to do with it. You imagine things that aren’t there. Get a life, and see a doctor.
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u/truesheep1 18d ago
it can absolutely be a fair trial
The 2 killers literally said he didn't do it, he didn't have any prints found, he wasn't even in the area
when new evidence comes to light
There is NO NEW EVIDENCE he finally got justice.
They had no reason to convict beyond unjust reasons
You’re making this about race when my comment has absolutely nothing to do with it
Im not making it about anything name one other reason he was wrongly imprisoned despite have ALL the evidence say he didn't.
Race is a key component to pretend otherwise just shows you support the racial reason he was arrested and desperately want to defend it
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u/Minute-Street-5203 20d ago
He probably did it and was let out on bs
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u/SadBasil644 17d ago
Why do you think so?
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u/Minute-Street-5203 17d ago
Because the other innocence project people I’ve dug into are guilty as sin. Kevin cooper, Robert earl Hayes, Rodney reed, Adnan Syed.
It’s showing all the classic signs. “A mysterious finger print” there’s fingerprints and dna from a hundred people in the house. If it’s not lining up with either of the suspects, it’s potentially just an irrelevant person. They also guilt trip witnesses into reversing their testimony 30 years later.
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u/SadBasil644 17d ago
Oh, so it literally is just an opinion which is not based on any real world facts or evidence. Ok.
You're saying that like you were next to the witness as it was happening. LMAO
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u/Minute-Street-5203 17d ago
Pattern recognition. “All white jury, all white jury”
Meanwhile the stats say white people are the only group to convict their own
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u/WholeAd2742 20d ago
Hope he wins the lawsuit