By JENNIFER EMILY
The Dallas Morning News
“I’m free.”
Patrick Waller, 38, said those two words when he called his North Carolina relatives after being released from prison this morning. He had spent more than 15 years in prison for crimes he did not commit.
Mr. Waller used a cell phone for the first time to call his niece and aunt.
DNA Exoneree Patrick Waller smiles as he receives an embrace from his mother. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez) |
In March 1992, two men abducted a couple at gunpoint in the West End, forced them to withdraw cash from an ATM and took them to an abandoned building in Oak Cliff.
The woman was sexually assaulted. Another couple, who had stopped outside, were also abducted.
At least one of the kidnappers tried to rape the other woman. But the men were scared off when a Dallas schools security guard drove by.
Witnesses picked Mr. Waller out of lineups. At the time, he was on probation for cocaine possession. A jury sentenced him to life in prison for aggravated robbery in December 1992.
Mr. Waller said he then pleaded guilty to other crimes he didn’t commit – two aggravated kidnappings in exchange for two 30-year prison terms – because he thought he could get a lighter sentence. He felt there was no way around the eyewitness testimony against him – even though he knew they were mistaken.
DNA testing has since proven his innocence.
Two other men this year confessed to the crimes, but they will not be prosecuted because of statute of limitations.
Copyright 2008 The Dallas Morning News