Two Georgia men who served 25 years in prison were released last week after their murder convictions were overturned as podcasters and their lawyers uncovered new evidence proving their innocence.
Darrell Lee Clark and Cain Joshua Storey were teenagers when they stood trial in January 1998 for the shooting death of their friend Brian Bowling, 15, at a party in 1996, the nonprofit Georgia Innocence Project, also known as GIP in a statement. Floyd County police initially believed Storey’s account of the shooting that he was in the room with Bowling when he died in a crash playing Russian roulette. Shortly before the fatal shooting, Bowling called his girlfriend and told her he was playing Russian roulette with a gun his best friend Storey was carrying, the coroner said.
According to the Innocence Project, Storey was initially charged with manslaughter for providing the gun to his best friend.
However, at the urging of Bowling’s distraught family, the coroner said, just days after he spoke to a partygoer, police upgraded Storey’s charge to murder and linked Clark to the case as a co-defendant, despite having a confirmed alibi.
Prosecutors argued the two teenagers conspired to kill Bowling in revenge, the coroner said.
“You never think something like that is going to happen to you. Never would I have thought I would spend more than half my life in prison, especially for something I didn’t do. I’m just glad the truth finally came to light after 25 years. I’m so thankful for the Georgia Innocence Project and Proof Podcast for what they did. Without them, I would still be in prison,” Clark said in the statement, reports NBC News.
Clark and Storey were released Thursday after requests for a new trial were filed on their behalf, their attorneys said. The Rome Judicial Circuit’s district attorney’s office agreed that Clark’s conviction should be vacated and dropped all charges against him, clearing him of Bowling’s death, the coroner said.
“We are elated, thrilled that he is finally home after all this time. It’s even better that it’s in time for the holidays. Twenty-five years is an incredibly long time to spend incarcerated for a crime you didn’t commit,” Clark’s attorney Meagan Hurley said, reports NBC News.
Hurley credited the Bowlings with finally changing their minds about how their love died.
A motion was filed arguing that Storey was innocent, his attorney Luke Martin said Monday.
Storey pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to 10 years in prison, Martin said. Because it was his first offense, Martin’s conviction was immediately struck off the record, Martin said.
Martin said that for some reason the police at the time were not interested in learning the truth about how Bowling died.
According to the GIP, prosecutors relied on the testimony of the coroner, who had no medical training, to support their theory of manslaughter.
The coroner said he had a “gut feeling” that the gunshot wound couldn’t have been self-inflicted because the coroner said it wasn’t a close-contact wound.
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