United States, Tennessee
Wrongly convicted killer serves 30 years in prison – and dies months after release
A man has been innocently in a US prison for 30 years
© Olaf Döring / Imago Images
Claude Garrett was unjustly imprisoned in the United States for 30 years. The 66-year-old was finally released last May. But he could not enjoy his new life in freedom for long.
It is a touching fate: Claude Garrett only lived a few months in freedom and has now died at the age of 66 after having wrongly served a 30-year sentence. This is reported by the British “Daily Star”.
In 1992, a Tennessee court sentenced Garrett to life imprisonment for the murder of his then-girlfriend Lorie Lance. He should have started a fire in their shared apartment in Old Hickory, Tennessee, in which the 24-year-old died.
Garrett himself was able to save himself from the burning apartment at the time, but before that he tried to get his girlfriend to safety as well, as he later told the police. However, investigators found evidence that pointed to arson. Garret was eventually found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. Of the star reported.
Earlier this year, after years of struggling, Garret was finally able to “prove his actual innocence” and was released from Riverbend Prison. The judge in charge considered that “no reasonable jury would have convicted Claude Garrett of murder in light of the new scientific evidence.” He described the evidence as “garbage”.
USA: Garrett enjoyed life with his family
“Since then and for the past five months, Claude has enjoyed his freedom,” quoted the Daily Star as Garrett’s girlfriend, Liliana Segura. He enjoyed every moment with his daughter Deana and especially with his grandson, “whom he loved more than anything”. But the life of the 66-year-old did not last long; he now died in his sleep.
Garrett’s girlfriend, Segura, is humiliated. “Claude had plans. He wanted the state to be held accountable for his wrongful conviction. He wanted compensation. It is beyond me that the people who are most responsible for having so much of his life stolen from him , never have to deal with what they did, that they will survive it,” she says.
Sources: DailyStar