Research Paper On Wiley Bridgeman

Wiley Bridgeman spent over half his life in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. In 1975 Bridgeman was one of three men falsely convicted and imprisoned for the murder of Harold Franks. Wiley Bridgeman was sentenced to life in prison after being charged with aggravated murder and robbery, but after a retrial almost 40 years later, he was found innocent and was able to spend the few remaining years of his life with his family.

Wiley Bridgeman was 20 years old when he was accused of a crime he didn’t commit. The crime occurred when a money order sales agent, Harold Franks, was leaving a grocery store in Cleveland, Ohio when two men demanding his briefcase confronted him. After resisting, he was whacked on the head with a pipe and splashed in

After being granted parole in 2002 Wiley Bridgeman had an accidental encounter with Eddie Vernon while living in a homeless shelter in Cleveland, Ohio. Vernon’s supervisor told him to report the contact with Bridgeman’s parole officer since it was prohibited by the terms of Bridgeman’s parole. Wiley Bridgeman’s parole was revoked as a result and he was sent back to prison after being free for only 3 months (Possley). In 2014, almost 40 years after being found guilty, “Edward Vernon, the eyewitness, who was 12 years old at the time, said city detectives pressured him to lie on the witness stand. Vernon said the police threatened to jail his parents and that the police manipulated him” (Major). This statement caused The Ohio Innocence Project to re-investigate the case. They uncovered evidence that Vernon attempted to recant his identification of the three defendants, but police intimidated him to testify falsely (Possley). After being declared Innocent by a judge in February 2015 Bridgeman and his brother, Ajamu each received $5.4 million (Possley). But no amount of money could ever have been enough to compensate for what they went through. "In June 2021, Bridgeman died of complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease" (Possley). He spent the few years he had left as a free man with his only