The Illinois Innocence Project has come a long way since it began as the Downstate Illinois Innocence Project in 2001 at the University of Illinois Springfield. What started with a couple of professors, an investigator, a few UIS undergraduates and a handful of supporters intent on exonerating one innocent man has grown into an organization […]
DNA
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Innocent, but still guilty
Although Anthony Murray walked out of prison on Oct. 31 a free man after 14 years, gaining his freedom required admitting to a murder he says he didn’t commit. “It’s been a long road,” the 41-year-old Chicago resident said in a Marion County courtroom in Salem during a hearing the day before his release. “I’m […]
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Pair freed from prison, but still not in the clear
In 1986, newlyweds Dyke and Karen Rhoades were murdered and their bodies burnt in their Paris, Ill., home. Police arrested Randy Steidl and Herb Whitlock for the murders, and the two men each spent many years in prison before their cases were overturned. Now, the DNA evidence in that double murder is being retested, and […]
