EXCLUSIVE: Ga. man walks free after 40 years due to 4 overturned convictions [View all]

[Calista241]

Source: AJC

Terry Talley, a 63-year-old former factory worker who likes to sing Journey songs and write poetry, walked free from prison after 40 years for crimes he insists he didn’t commit. He smiled, glowing in the light of a vibrant sunset. He wiped a tear. He said he didn’t want to cry.

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Talley had been serving time in a series of 1981 sexual assaults in LaGrange, 70 miles southwest of Atlanta. He was originally sentenced to four life terms after convictions in six cases. A DNA test in 2009 proved he didn’t commit one of the crimes, but he still had three life sentences until Feb. 23, when a judge agreed to exonerate him in three separate cases.

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The LaGrange Police Department, which helped send Talley to prison, and the Georgia Innocence Project have been re-examining his case for years. The police got involved after the DNA test eliminated Talley in one of the sexual assaults that authorities long believed were committed by the same man. In 2020, partly because the Georgia Innocence Project had recently secured funding to hire an investigator, the lawyers and police embarked on a more intensive inquiry.

Police Chief Lou Dekmar said he was troubled by how weak the original evidence against Talley appears. Investigators also uncovered information about a new “person of interest,” said Dekmar, who joined the department 25 years ago.

The man hasn’t been named publicly, but a court filing says he worked in the local government back then and was accused of harassing women at LaGrange College, the small private Methodist school where the attacks started. The alleged harassment occurred at the same time as the string of assaults. But prosecutors violated Talley’s rights by failing to tell the defense about the worker, Talley’s attorneys say.

Read more: https://www.ajc.com/news/crime/exclusive-ga-man-walks-free-after-40-years-due-to-4-overturned-convictions/KGOGZBWTLNDCNFNIHS7IG2EGJY/