There are countless stories of people being punished for something they didn’t do throughout history, due to factors like faulty eyewitness testimony, coerced confessions, and flawed forensic evidence. As you can guess, they often have devastating consequences for the accused. In some cases, innocents have even paid the ultimate price for their suspected crimes.
10. Yoshiyuki Kono
On June 27, 1994, a mass-poisoning terrorist attack in the Japanese city of Matsumoto, Japan, left six people dead and several others injured. According to the newspapers, it was carried out by one Yoshiyuki Kono – a machinery salesman living in the vicinity of the attack at the time. He was considered a suspect by the police, even if his wife may have been the first victim of the attack.
Kono was accused by local newspapers and subjected to an extensive media trial, and even claimed to have received anonymous death threats from across Japan due to his suspected role in the attack. Of course, there was no evidence linking him with the attack, and it was later found that it was instead done by a cult called Aum Shinrikyo – the same group responsible for the infamous Tokyo subway attack in 1995. While he was never arrested, the police chief still publicly apologized to Kono for the whole thing.
9. George J. Stinney Jr.
George J. Stinney Jr. was a 14-year-old African-American boy accused of murdering two white girls in the racially-segregated town of Alcolu, South Carolina in 1944. He was arrested, tried, and sentenced to death by electrocution in a trial that lasted only a couple of hours. Stinney’s execution was carried out less than three months after his arrest, making him the youngest person to be punished by death in the United States in the 20th century.
There were numerous problems with Stinney’s case, including a lack of evidence linking him to the crime – other than a testimony of a confession by the local police chief – as well as the fact that he was arrested without a warrant. In 2014, about 70 years after the execution, a judge overturned Stinney’s conviction and exonerated him of the crime, officially stating that the trial had been a “great and fundamental injustice.”
8. Sally Clark
Sally Clark was a British lawyer accused of murdering her two infant sons. While she was convicted in 1999 and sentenced to life in prison, Clark was eventually exonerated by the UK Court of Appeal in 2003, after her conviction was overturned due to flawed expert testimony and inadequate evidence.
Clark’s case received widespread media attention and was the subject of intense public scrutiny. While she was ultimately able to clear her name, she still had to spend about three and half years in prison for a crime she didn’t commit, on top of the trauma of losing her children. In reality, both of them might have died from natural causes. Sally Clark’s story would come to a tragic end in 2007, when she was found dead at her home at the age of 42.
7. Ray Krone
Ray Krone was a US Postal Service worker falsely accused of the 1991 murder of Kim Ancona – a bartender working in Phoenix, Arizona. He was convicted in 2002 and sentenced to death, even though the case against him was based on flawed forensic evidence, including bite mark analysis, which has since been proven to be unreliable. Krone spent over 10 years in prison before he was exonerated, largely thanks to the efforts of the Innocence Project – a non-profit organization working to overturn wrongful convictions.
The true culprit was found to be a known sex offender named Kenneth Phillips, though Krone still had to spend more than ten years in prison for the crime. He’d be the 100th prisoner to be exonerated from death row in the US. His case highlighted the ever-growing need for modern forensics in law enforcement, especially if the consequences included wrongful death row convictions.
6. Hamid Hayat
Hamid Hayat was arrested in the frenzy of the immediate post-9/11 years, falsely accused of providing material support to terrorists and attending a militant training camp in Pakistan. He was taken into custody in 2005, convicted, and sentenced to 24 years in prison.
Hayat’s case was controversial, especially because of the lack of clear evidence linking him to the crimes. The defense argued that it was a case of racial profiling and Hayat had been targeted due to his faith, and that the case against him was based on coerced or unreliable testimony. In 2020, a federal judge overturned his conviction, stating that the government’s case was based on insufficient evidence. Hayat was exonerated in 2019, though only after wasting more than 14 years of his life in prison.
5. Sakae Menda
Sakae Menda was a Japanese citizen arrested in 1948, charged with the killings of a Buddhist couple in the hot-spring town of Hitoyoshi. While he claimed an alibi from the beginning and there was no evidence linking him to the crime, Menda was declared guilty and sentenced to death by hanging in 1950.
As it turned out, the confession used to charge him was framed by the local cops, perhaps to obtain a conviction. After years of appeals and campaigning by his supporters, it was eventually overturned by a district court in 1983 – citing a lack of reliable evidence or witness testimonies – and cleared him of all charges for the crime. Menda was 57 at the time, and had already spent about 34 years on death row before he was finally set free.
4. Paul House
Carolyn Muncey was raped and murdered in her home in Union County, Tennessee, in July 1985. In 1986, Paul House, who lived in the same area, was arrested and charged with the crime. Despite a lack of physical evidence linking him to the scene, he was found guilty and sentenced to death.
For the next two decades, House maintained his innocence and fought to prove it. In 2006, new evidence was presented to Tennessee courts, pointing to another man as the likely culprit, though the conviction was still upheld.
House’s case was taken up again in 2009, thanks to an intervention by the Supreme Court and some new DNA evidence, which conclusively proved that the crime was instead committed by Carolyn’s husband. The conviction was overturned after the prosecutor dropped all the charges, though only after House had already spent around two decades in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.
3. Jean Charles de Menezes
On July 22, 2005, police officers in London confronted and shot a Brazilian electrician, Jean Charles de Menezes, to death, convinced that he was one of the terrorists responsible for a series of attacks the previous day. An investigation was launched, and in 2007, the Metropolitan Police was found guilty of mistaking Menezes for one of the four actual suspects.. However, the officer that led the shooting – Cressida Dick – was later acquitted of any wrongdoing.
The incident sparked outrage among the public and human rights organizations across Europe, as most people called it a case of police overreach and brutality. Menezes’ death sparked a much-needed conversation around the practices of law enforcement agencies and what they should be allowed to do, particularly in cases involving terrorism.
2. Timothy Evans
Timothy Evans – a Welshman living in London – was accused of the murder of his wife and infant daughter, and executed for it on March 9, 1950. He was found guilty despite protesting innocence and providing an alibi, largely based on confessions that were later found to have been falsified. In fact, they were entirely written by the police, and Evans was only made to sign them after they’d been read to him.
It was later discovered that the real perpetrator was a serial killer and necrophiliac named John Christie, who lived in the same apartment building as the Evans family. Christie had previously testified against Evans at his trial and was later found to be responsible for the murders of at least six other women.
1. Derek Bentley
On November 2, 1952, a police officer was shot and killed while responding to a burglary in London. The suspects, Christopher Craig and Derek Bentley, were both apprehended at the scene. Craig, who was just 16 years old at the time, admitted to firing the fatal shot, but Bentley, 19 years old, was still accused of being an accomplice.
He was charged with murder and found guilty, despite there being no evidence linking him to the shooting. It was all based on something he had said when the policeman asked Craig to give up his gun. According to their defense, “let him have it, Chris” was clear incitement to commit the crime, making him an accomplice.
Derek was sentenced to death and hanged in 1953, and Craig, too young for death row, was given a life sentence. Bentley’s conviction was overturned by the Court of Appeal in 1998 and he was granted a posthumous pardon, when everyone realized that he really had nothing to do with the murder.