A man who spent nearly 30 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of multiple murders was shot & killed in Philadelphia almost 2 years after being released.
On Friday around 2:20 p.m., Philadelphia police responded for a report of a person with a gun. When they arrived they found 62-year-old Christopher Williams suffering from gunshot wounds to the head.
No arrests have been made & a weapon has not been recovered.
In 1989, Williams, along with Theophalis Wilson, were convicted of murdering 3 men who were found shot to death in Philadelphia on the same day.
Wilson was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole while Williams was sentenced to death for the murders. Before that conviction, Williams was separately convicted & sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder of a man named Michael Haynesworth.
Testimony from 2 men, 1 of whom was testifying in exchange for more lenient sentencing in his own 6 murder cases, had linked Williams & Wilson to the murders.
In 2011 however, 1 of the men recanted his testimony against Williams & Wilson in relation to the triple murder in 1989.
The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit also discovered there was a significant amount of evidence in Williams’ favor that had been withheld from the initial trial, including reports of alternate suspects & accounts that contradicted those of the men who testified against him.
Williams was exonerated of his triple homicide conviction in 2019 while Wilson was exonerated in 2020.
Williams remained in prison on the Haynesworth conviction. The CIU then revisited that case & found that the testimony against Williams was inconsistent with the available physical evidence.
Williams was exonerated a 2nd time in 2021 & finally free from prison after 29 years.
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Source: NBC Philadelphia
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