The Innocence Institute of Point Park University
An investigative reporting organization that probes allegations of wrongful convictions.
'I’m not going to be involved,' said Dolly McBryde, the only supposed eyewitness who testified to Terrell Johnson’s guilt in a 1994 Hazelwood murder. McBryde has more than 47 criminal convictions on her record.
By Justin Platek
inn_inst [at] pointpark [dot] edu
Just five months after her release on parole from a federal bank fraud sentence, a snitch witness in a highly publicized murder …
[Read more...]
Family tried to keep tabs on victim
Homewood woman leaves behind seven children
Thursday, September 20, 2007
By Jim McKinnon, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
People gathered along Formosa Way near where a woman was found shot to death yesterday morning in Homewood.
The body of Nicole E. Bennett, the woman found dead yesterday in Homewood, was discovered in a place that her family always …
[Read more...]
January 29, 2006
By Bill Moushey and Elizabeth Perry
Joey Jones told seven people he shot a man dead outside a Monview Heights tenement and he matched the description two others gave of the killer, but, on the witness stand, Mr. Jones pointed the finger at Paul Ford Jr.
Crack addict Nikela Carrington told police she watched Mr. Ford rob and kill a man that day in 1994, but she was in her …
[Read more...]
January 15, 2009
By Ben Adducchio
The Innocence Institute of Point Park University
A Hazelwood man who has served 14 years in prison in the murder of a police informer is a step closer to receiving a new trial.
In November 2008, the Superior Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the lower court ruling that said Terrell Johnson should be granted a new trial based on new evidence testimony from a …
[Read more...]
New evidence discredits key eyewitness testimony
February 5, 2008
By Jodi Weigand, Jesse Miller and Ben Adducchio
The Innocence Institute of Point Park University
Terrell Johnson, imprisoned since 1996 in a gangland-style execution of a government snitch, has been granted a new trial based on new evidence that at the precise time of the killing the woman who said she watched the slaying …
[Read more...]
Lying Witness May Open Door To New Trial
Terrell Johnson Gets Some Relief After 12 Years In Prison
By Bill Moushey, Innocence Institute of Point Park University
Once the early appeals were exhausted and court-appointed lawyers were gone, Terrell Johnson was consigned to life in prison in the 1995 gangland-style slaying of a police informer in Hazelwood unless he could prove the eyewitness …
[Read more...]
Pa. Supreme Court Orders New Trial That Could End Fifteen Year Imprisonment
By Marie Do Rego
Innocence Institute of Point Park University
A ruling from the state's highest court has set the stage for a new trial or possible plea bargain for freedom in the case of a Hazelwood man who, though he was convicted in the 1994 killing of a government witness, has long claimed his innocence.
In a …
[Read more...]
By Elizabeth Perry
Eighty-seven-year-old Morris Blick never actually gave police a physical description of a black man who attacked him late one night in September 1999, leaving him bruised and shaken.
But when police showed him a photo array, Blick became certain his attacker was a fellow named Thomas Porter, a guy who once mowed his yard. Porter has proclaimed his innocence ever since, and …
[Read more...]
By Nathan Crabbe
Luther Glenn was arrested for a Homewood shooting thanks to a drug addict who later admitted she never saw the killing and only identified him because her crack dealer said he committed the crime.
The admission led an Allegheny County judge to toss the woman’s identification from Glenn’s 1999 trial, but he was convicted in the killing because a convicted thief he met for …
[Read more...]
By Joe Boomgaard
In the least, Robert William Blake was guilty of bad judgment when he jumped into a car with a murderer who proceeded to split town.
But for the past 16 years, Blake has maintained, bad judgment aside, he is innocent of the murder for which he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. That conviction was based largely on the testimony of three teenaged girls who …
[Read more...]