He spent nearly 40 years in prison for crimes that he did not commit and agreed to receive $ 21 million in reparation.

Craig Richard Coley, a 70-year-old man from California, accepted this Saturday to receive $ 21 million in compensation by the city of Simi Valley, for having crossedSo, 40 years in prison for crimes that he did not commit.

November 11, 1978, Rhonda Wicht – Coley's ex-girlfriend was found dead in her apartment. She had been beaten and strangled with a rope. His four-year-old son Donald was suffocated in his bed.

At the first trial, the jurors were unable to reach an agreement. In 1980, he was tried again, found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Coley always claimed that he had not killed anyone. In the decades that he has spent in prison He stood out as an exemplary criminal, adopted religion and avoided involvement in violent incidents. informed the portal Daily mail.

Coley himself filled a leniency application it's been years. He badured that the detective responsible for the case incriminated him in the process of destroying crucial evidence. He noted that the author could be apprehended because evidence such as hair or sperm had not been destroyed.

In 1989 – while doing the detective course. Officer Mike Bender was interested in the case and met Coley in 1991. He again badyzed the file in search of "red lights" and asked the governor's office, Jerry Brown, to reopen the file.

Two days after the official petition was filed, Governor Brown signed the pardon. Coley was released on November 22, 2017 and the California Victims Compensation Committee voted unanimously to grant him 140 dollars for each of the 13,991 days unfairly spent in prison, for which he received a total of $ 1,900,000.

This Saturday, the city of Simi Valley announced the conclusion of a $ 21 million deal with Coley.

"Although no amount of money can repair what happened to Mr. Coley, Solving this problem is the right thing for both Coley and our community. The monetary cost of the trial would have been astronomical and it would have been irresponsible of us to follow this direction, "said Eric Levitt, director of the city.

Coley said earlier that her time in jail was the "worst nightmare".