Non-IPNO exonerees
Ryan Matthews
Years spent wrongfully incarcerated - 7
Causes of Wrongful Conviction - Prosecutorial/Police Misconduct; False confession; Eyewitness Misidentification
Release/Exoneration Date - August 9, 2004
Ryan Matthews and his co-defendant Travis Hayes were just 17 when they were arrested as suspects in a failed robbery attempt that resulted in the 1997 murder of a Tommy Vanhoose, a Jefferson Parish grocery store owner. They were arrested four hours after the crime and over eight miles away from the store in a car that was the same model as the getaway car. Travis, after six hours of police interrogation, gave a false confession that placed him as the driver and Ryan as the gunman in the murder. There were several factual problems in the case against Ryan and Travis. DNA testing on a mask left by the assailant at the crime scene yielded a profile that differed from both Ryan and Travis. Witnesses also gave accounts that the shooter jumped into the getaway car through an open window, but the car Ryan and Travis were picked up in had a broken window that could not open. Additionally, witnesses inside the store said the gunman was 5'4" to 5'7" while Ryan stands unmistakably at 6'1". At trial, witnesses identified Ryan. Ryan was convicted and sentenced to death in 1999 (Travis had already been sentenced to life without parole in 1998). After the conviction, an inmate who had committed a 1997 murder close to where the grocery store murder occurred bragged that he was in fact the killer. When DNA from that inmate was compared to the DNA profile found on the ski-mask worn by the killer in the Vanhoose murder, it matched exactly. Ryan's Louisiana Capital Assistance Center attorneys quickly got him released and exonerated on August 9, 2004. Although Ryan's freedom was won, Travis remained in prison for an additional two and a half years before he would be released.
Ryan Matthews is also mentioned on the Innocence Project website.
Further Reading:
Perlstein, Michael "A Forgotten Man: Prosecutors Refuse to Reconsider Inmate's Case Despite Evidence Supporting His Claim" The Times Picayune 10 October 2004
Roberts, Janet and Elizabeth Stanton. "A Long Road Back After Exoneration, and Justice is Slow to Make Amends." The New York Times. 25 November 2007