Earlier this month, a Massachusetts jury ruled that 64-year-old Michael Sullivan — who has been in prison for nearly three decades — was innocent of the 1986 murder and robbery of Wilfred McGrath, the Associated Press reports. He was awarded $13 million — though state regulations cap rewards at $1 million for wrongful convictions. The jury also found a state police chemist falsely testified at the trial though his testimony isn’t what guaranteed Sullivan’s conviction. It’s the latest in a string of convictions that have been overturned in the state in recent years. “The most important thing is finding me innocent of the murder, expunging it from my record,” said Sullivan, speaking at the Framingham, Massachusetts, office of his lead attorney Michael Heineman. “The money, of course, will be very helpful to me.”
Sullivan was convicted of murder and armed robbery in 1987 after police say McGrath was robbed and beaten and his body dumped behind an abandoned supermarket. Authorities zeroed in on Sullivan after they learned his sister had been out with McGrath the night before the murder and the two had gone to the apartment she shared with Sullivan. Another suspect in the murder, Gary Grace, implicated Sullivan and had his murder charges dropped. Grace testified at the trial that Sullivan was wearing a purple jacket the night of the murder and a former State Police chemist testified that he found blood on the jacket and a hair consistent with McGrath, not Sullivan’s. But in 2011, Sullivan’s fortunes changed dramatically. Sullivan’s attorney requested DNA testing — which had not been available for the first trial — that found no blood on the coat. The testing also found substances on the coat did not contain McGrath’s DNA and could not determine if the hair found on a jacket belonged to him. Dana Curhan, a Boston attorney who represented Sullivan from 1992 until 2014 and pushed for the DNA testing, said Sullivan had always told him McGrath’s blood wasn’t on the jacket. But he was surprised to learn there wasn’t any blood, which undermined the prosecutor’s argument.
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