Skip to main content

How an Innocent Teenager Confessed to Murder [TheAtlantic.com]

 

Davontae Sanford was released Wednesday from prison after serving nine years for a murder to which he confessed, but the state now doubts he committed.

Sanford is 23, but was 14 when he said he’d killed four people inside a Detroit home. He is blind in one eye because someone had thrown an egg at him when he was nine. As a teenager, he was enrolled in special-education classes. He lived in a rough part of Detroit and tried to fit in by claiming to be part of a gang, or bragging about fights he’d never had. Sanford was an unlikely suspect. So it made more sense when another man, a Detroit contract killer named Vincent Smothers, confessed to the crime in 2008. 

After state police reinvestigated his case, a county judge on Tuesday vacated Sanford’s conviction and ordered him released. It took almost nine years. 

“I just want to try and put this behind me and move on with my life and move forward with my family,”Sanford told reporters Wednesday. “Take one day at a time, one step at a time.” 

His mother, Taminko Sanford-Tilmon, said: “Right now, today, I’m just sucking all of this in.” Then the family went inside. 

[For more of this story, written by J Weston Phippen, go to http://www.theatlantic.com/new...ntae-sanford/486290/]

Add Comment

Comments (0)

Post
Copyright © 2023, PACEsConnection. All rights reserved.
×
×
×
×
Link copied to your clipboard.
×