On Monday, the state prosecutor announced that a judge earlier this week dropped all charges against a 59-year-old Georgia man who had been in prison for more than 20 years for the death of a deacon and his wife in 1985.
Dennis Perry’s newly discovered DNA evidence shows that he could have been acquitted after being acquitted in 2003 for the deaths of Harold and Thelma Swain. News 4 According to reports, a press release from Green County District Attorney Keith Higgins was quoted.
Perry was convicted of shooting and killing Swains in the front hall of the Rising Daughter Baptist Church in a night bible study in Waverly, Camden County, Georgia on March 11, 1985. He was sentenced to life twice in a row. imprisonment. Georgia Innocence Project (GIP), a non-profit organization that provides legal aid to Perry.
Judge Stephen Scarlett, Green County Superior Court Overthrown On July 17 last year, after discovering new DNA evidence, he was convicted of murder. Perry was released under his own guarantee, waiting for the district attorney to decide to dismiss the charges.
According to the district attorney, investigators found two hairs belonging to the alleged murderer in the hinge of a pair of spectacles found at the crime scene in 1985, but the identity of the murderer was not specified in the report.
The press release stated that in February last year, a private investigator working for Perry managed to obtain a hair sample from a woman in Brantley County who was the mother of a man implicated in the Swains murder but not charged. The DNA matched the hair found in the glasses, causing the case to reopen.
According to the press release, before the 2003 trial, tests on hair samples proved that they were not from Perry, but he was convicted on the basis of circumstantial evidence.
After Swains’ family stated that they “do not believe Dennis Perry committed these murders,” prosecutors decided not to pursue the case. Higgins quoted Higgins as saying. Fox News.
“It took a long time, but I never gave up,” GIP quoted Perry as saying in a statement. statement After announcing the dismissal.
“We are grateful that, in the end, Keith Higgins, the new Brunswick Judicial Circuit District Attorney, is willing to evaluate the case based on the principles of justice and dismiss the charges, rather than simply seeking conviction at all costs,” GIP executive director Claire Gilber Special said in the statement.
According to GIP, Perry stayed at home with his wife Brenda since he was released from prison. He has been reconnecting with friends and family and trying to recover and readjust.
Georgia is one of the 14 states that currently does not have a statutory compensation law to provide financial relief for years of losses due to wrongful convictions.This prompted the GIP to initiate personal Fundraising Help Perry and his family.
According to the organization, the lack of such financial relief has allowed “innocent people like Dennis…to rebuild their lives on their own with almost no state support.”
Said. Dennis Perry, 59, was acquitted in 1985 after he was wrongly convicted of killing Harold and Thelma Swain in a church.
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