CHAPEL HILL, North Carolina -- When Lamonte Armstrong stopped in a drug store early one Sunday last month, he watched curiously as the clerks hovered over the pages of a newspaper.
The 62-year-old peer-support counselor had just finished up a graveyard shift at Freedom House, the recovery center he's worked at since 2012. He was tired but intrigued as he approached the counter.
The clerks were engrossed in The News & Observer's story of Joseph Sledge, whose murder conviction 34 years ago seems to be unraveling with recanted testimony and new DNA evidence bolstering his claims of innocence.
"I looked at the clerks, and I said, 'I know that man,'" Armstrong recounted. "You know how I know him, because the same thing happened to me.'"
Armstrong spent 17 years in prison, some of it with Sledge.
Armstong was wrongfully convicted of murdering an N.C. A&T University professor found dead in her Greensboro home in 1988. He maintained his innocence throughout--from the first time Greensboro police interviewed him to a Guilford County jury returning a guilty verdict to his arduous appeals of his life-sentence.
CONTINUE READING
No comments:
Post a Comment