Kevin Strickland spent 43 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit

Kevin Strickland spent 43 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, making him one of the longest wrongfully imprisoned people in U.S. history.

Strickland’s story is one of the most heartbreaking examples of wrongful imprisonment in American history. In 1979, at the age of 18, he was convicted of a triple murder in Kansas City, Missouri, despite maintaining his innocence.

His conviction rested almost entirely on the testimony of one witness, who later recanted and admitted she had been pressured into identifying him. There was no physical evidence tying Strickland to the crime, yet he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 50 years.

For decades, Strickland fought to prove his innocence. Advocacy groups, journalists, and even prosecutors later acknowledged that his conviction was a mistake. Still, appeals and petitions for his release were denied again and again, a stark reminder of how difficult it can be to overturn a wrongful conviction once it enters the system. Finally, in 2021, a judge formally exonerated Strickland, declaring that he had been wrongly imprisoned for 43 years.

At 62 years old, Strickland walked free, entering a world completely transformed from the one he knew as a teenager. He had never used a smartphone, never experienced the internet, and had lost nearly his entire adult life.

Missouri law at the time did not offer him compensation, meaning he was released with little financial support despite spending more than four decades behind bars for a crime he did not commit.

His case has since become a rallying cry for reform in wrongful conviction laws and compensation statutes across the United States.