John Gordon Purvis Jr. (born 1942) is a man who spent nine years in prison for a murder he did not commit.
Paul, in marrying Susan, made her sign a pre-nuptial agreement that required him to pay her nothing upon divorce.
Under great pressure from the media for a suspect in this gruesome murder, they turned to Johnny Purvis, the town "weirdo".
Represented by attorney Richard Kirsch, at Purvis's trial the taped confession to police was declared inadmissible by Judge Thomas Coker.
But the jurors were not convinced of Purvis's innocence and declared him guilty based on the confession to psychiatrist Joel Klass.
Although attorney Kirsch lost appeals in the courts and Purvis spent time in prison, an Aspen, Colorado, detective named Gary White put the first crack in the Hamwi murder, when a woman beaten by Robert Wayne Beckett Jr. said that she'd heard him boast that his father, Robert Wayne Beckett Sr., had killed a girl in Florida.
White remembered the Hamwi case and had private detective Barbara Barton assist in checking this out.
Rick Rice and Rich Martin, who had helped get Purvis convicted, weren't interested in this new lead in the Hamwi case.
He was imprisoned for several years before two new detectives, Tim Bronson and Bob Williams, were assigned to the homicide section of the Fort Lauderdale Police Department.
A lawsuit against the prosecutor for failing to disclose exculpatory information was dismissed on grounds of "prosecutorial immunity.