Kevin Bernard Strickland (born June 7, 1959) is an American man who was wrongfully convicted by an all-white jury[2] in 1979 of killing three people in Kansas City, Missouri.
No physical evidence linked him to the scene of the crime and the only alleged witness later recanted her testimony that Strickland was involved, stating that she was coerced by police.
[4] Another woman, Cynthia Douglas, Ingram's girlfriend, was shot in the leg non-fatally; she pretended to be dead until the attackers left, at which point, she crawled out of the house.
[12] Kevin Strickland, who was then 18 years old, said at the time he was watching television and talking on the phone, and that the next morning police began accusing him of the murders.
"[13] Strickland's current lawyer, Tricia Rojo Bushnell of the Midwest Innocence Project, said the prosecutor used each of his peremptory challenges to strike black jurors, resulting in the next trial having an all-white jury.
[17] Strickland was the subject of an investigation by The Kansas City Star in September 2020, which prompted prosecutors to review the case.
[18][19] On May 10, 2021, Jackson County prosecutor Jean Peters Baker published a letter saying she believed he was innocent and should be released from prison.
[4] Mayor of Kansas City Quinton Lucas and more than a dozen state lawmakers, including Andrew McDaniel, the Republican chair to the Missouri House of Representatives' committee overseeing prisons, have sought to have him released.
"[9] In August 2021, the attorney general's office issued Baker a subpoena requiring her to turn over any communication with third parties regarding Strickland.
"[23] The last of a dozen witnesses, former Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Edward D. Robertson Jr., argued that the preserved subsequent testimony and frequent recantations of her pre-trial interviews and trial testimony by Cynthia Douglas, upon whose word the entire original persuasive evidence of guilt rested, also constituted "the entire case" for the reversals.
[13] Though Kevin Strickland served the longest prison time wrongfully convicted in Missouri's history, he did not qualify for compensation from the state, because the law allows it only if an exoneration is based on DNA evidence.
However, the Midwest Innocence Project initiated a fundraising campaign for him through GoFundMe in June 2021, which raised more than $200,000 by the time of his release.