Ron Williamson

Ronald Keith Williamson (February 3, 1953 – December 4, 2004) was a former minor league baseball catcher/pitcher who was one of two men wrongly convicted in 1988 in Oklahoma for the rape and murder of Debra Sue "Debbie" Carter.

Their story became the subject of bestselling author John Grisham's first nonfiction book, The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town (2006), and the adapted Netflix docu-series of the same name.

After hitting .500 in the state championships his senior year, he was the 41st pick in baseball's 1971 amateur draft, a second-round selection by the Oakland Athletics.

Forgoing a scholarship offer from the University of Oklahoma, Williamson signed and spent the 1972 season primarily with the Coos Bay-North Bend A's, hitting .265 in 52 games.

He became addicted to drugs and alcohol and suffered from increasingly severe mental illness, becoming depressed and living with his mother Juanita.

The expert concluded that 13 of the 17 hairs found at the crime scene were "microscopically consistent" with those of Fritz and Williamson, and alleged that one of them was a "match."

Having learned of this while on death row, Williamson became increasingly convinced that Simmons had committed the murder and repeatedly demanded his arrest.

[9] Indeed, both men reportedly felt it necessary to be very wary after their release, such was their belief that the prosecutor, Bill Peterson, and other officials of the Ada police would try to bring them to trial again.

[9] Best-selling novelist John Grisham read Williamson's obituary in The New York Times and made him and Fritz the subject of his first non-fiction book, The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town, published in 2006.

[10][11][12] Glen Dale Gore (born 27 April 1960),[13] an Ada man who had testified against both Williamson and Fritz, was ultimately convicted of the murder of Debbie Carter.