Detroit man freed after 17 years in jail

A Detroit man has been freed from jail after serving 17 years for a rape and murder that DNA evidence has proved he did not commit.

Eddie Joe Lloyd’s conviction was overturned yesterday after the tests showed he could not have killed 16-year-old Michelle Jackson.

"If Michelle Jackson could have spoke from the grave, she would have told everybody Eddie Lloyd didn’t do it," he said, choking back tears.

Despite the lack of physical evidence, Lloyd was jailed in 1985 primarily because of a taped confession he made to police while he was in a mental hospital.

Lloyd said the officer who interviewed him told him his confession would help "flush out the real killer".

"I had no idea I would spend the next 17 years in prison," the 54-year-old said, hugging his sisters and talking about finally meeting his grandchildren.

"I want to run the 50 or 100 yard dash with my grandbabies," he said.

Lloyd becomes the 110th convicted person in the US to be exonerated by DNA testing, according to the Innocence Project at the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law.

The genetic evidence in Jackson’s murder was gathered from a bottle and a pair of long johns found at the crime scene, as well as from evidence from slides discovered three weeks ago, said Barry Scheck, an Innocence Project lawyer.

The DNA does not match any samples in the FBI’s database, meaning Lloyd could not have committed the crime.

Jackson was strangled with the long johns. Her body was discovered in an abandoned building on January 25, 1984, a day after she disappeared while walking to school.

Judge Leonard Townsend, the original trial judge in the case, blamed Lloyd for the conviction as he threw it out.

"Even though he may have lied about what he did, the fault falls on him," Townsend said. "I never heard this gentleman say, ‘I didn’t do it’."