After 19 years in prison, NY man cleared in mother's killing

Source: Associated Press

Jennifer Peltz, Associated Press
Updated 6:21 pm CST, Thursday, January 24, 2019



NEW YORK (AP) — Huwe Burton was 16 when he was accused of stabbing his mother to death, then staging the scene to make it appear an intruder had sexually assaulted and killed her. He insisted for decades he didn't commit the crime.

After 30 years — 19 of them in prison — Burton was cleared of the charges Thursday after Bronx prosecutors said they would no longer stand behind his murder conviction.

"To hear that there's been public acknowledgement of what was done to me — that's when I get a bit emotional," said Burton, 46, who was paroled in 2009. "It just felt like a weight was officially lifted."

. . .

Prosecutors and Burton's lawyers, from the Innocence Project, said a re-investigation raised questions about the methods police used to obtain a confession he had long disavowed, and about a neighbor who implicated Burton in the crime but whom Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark now calls a viable suspect in the killing. The neighbor is long dead.



Read more: https://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/After-19-years-in-prison-NY-man-cleared-in-13558976.php