A Minnesota man walked out of prison on Thursday after spending nearly three decades behind bars for a murder that he not only didn’t commit but might have been carried out by the trial’s key witness, prosecutors and advocates said.
Bryan Hooper Sr., 54, was released from Stillwater Correction Facility after a state judge on Wednesday vacated his first-degree murder conviction in connection with the 1998 murder of Ann Prazniak, 77, whose body was stuffed in a box in her apartment.
“Today, the courts have affirmed what Bryan Hooper, his family, his loved ones, and his advocates have always known: Mr. Hooper is an innocent man,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a statement announcing Hooper’s release.