Trio Convicted of Murder Walk Free After Nearly 30 Years in Prison for a Crime They Didn’t Commit

In 1997, 73-year-old Essie May Davis was found fatally stabbed in Philadelphia. Three men were convicted of her murder, thanks in part to a single “eyewitness” testimony and a medical examiner’s inaccurate testimony. Now, there’s a new development in the case that kept three men behind bars for nearly 30 years.

Davis was found by her nephew, beaten and stabbed to death, in her North Philadelphia home on Monday, Nov. 10, 1997. She had last been seen alive the previous Friday afternoon, according to the Innocence Project.

Jermal Shuler, Marc Brittingham and Rasheed Turner were charged with killing the elderly widow, after an eyewitness “claimed to see them at the crime scene on Saturday night, the weekend that the victim was killed.”

A medical examiner backed up the witness’s testimony, confirming the victim’s time of death matched when she saw Shuler, Brittingham and Turner. Despite there being no physical evidence linking the three men to the crime, they were convicted anyway. 

It wasn’t until the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office’s Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) launched a post-conviction investigation that uncovered the unthinkable.

The CIU found that the medical examiner’s time of death determination was not accurate, noting that “the medical examiner’s original time of death was unreasonable, and the victim likely died nearly 24 hours after the eyewitness testified that she saw the men.”

After 28 years behind bars for a crime they did not commit, a judge vacated their convictions in response to a joint request from Shuler’s attorneys at the Innocence Project, the Exoneration Project and the defendant’s counsel.

Two of the men, Rasheed Turner and Jermal Shuler, were released from SCI Phoenix in Skippack Township, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday (May 26), local news station ABC 6 reported.

Marc Brittingham remained at SCI Chester overnight because of processing delays, but was expected to be released on Wednesday.

“Today’s ruling confirms what should have been clear from the outset: These convictions lacked reliable evidence and rested on deeply flawed forensic testimony,” said attorneys for the men.

That failure cost three men nearly thirty years of their lives, a staggering toll of injustice highlighted by their defense team.

“For nearly three decades, Mr. Shuler, Mr. Brittingham, and Mr. Turner maintained their innocence while serving time for a crime they did not commit,” the attorneys added. “The absence of physical evidence, along with new evidence discovered during the joint investigation, makes clear that this wrongful conviction should never have occurred.”