Nicholas Yarris
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Nicholas Yarris was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death for a murder in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. The crime occurred on December 16, 1981. Shortly after he was imprisoned on an unrelated charge, Yarris tried to obtain special treatment from police by claiming a former associate he thought was dead had kidnapped, raped, and killed Linda Mae Craig, a murder victim he read about in the newspaper. The former associate was a drug dealer who Yarris thought had overdosed. Yarris' plan went awry when the associate was located still alive with an airtight alibi—his brother had overdosed.
Police leaked to other inmates that Yarris was a snitch, and Yarris endured days of regular beatings and torture. In an effort to save himself, he asked police what would happen if he had participated in the crime, but was not the murderer. The beatings stopped, and Yarris was charged with capital murder. A fellow inmate made a deal with the DA and began exchanging false information about Yarris in exchange for conjugal visits and reduced sentencing. This inmate became one of the few witnesses to testify against Yarris at trial. Yarris' alleged motive was that he was angry with his ex-girlfriend, and the victim allegedly looked like her. Yarris' blood type also happened to be among the 25% of the population that matched the actual perpetrator's blood type. Yarris was convicted and sentenced to death.
Yarris was the first American to request DNA testing and he was the 140th American convict to be exonerated by DNA tests in part because the biological evidence was too small to test with early DNA technology. Yarris was released in 2004.
