In 1981, after one of the shortest murder trials in Pennsylvania history, Nicholas Yarris of West Philadelphia was sent to Death Row for the kidnapping, rape and murder of Boothwyn, PA resident Linda Mae Craig from the Tri-State Mall in Delaware. The conviction came with no physical evidence tying him to the crime but his blood type, shared by 20 percent of the population, including the victim's husband (excluded by DNA testing later), and by her killer. There was no confession, no murder weapon, fibers or fingerprints, and a credible alibi.
On March 20, 1988 he became one of the first Death Row inmates in the U.S. to request DNA testing to prove his innocence.
After a 15 year struggle and 22 years in prison, on September 3rd, 2003 Nick was exonerated by PCR enhanced DNA testing. On January 16th, 2004 he was released, all convictions and sentences in Pennsylvania relating to this crime, vacated.
Key evidence that would have cut his prison time in half was surpressed by the prosecution until 2003 when a Federal Judge allowed it for testing.
The surpression of this evidence not only cost a young man years of his life, but also allowed a brutal killer to walk freely among us in society to rape and murder again.
Testing this particular evidence - a pair of gloves found in the victim's car, ultimately proved Nicholas Yarris innocent.
More evidence that led to his exoneration was "lost" until April 2003. Inexplicably, more evidence was destroyed, and finally, evidence that had been recovered early in the case was confiscated and held out of process by detectives in a desk drawer for 2 years until it was degraded to the point where repeated testing produced no results.
In 1981, what Delaware County prosecutors wanted and got in the Craig case was a conviction. What Nick needed was detox and mental health care.
What he got was the death penalty.
In 2007, the Craig family still waits.
The murderer (or murderers) of Linda Mae Craig are still unknown.
