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Jeff Titus has been found innocent of the murder charges against him after almost 21 years in prison. Photo/AP
A prosecutor United States of America (USA) dropped the murder charge against a man who spent nearly 21 years in prison for the fatal shooting of two Michigan hunters.
Jeff Titus was released from prison in February when authorities admitted that important information about another suspect – an Ohio serial killer – had not been shared with his lawyers in 2002.
After reviewing the case for three months, Kalamazoo County prosecutor Jeff Getting said Titus would not face a new trial.
“This is the right thing to do,” Get told reporters as quoted by the Associated Press, Friday (2/6/2023).
At the same press conference, Titus, 71, said he was completely innocent.
“You can put me in jail, (inject) truth serum, whatever. I didn’t. I didn’t shoot those people,” Titus said.
Doug Estes and Jim Bennett were shot dead near Titus’s country property in 1990. Titus was acquitted as a suspect – he had been hunting deer 43 kilometers – but murder charges were brought against him 12 years later, after a new team of investigators reopened the case.
There is no physical evidence against Titus, who is described as hot-tempered who dislikes abusers.
The Innocence Clinic at the University of Michigan law school was working to overturn Titus’ conviction when a dusty 30-page file from the original investigation was found in the sheriff’s office. It was a major find: The documents referred to an alternative suspect, Thomas Dillon of Magnolia, Ohio.
