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| Alabama Inmate Released After 28 Years |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 02/19/2001 |
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Michael Rene Pardue was released from prison yesterday, more than six years after his three murder convictions were overturned. He had remained incarcerated because he kept escaping. He spent 28 years behind bars. Pardue, 45, was ordered freed Thursday by Circuit Judge Joseph Brogden after prosecutors agreed that his life sentence for his third and final escape should be reduced and he should be put on probation. Pardue's wife, Becky, burst into tears. More than a dozen supporters applauded. Pardue said he must visit his parole officer and look for a job, but 'for tonight we're going home and share some things with some friends and start celebrating a honeymoon that's overdue about 17 years.' He was accused of shooting to death two service station operators in separate holdups in 1973. Arrested three days later, he confessed to those killings plus the slaying of a drug dealer. Later, Pardue said he had nothing to do with the crimes. The murder convictions were thrown out in 1994 when the courts ruled that Pardue's confession was coerced during a brutal 78-hour interrogation without a lawyer when he was 17. But he remained in prison on a sentence of life without parole because he escaped three times - in 1977, 1978 and 1987. In the last escape, he broke into the warden's house and stole a car. Pardue's supporters, including the sister of one of the murder victims, said he was the victim of police brutality, witness perjury and planted evidence. He is suing prosecutors and others over his imprisonment. But officers and others involved in his arrest contend they were only doing their jobs. And some of those who prosecuted him have argued that the reversals were on technicalities only. Charlie Graddick, who was Alabama attorney general from 1979 to 1987, said in 1998 he still believed Pardue was 'a cold-blooded murderer.' |
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