Man on Death Row for 20 years for crime he didn't commit saved by Priest days before Execution

The criminal justice system can be tricky & complicated, as is evident from a large number of discrepancies when it comes to the conviction of innocent persons for crimes they didn't commit. Something similar happened to an American citizen in the Ohio state of the USA. Joe D'Ambrosio had to spend more than twenty years on death row & was just days away from execution until a priest showed up & saved him.

Joe's life changed in 1988 when he was just 26-year-old & was accused of murdering 19-year-old Anthony Klann, whose body was found near a Cleveland creek, with his throat cut from ear-to-ear. Police stormed Joe's apartment after receiving a tip-off, alleging he & 2 colleagues at a landscaping firm, Michael Keenan & Eddy Espinoza were responsible for the murder.

In a trial that lasted less than 3 days – the shortest ever trial in Ohio's history – & hinged on Espinoza's testimony, Keenan & Joe were convicted & sentenced to death. It was only when Father Neil Kookoothe, a former lawyer & nurse, was visiting another inmate at the prison & offered to take Joe through his mother's funeral that things began to change.

Joe told Father Neil how short his trial was & the attorney in him kicked in. It was striking that a murder trial that generally lasts for months was finished in 2 days & Father Neil began doing a little digging & found that Cuyahoga County prosecutors had hidden evidence that would have saved Joe's life.

Speaking to LadBible, he said part of the evidence, which was based on Espinoza's testimony of that night, claimed that Klann had his throat slit & then ran away screaming for help. But Father Neil says it is physiologically impossible that he was screaming. Having worked with trachea patients as a critical care nurse, Father Neil knew that when the trachea is compromised, the person can't talk. Yet the coroner took the stand & said he was running away from his perpetrators screaming for his life.

With the help of Father Neil's legal skills, in March 2010, judge O'Malley barred Cuyahoga County prosecutors from retrying Joe for the murder of Anthony Klann. & Joe became the 140th person to be released from death row since 1973. 

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