Freed After 28 Years of Wrongful Conviction, Man Meets Pen Pal Who Never Stopped Affirming His Innocence

E se você tivesse passado 28 anos preso por um crime que n?o cometeu? Foi o que aconteceu com Lamar Johson, condenado injustamente pelo assassinato do seu melhor amigo. Durante este tempo, ele se correspondeu com uma senhora chamada Ginny Schrappen, que acompanhou todo o seu processo junto ao Innocence Project, que conseguiu sua liberta??o. Descubra como esta história se desenrolou na notícia.

Level: Basic to Pre-Intermediate

Lamar Johnson spent 28 years in prison for a murder he did not commit. During his time in prison, he had a pen pal named Ginny Schrappen who wrote to him regularly and attended his court proceedings in support of his release. Johnson was finally released with the help of the Innocence Project, and Schrappen was the first person he wanted to see. Despite several failed appeals, Schrappen never stopped supporting Johnson, and their relationship grew over the years through letters and occasional visits. Johnson is now enjoying spending time with Schrappen and tries not to feel anger with this entire situation. A GoFundMe campaign has raised nearly $600,000 to give Johnson a new start. Both Johnson and Schrappen encourage others to reach out to those in need of a friend.

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Level: Intermediate to Advanced

Lamar Johnson served 28 years for a murder he didn’t commit—when he was finally released after years of work by an advocacy group, there was one person he knew he wanted to see first. It was a pen pal who wrote to him faithfully through nearly all the years of his imprisonment and came to all his court proceedings, pleading for his release on the strongly-held belief he was innocent. Rewinding 20-some years back, one day a letter arrived in the hands of a congregant of Mary, Mother of the Church in St. Louis County named Ginny Schrappen. It was a letter addressed from the Jefferson City Correctional Center, to whomever at the church decided to open it. Schrappen described herself as being “blown away” by Johnson’s elegant longhand script, and she decided to reply; with small details at first, but to say hello to a human who was obviously intelligent.

Johnson was convicted in 1994 of the first-degree murder of 25-year-old Marcus Boyd, one of his best friends. He had a simple alibi—he was at his girlfriend’s house that night, but the sole witness identified him as one of the shooters. Several years later, the true culprits confessed to the crime, but this did not amount to an overturning of Johnson’s sentence. It took years of advocacy from the Innocence Project, a non-profit that investigates shut cases to try and get innocent people released from prison. Innocence Project wasn’t alone in Johson’s advocacy—Schrappen always wrote letters to him ahead of his court appeal dates saying she would be there for him—all despite being a mother of three and eventual grandmother of two. Despite several failed appeals, Schrappen never stopped coming, and over the years of letter writing their relationship became more important—she visited him occasionally in prison, which created a feeling of joy she described to the Washington Post as sending her “almost out of my skin.”

The Innocence Project eventually got Johnson freed after 28 years of time served, and a GoFundMe set up in the aftermath has raised nearly $600,000 at the time of publishing to give the man a new start. He now enjoys spending regular face-to-face time on equal footing with his long-time friend Schrappen, but isn’t angry about the course of his life. “If you hold onto anger, you’re just going to swap one prison for another,” Johnson told the Post. “As much as there were a lot of setbacks over the years, there is a lot to be happy and grateful for.” “Reach out to somebody that might need a friend,” Schrappen said. “It could mean more than you know.”

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