A 62-year-old man who had been on death row for 25 years was shot and killed less than two years after he got out of prison.
Christopher Williams got out of prison in February 2021, but he still had two death warrants with him. This was a grim reminder of what would have happened to him.
When he was freed, he talked about how strange it was that he had been accused of six murders but was cleared in four of them and found not guilty in two others.
The district attorney’s office told the Philadelphia Inquirer that the case against Williams was “built on a house of cards.”
They said that the murders Williams was accused of committing were based on false testimony and that there was a lot of evidence that wasn’t shown at his trial. This meant that he had to spend years in prison while he waited to be executed.
Williams was in prison from the time he was 29 until he was 61. He spent 25 of those years on death row.
Since he got out of prison, the 62-year-old has been working as a carpenter and asking the state of Pennsylvania for money to make up for the 25 years he spent on death row.
Pennsylvania is one of the few states in the US that doesn’t pay money to people who were wrongfully jailed, though some people have gotten money after being set free.
He had filed a lawsuit against the city of Philadelphia to get money for the 20 years he spent in jail, most of which were spent on death row waiting to be killed.
He also spoke up for other prisoners who he thought were wrongly convicted and were stuck in prison for crimes he didn’t think they committed.
The 62-year-old also wanted to start his own program to help people who had been in jail get back into society after they got out.
But at 2:20 p.m. on Friday, December 16, he was shot in the head as he got out of a car at Mount Peace Cemetery to join a funeral procession for a man who had been in prison.
Williams was taken to Temple University Hospital after being shot, but he was declared dead about 30 minutes later. He died 22 months after getting out of prison.
So far, no one has been caught, and no one knows why he was killed.
Terrance Lewis, who was recently found not guilty, said that the 62-year-old had been a “champion for justice” who was “learning how to give back” when he died.
His son, Christopher Hartwell, said that his father “taught me how to be a better man” and “helped me be a better father myself.”
