A man convicted of a murder he didn’t commit was released from a Minnesota prison on Thursday after spending nearly 30 years behind bars.
Bryan Hooper Sr. was freed a day after District Court Judge Marta Chou vacated his first-degree murder conviction, which had been based on a false confession from a woman who has since admitted to committing the crime.
Hooper was accused of killing a woman whose body was found in a cardboard box inside her bedroom closet at her Minneapolis apartment on April 15, 1998.
The death of 77-year-old Ann Prazniak was ruled asphyxiation, and evidence showed she had died at least two weeks before her body was found.
Hooper — who admitted being in the apartment but denied any involvement in or knowledge of Prazniak’s death — was later convicted of premeditate