Kevin Dugar, a US citizen who was wrongly convicted and made to spend almost 20 years in prison has been released after 9 years after his twin brother confessed to the crime.
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The 44-year-old was finally released from Cook County Jail, in Chicago, on Wednesday, January 26, nine years after his twin brother Karl Smith, also 44, confessed to the gang-related 2003 slaying in a letter to Dugar in 2013.
Karl Smith intimated in a letter he wrote to his brother in 2013 that he has to come clean and confess to the crime he has committed in order to get his brother freed from prison.
“I have to get it off my chest before it kills me, so I’ll just come clean and pray you can forgive me”, Smith wrote.
Despite the confession, a judge denied Dugar a retrial in 2018 as Smith admitted to the murder while serving a 99-year sentence for a 2008 home invasion. Even after Smith signed a sworn statement and contacted Dugar’s lawyer after his brother made the request, the convict was denied retrial or release.
According to Dugar’s attorney, Ron Safer, the jury would determine a different outcome, given the new evidence to the case.
Prosecutors said that Smith only confessed after he was convicted for his role in a 2008 home invasion and armed robbery that resulted in the shooting death of a 6-year-old kid. He had previously been sentenced to 99 years in prison for his role in the scheme.
According to the Chicago Tribune, Kevin Dugar will spend 90 days in a residential transitional facility as a condition of his parole. His lawyer expressed his hope that his client’s case would not be retried.
