Murder Charges Dismissed For Brothers

David Moye
Updated

Breaking News

DETROIT -- Two brothers who spent 25 years in prison for a killing they insist they didn't commit walked out of a Detroit courthouse as free men on Thursday.

Circuit Judge Lawrence Talon formally dismissed the murder charges against Raymond and Thomas Highers a day after Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy announced she didn't plan to retry the men for the 1987 slaying of 65-year-old Robert Karey.

The brothers and the dozen or so family and friends in attendance abided by a request from defense lawyer Valerie Newman not to "hoot and holler" in the courtroom.

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"There'll be lots and lots of time to celebrate," she told them.

Celebrate they did, once they poured out of the building.

Thomas Highers, 48, walked down the courthouse steps and gave his uncle a bear hug while cheers rang out.

Asked what he planned to do next, Highers smiled and said: "Life."

"We're going to do and see things we haven't been able to in many, many years," he said.

Raymond Highers, 47, said he was looking forward to a nice dinner at home with his loved ones. He said he plans to travel to Kentucky to honor his late father's wish of having his ashes spread in that state.

Talon ordered a new trial for the brothers last year and let them out on bond after new witness testimony suggested they may have been misidentified in the slaying.

Talon threw out the 1988 convictions in July 2012, and ordered a new trial, after a 2009 Facebook post prompted new witnesses to come forward.

Former Detroit resident Kevin Zieleniewski came across a Facebook post by Mary Evans about the men's life sentences and reconnected with a former law school friend, John Hielscher, who told him decades ago that he had been at Karey's that night, and that Karey had been killed by black men, ABCNews.com reported.

Since getting out of prison, both brothers have found jobs, their attorney Gabi Silver said.

Worthy appealed the ruling, but lost. The case had been scheduled for trial early next month, but Worthy decided against going forward.

In requesting that the case be dismissed, assistant prosecutor Michael Reynolds told Talon on Thursday that some witnesses have died and others' memories have faded. Plus, he said, some physical evidence has not been located.

Talon accepted the explanation and dismissed the charges without prejudice, which means prosecutors could decide to charge the brothers again someday.

"I wish them good luck with their lives," the judge said.

The brothers were convicted by a judge in 1988 of fatally shooting Karey at his home near City Airport.

Talon threw out the brothers' first-degree murder convictions based on new testimony from witnesses who didn't come forward at the time.

The witnesses, former Grosse Pointe school friends, claimed they went to the house to buy marijuana. One of them, John Hielscher, has said he saw the attackers at the drug house and they were black. The Highers are white.

Hielscher said he was scared to say anything at the time and that two decades passed before he learned that the Highers had been convicted.

The brothers and the dozen or so family and friends in attendance abided by a request from defense lawyer Valerie Newman not to "hoot and holler" in the courtroom.

"There'll be lots and lots of time to celebrate," she told them.

Celebrate they did, once they poured out of the building.

Thomas Highers, 48, walked down the courthouse steps and gave his uncle a bear hug while cheers rang out.

Asked what he planned to do next, Highers smiled and said: "Life."

"We're going to do and see things we haven't been able to in many, many years," he said.

Raymond Highers, 47, said he was looking forward to a nice dinner at home with his loved ones. He said he plans to travel to Kentucky to honor his late father's wish of having his ashes spread in that state.

Talon ordered a new trial for the brothers last year and let them out on bond after new witness testimony suggested they may have been misidentified in the slaying. Since getting out of prison, both brothers have found jobs, their attorney Gabi Silver said.

Worthy appealed the ruling, but lost. The case had been scheduled for trial early next month, but Worthy decided against going forward.

In requesting that the case be dismissed, assistant prosecutor Michael Reynolds told Talon on Thursday that some witnesses have died and others' memories have faded. Plus, he said, some physical evidence has not been located.

Talon accepted the explanation and dismissed the charges without prejudice, which means prosecutors could decide to charge the brothers again someday.

"I wish them good luck with their lives," the judge said.

The brothers were convicted by a judge in 1988 of fatally shooting Karey at his home near City Airport.

Talon threw out the brothers' first-degree murder convictions based on new testimony from witnesses who didn't come forward at the time.

The witnesses, former Grosse Pointe school friends, claimed they went to the house to buy marijuana. One of them, John Hielscher, has said he saw the attackers at the drug house and they were black. The Highers are white.

Hielscher said he was scared to say anything at the time and that two decades passed before he learned that the Highers had been convicted.

Exonerations

Audrey Edmunds poses at the John C. Burke Correctional Center in Waupun, Wis., 10 years into serving an 18-year sentence for shaking a baby to death while babysitting. She was freed in February 2008 after an appeals court said new research into shaken baby syndrome cast doubt on her guilt. According to Northwestern University's Center on Wrongful Convictions, experts concluded that symptoms they once thought were proof of a shaken baby can result from other causes, including accidents, illness, infection, old injuries and congenital defects.

Exonerations

Kirk Bloodsworth spent eight years in a Baltimore County, Md., prison, two of those on death row. He was convicted of raping and murdering a 9-year-old girl. In 1993, DNA testing both excluded Bloodsworth as the child’s killer and helped convict the real killer. It was the first capital conviction case in the U.S. to be overturned through DNA testing. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kirk-noble-bloodsworth/overturned_b_59325.html">Read Bloodsworth's firsthand account here</a>.

Exonerations

Michael Blair was sent to death row in Texas for the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/13/michael-blair-texas-rape-compensation_n_2123212.html">murder of 7-year-old Ashley Estell </a>in 1994. More than a decade later, genetic testing showed he was innocent. But while behind bars, Blair confessed to raping two other children, a crime for which he's serving multiple life sentences. In 2012, Blair asked the state for nearly $1 million as compensation for being wrongfully convicted of Ashley's murder.

Exonerations

Lynn DeJac Peters <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/13/lynn-dejac-peters_n_2122595.html">spent more than 13 years</a> in the maximum-security Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in New York. She was wrongfully convicted of strangling her 13-year-old daughter on Valentine's Day in 1993. In 2007, DNA testing placed Peters' boyfriend, Dennis Donohue, at the scene of the crime, but prosecutors could not bring charges against him: He'd received immunity when testifying before the grand jury that originally charged Peters. Donohue was later convicted in the September 1993 strangulation death of another woman and is serving 25 years to life in prison.

Exonerations

On March 29, 2012, Michael Morton of Austin, Texas, spoke to the public for the first time since he was freed from prison after spending nearly 25 years behind bars for murdering his wife. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/03/texas-man-imprisoned-for-_0_n_992681.html">New DNA tests done on a bandana</a> found near Morton's home discovered blood from his wife and a California felon, suggesting the the latter man, not Morton, committed the crime.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.