Gerald Reed’s 1994 double murder case ends in not-guilty verdict after spending decades in prison
CHICAGO — A man sentenced to life in prison for a 1990 double-murder homicide was found not guilty Wednesday after spending most of his life behind bars.
The case took 30 years to solve after Gerald Reed was convicted in 1995 of killing Willie Williams and Pamela Powers on the South Side four years earlier.
In 2021, the State Supreme Court tossed out Reed’s confessions and ordered a new trial. Gov JB Pritzker commuted his life sentenced to ‘time served’ because of health risks during the Pandemic and Reed was released from Prision, the Sun-Times reported.
Reed spent decades behind bars, all the while claiming he was forced to confess to a double murder. He said that confession was tortured out of him by two detectives — Michael Kill and Victor Breska, both of whom worked under disgraced Commander Jon Burge.
Man who says he was forced into confession of double murder walks out of prison
His mother, Armanda Shackelford, one of his strongest supporters, has defended him tirelessly for decades, insistent on his innocence.
The squad under Burge’s command was accused of torturing more than 100 people into confessions between 1972 and 1991. Burge was fired from the department in 1993 and convicted of perjury. He was sentenced to four years in prison and died in 2018 — the same year Reed was granted a new trial.
His sentence was commuted, and he was released.
Wednesday the jury released a new verdict of not guilty on all counts. Reed’s attorney will press for a certificate of innocence and nearly 200,00 dollars in damages.
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