Dennis Perry, wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for nearly 21 years for the murders of Harold and Thelma Swain, was exonerated in 2020 based on new DNA evidence. While the recent arrest of a new suspect offers some closure, it also reignites the pain of a community grappling with a flawed justice system and the enduring impact of a tragic crime.
There’s no shortage of laughter in Dennis Perry’s house. Ask him about his grandkids, and he instantly starts to chuckle. And if the subject of fishing or how much he loves his wife, Brenda, comes up, you’re rewarded with a belly laugh. The kids call him “Papa Sunshine,” a nickname befitting a man whose smile you can hear through the phone. That Perry can laugh at all is something of a miracle – especially after all he’s been through.
In 2003, Perry, who is White, was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences in prison for the brutal 1985 slaying of a Black couple named Harold and Thelma Swain at their church in southern Georgia. He has always – emphatically – maintained his innocence: throughout his arrest, his trial and conviction, and every single day of the nearly 21 years he spent incarcerated. In 2020, attorneys with the Georgia Innocence Project and an Atlanta-based international law firm, King & Spalding, presented a judge with a wealth of new DNA evidence to prove what Perry says he knew all along: “You got the wrong man.” In a matter of months, Perry was free from prison, back home in the loving embrace of his wife and the gaggle of kids and grandkids who adore him. But the wrongful conviction stole decades of his life and with Perry’s exoneration came a tidal wave of new questions: How did the justice system get this case so wrong? And if Perry didn’t murder the Swains all those years ago, who did? Earlier this month, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation took a step toward answering some of those questions, arresting and charging a man they now accuse of the murders at Rising Daughter Baptist Church nearly 40 years ago. But that arrest, coupled with Perry’s exoneration, has reopened old wounds in this rural Georgia community, and revealed that sometimes, even a broken justice system can’t shatter the human spiri
WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS DNA EVIDENCE EXONERATION MURDER INVESTIGATION GEORGIA
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