Tests Free Former Death Row Inmate
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A man who came within nine days of being executed was freed in Virginia Beach after DNA tests cleared him of a 1982 murder to which he had confessed.
“I’m glad to be home,” said a grinning Earl Washington Jr., 40, who had been in prison since 1983. “I’m nervous, not bitter.”
Largely illiterate and with an IQ of 69, Washington confessed to the 1982 rape and slaying of Rebecca Lynn Williams, though no fingerprints or biological evidence tied him to the crime.
He came within nine days of being executed in the electric chair in 1985 but was granted a stay.
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