#7 Richard Jones Richard Jones was released from prison, in
2017, after serving 17 years out of a 19-year long sentence for aggravated robbery.
He was convicted for stealing a woman's purse in a Walmart parking lot, in Kansas City,
in 1999.
Investigators found no DNA evidence or fingerprints connecting Jones to the crime and he had provided
them with an alibi.
He was at his girlfriend’s house, at the time, which she would attest to.
Despite no physical evidence to support their claims, Jones was still given a guilty charge
solely based on two eyewitness accounts.
A decade after the crime, Jones found out about fellow inmate Rickey Amos, for which
he was frequently mistaken.
He passed the information onto the Midwest Innocence Project and the School of Law, at
the University of Kansas, who used the tip to help overturn his wrongful conviction.
They completely discredited the eyewitnesses, including the victim of the robbery on whom
the whole case had rested, when none of them could distinguish between Jones and Amos.
As the statute of limitation had passed, Amos was never charged for the crime.
Jones gained his well-earned freedom at the age of 42 and was compensated $1.1 million.
#6 Chad Gordon In May of 2020, a 27-year-old autistic man,
described as a “gentle giant” by his friends and family, was shot and killed point-blank,
at his home in Haringey, north London.
The victim, Chad Gordon died at the scene and was found by his aunt who was home with
him at the time.
The gunmen, 19-year-old Mason Sani-Semedo, and 20-year-old Cameron Robinson had traveled
to his house on a stolen moped, which they ditched and set aflame in the Walthamstow
Marshes, after the attack.
Although unconfirmed in court by the shooters, it was determined as a revenge attack due
to escalating tensions between two groups in the area.
A friend of theirs had been stabbed 5 days prior and it’s believed their intended target
was Gordon’s next-door neighbor.
Both men were sentenced to a minimum of 29 years in prison for possession of a gun with
intent to inflict bodily harm and for murder.
#5 Djordy Latumahina Amsterdam DJ Djordy Latumahina was gunned
down in his apartments’ parking garage, on October the 8th of 2016.
He was sitting in his car with his girlfriend and 2-year-old daughter when 2 men approached
out of nowhere and opened fire on them.
Their daughter survived unscathed, with a bullet just grazing past her car seat in the
back, but Latumahina was killed and his girlfriend left in critical condition.
An immediate investigation led to the arrest of 7 individuals in what the authorities believed
to be a case of mistaken identity.
It is thought that they were after drug criminal Gino M. who lived in the same building and
drove the same Mini as Latumahina.
The men were sentenced to up to 30 years on various charges, in 2018, with the gunman
and coordinator receiving the longest sentences.
In May of 2021, a further accomplice was tracked down and apprehended in Spain in connection
with the crime after evidence of communication between him and the coordinator was discovered.
The man was arrested on suspicion of orchestrating the hit on Gino, and thus Latumahina, after
messages obtained by the authorities pointed to his involvement in coordinating payments
and delivering the final murder command.
#4 Alfonso Bennett In 2019, Alfonso Bennett’s family was contacted
by the Chicago police to say that he had been admitted to the hospital after being found
beaten close to death.
Adhering to the advice of the police and doctors, after some time, the family took him off life-support
at Mercy Hospital and moved him into hospice care.
The move proved to be too much and, within 3 days, he died.
Grieving, his family began to plan his funeral, when to the surprise of everyone, he showed
up alive and well at a friends’ barbecue.
Having been traveling out of state for a time, the real Alfonso had been completely unaware
of his own purported passing.
When the badly beaten man had first been discovered, police identified him using mugshots.
Despite his severely injured face, they were confident in the match.
Family members of Alfonso, who’d gone to the hospital, didn’t share the police’s
confidence and had insisted the man didn’t look like him but were repeatedly reassured
otherwise.
Hospital staff told them they were in denial because of the difficult situation and dismissed
them completely.
But faced with a live Alfonso, police returned to the body and correctly identified the man
as 68-year-old Elisha Brittman, using fingerprint identification.
Both Brittman and Bennet’s families described the experience as traumatic and banded together
to sue the city and hospital in what they believed was an easily avoidable situation,
had police followed proper protocol.
Their suit argued that Elisha Brittman died “at least in part” due to the hospital
pushing the medical life-altering decisions of a person on to people who had no authority
to make them.
5 individuals lodged the suit and asked for $50,000 each in compensation.
#3 Eddie Clark III Eddie Clark III was chased down and murdered
by a family of 4, while driving near his Houston-area home, in May of 2021.
The family, made up of 19-year-old Joe Argueta, his mother, his father, and his uncle boxed
Clark’s car in as he slowed down near their house.
Clark was caught on security footage trying to speed off-screen as Joe and his uncle pursued
on foot with a gun and bat in hand.
In the footage, sound of Clark crashing into a tree can be heard as Joe fires shots at
his car.
Clark attempted to flee on foot, but only made it a block away, where his body was found.
The Arguata family told investigators that they had devised a plan to lay in wait that
night to “take care of” a person that had been vandalizing their home.
They suspected it was a friend of Joe’s ex-girlfriend, who drove a black Dodge Charger.
Clark also owned a Dodge, a very similar looking dark-silver Challenger.
Joe admitted to carrying a gun and shooting multiple times at the car.
Authorities put it down to a case of mistaken identity and all 4 were charged with murder.
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#2 Timothy Davison Maine native Timothy Davison was driving back
home from a vacation in Florida, on January the 4th of 2014, when he was followed and
rammed off the road by an unknown truck.
In an attempt to skip city traffic, he had taken Interstate 81, an alternative route
through the Appalachian Mountains.
As he drove through Maryland, he noticed a blue Ford Ranger truck following him, which
he tried to lose with growing concern.
Davison called the police when whoever was in the truck began to fire shots at his car,
but the call was dropped as he entered Pennsylvania.
He wasn’t able to connect to the police again until after his car had been run off
into a snow bank.
In his final moments, he begged the dispatcher to hurry up before footsteps and ringing gunshots
echoed on the other end of the call.
Davison had no known ties or enemies in the area and the case of his murder went cold
for the next year and a half.
It took the death of a completely unrelated woman and a subsequent tip for police to identify
a connection to John Wayne Strawser Jr, who they suspect attacked Davison after misidentifying
his car.
The couple who called in the tip believed the attack was intended for them as it had
occurred on the same route they were supposed to take, after a run-in with Strawser.
Strawser had been stalking the woman in the duo after a short-lived affair and he had
a track record of threats, abuse, and violence.
The night of Davison’s murder, the couple had run into Strawser in a bar, an interaction
which had ended with him threatening to kill the husband.
They drove a mid-sized silver SUV, similar to Davison’s, and, like him, had decided
to take an alternative route to avoid Interstate 81.
The decision potentially saved their lives.
Investigators matched the unique shell casings found in Davison’s car to a gun ditched
in a swamp by Strawser’s home.
Cellphone records showed that he was located within range of the murder scene.
Strawser also owned a blue Ford Ranger that had been painted black.
While on trial, he said he couldn’t remember if he’d shot Davison, but said he had been
at work that night, a statement which his employers swiftly declared untrue.
Strawser was sentenced to first-degree murder and life in prison.
#1 Nicholas Barclay & Frédéric Bourdin In 1994, 13-year-old Nicholas Barclay, from
Texas, went missing after playing basketball with his friends in a neighborhood park.
Nicholas was a troubled teen who had repeatedly clashed with his family and the authorities,
in the past.
Assuming he had run away to avoid an upcoming court hearing, the alarm wasn’t raised for
over a day and, by that time, very little information regarding his whereabouts could
be found.
For the next 3 years, the only potential evidence of his survival was a 911 call from his uncle
who reported he was trying to break into his garage.
He fled before the police showed up and the case went cold until the Barclays received
a surprising phone call from Spain claiming that their son had been found in a youth shelter,
in Linares.
The daughter of the family flew out to Spain to identify him and, after he passed the test,
she brought him back home to Texas to rejoin the rest of the family.
The teen claimed he’d been kidnapped after the basketball game and sent on a flight to
Europe where he was forced into a human-trafficking ring.
The Barkleys immediately accepted the story and welcomed him with open arms.
Despite the families’ quick acceptance of the boy, extended family members and reporters
following the story became suspicious of the stark contrast of his features and temperament.
Nicholas was a young blonde-haired boy, with blue eyes and a hot temper.
The boy in front of them had dark hair, dark eyes, and a demure, unsettling presence.
The inconsistencies were too blatant for private investigator Charlie Parker, who had been
present during the filming of the grand reunion.
His investigative efforts led to a court-ordered DNA test and. after 3 months and a half, the
boy’s true identity was revealed.
Not only was he not a teenager, he was actually a 23-year-old French criminal by the name
of Frédéric Bourdin.
Known as “The Chameleon” he was suspected of being involved in over 500 cases of stolen
identity, often those of children.
Bourdin was charged and sentenced to 6 years in prison but left his own suspicions on the
matter.
Based on his experience with the family, he believed they must have had something to do
with their sons’ death.
Despite outing Bourdin initially, investigator Charlie Parker agreed with his suspicions
but never found substantial evidence to corroborate the claims.
Thanks for watching!
Would you rather wake up in a psych ward with no identity or be convicted of a crime you
didn’t commit?
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