My name is Edward H.
TDC news 853824?
I'm in here for murder.
On Judgement Day I'm innocent.
I didn't commit the crime.
On the evening of July
23rd, 1993, just outside of Tyler,
TX, the body of Elnora Griffin was found
on the living room floor of her home.
Griffin had been fatally stabbed.
One month later authorities were
confident they had their men at war dates.
Ed and his younger brother
Calvin grew up country kids.
He loved the outdoors and playing sports
in particular basketball at any cost.
Right there, you still come home.
They got school clothes off
before we go play.
My brother will get off 2 bus stops up.
Get off and go play basketball.
Do you hear me? I'm like, yeah,
all you gotta do is come home
and take your clothes off man.
Keep both of them, you know,
but to up Sho'nuff Daddy sneak
home whenever you go wooping
just like 3 minute oatmeal.
It like most kids with the love of the
game suited up for his high school team.
It's a fun conversation today
anytime we talk
about basketball. Of course he
was the star he was the beast.
He was the best there was.
You know he was a lot bigger than
he was good, but he played hard.
And he wanted to be good.
A lot of kids play the game to
to be able to say they played
their certain group that you
know has a passion for the game.
I would put Edward in that category,
but sometimes life can turn
as fast as a flip of a coin,
and so it did for Ed his aspirations
of playing college ball fell short
because of some off the court issues.
And it only got
worse from there.
It became the prime suspect in the murder
of his former neighbor Elnora Griffin.
He was her handyman and neighbors
told police he was at her home
the night of the crime.
There were also inconsistencies in
his alibi and within a month of
the slaying it would be arrested
and charged in Griffin's murder.
There never was strong evidence against
him to begin with in the jury just
couldn't come to unanimous decision.
Ultimately, in July of 1996,
adds case ended up in a hung jury.
Ed took this as his golden opportunity
to put this nightmare behind him.
He met and married his wife Kim,
and five months into her
pregnancy with their second child,
the unthinkable happened.
It was arrested a second time.
Again, for the murder of Elnora Griffin,
this time for starters
they had an all white jury.
They also brought in a new forensic
expert that had testified about
some forensic evidence that now
tie dead to the crime scene.
And then the state introduced the
testimony of another jailhouse inmate,
who, ironically later admitted
that his testimony was a lie.
But well, after the fact that Ed was
found guilty and sentenced to 99 years,
Ed and Kim were resigned to the
fact that if ever released from
prison, it would have spent
the majority of his life
behind bars. Or alternatively,
he would just die their devastation.
My whole world. Just come crumble down.
In the very beginning, time
was moving so slow in 27 years
he would be eligible for parole.
There was no way in the world
we could reach 27 years.
Time, arguably the most precious
gift that we possess for Edward
AIDS time was a curse at precious
gift that was taken away.
But his incredible as it may sound,
the one thing that freed Ed
from the walls that confine him was the one
thing that not even prison could deny him
basketball.
That's what basketball or sport does?
It gives people a piece.
It gives people a release.
It gives people a chance to go
into that arena where they forget
everything else around them.
The love of basketball
gave him that outlet that he needed
to be free mentally. You never
know what type of dark place a
person is in and you never know
what gives them that light.
And basketball was his life. But
one of the darkest memories of ads
imprisonment was the loss of his mom.
And Grandmother and his inability to grieve
with his family.
I didn't know what I was gonna do name,
but maybe two months later and
phone rang, it was my brother.
He said, man, you know I'm getting out.
I'm like what?
This time the flip of the
coin was in his favor.
That truth and justice podcast that
decided to look into his murder
conviction clearly proved to be the
spark that caught the attention of
the Innocence Project of Texas and
to his eventual parole from prison.
I came out, I was choked up,
could barely breathe I had tears
in my eyes you know I saw my son
and he came to me and he hugged me.
It's gonna be alright, OK?
Who's best feeling in the world?
Improve.
Zach had never seen his father outside of
those prison walls for him to yearn for,
his father's presence was overwhelming,
but that day we will never forget.
God took my mom and then gave my brother
his Angel wings and sent him to me.
And then we're back together again.
After serving 20 years in confinement
for a murder, he refused to claim
at what dates as a Freeman.
I felt kind of like a small
sense of relief and I'm
finally going home today.
I'm finally going home.
I mean, it took 20 years for
me that I'll never see again.
They took my life
at the end of the day.
The thing that really helped Ed get
parole was biological proof that what
the state thought proved he did it.
Proved, actually that he didn't.
That forensic evidence was a specimen
lifted from its shoe that allegedly
tide him to the murder scene,
later proven to be false, not credible.
Frederick Douglass was once quoted
as saying it's easier to build strong
children than to repair broken men.
Following his parole,
Ed couldn't wait to do just that.
Refused to lose every day.
I wake up and I choose.
Hey man, my name is Edward aches.
I was incarcerated for 20 years,
wrongfully convicted of a
murder case by the grace of God.
I'm a free man today.
This is my getaway in prison.
Seven days a week.
That's what I did.
I was having some kind of problem.
If I go play basketball, but it's hard,
you got to fight every day.
Try to redeem your name.
You just don't want to go down that road.
You don't want to make
the wrong choice in life.
There wasn't a set of
wandering eyes on the gym floor.
Adds message was well received
to lighten the moment.
Tigers head coach Darren Douglas
surprised it. With an invitation to show
off his skills in a quick one on one
matchup against one of his ballplayers.
Wild play with delivery. Come on Greg.
Despite its parole being
reunited with his family and even
enjoying the role that sport
continues to play in his journey,
Edward AIDS weight for his
total freedom is far from over.
I want a full exoneration. Unfortunately
for Ed, his parole is neither a legal
validation of innocence or guilt in
regards to his murder conviction.
However, his legal team is now
pursuing his full exoneration,
but until that time, if ever it
will remain a convicted felon,
I want you know to be able
to say that I'm fully free.
I want to be able to talk to
people without them saying,
you're that guy incarcerated
for killing that Lady.
You know, I just want my name back.
Griffin's murder remains a mystery,
and yet again, the precious gift of
time unfortunately remains uncertain in
regards to at what dates exoneration.
In Dallas, I'm Arnold Payne.