Longest Serving Innocent Person in Ohio, Exonerated
Isaiah Andrews is found not-guilty for the murder of his wife, Regina Andrews, after 46 years
CLEVELAND, OH (October 27, 2021) – Isaiah Andrews, an innocent man, spent over four decades behind bars for the murder of his wife after Cleveland Police officers hid evidence of an alternate suspect. Today, the 83 year-old man was found not-guilty in the 1974 murder of his wife. Marcus Sidoti and Terry Gilbert of Friedman, Gilbert, + Gerhardstein, as well as Brian Howe and Kanisha Ervin of the Ohio Innocence Project, represented Isaiah in this criminal trial.
Jurors came to the right conclusion after deliberating only 80 minutes, reaching the unanimous not-guilty verdict on a single count of aggravated murder. The verdict comes after an unusual trial in which original testimony had to be read from transcripts of the original 1974 trial. Many of the witnesses, including the Cleveland police detectives who investigated the killing, are now dead.
“For over four decades Isaiah Andrews has fought for justice for his wife and for his freedom. Today the jury got it right. He is finally vindicated. Isaiah will never get these decades of his life back, but he can now live the remainder of his life a free man.”
Andrews won a new trial last year after the Ohio Innocence Project discovered that Cleveland police withheld a report that detailed how detectives investigated and arrested another man, Willie Watts, after initial evidence found at the scene implicated him. Watts, who died in 2011, was ultimately released from custody and was never revisited as a suspect despite an autopsy showing that the crime had occurred at a different time than for which Watts had provided an alibi.
Isaiah is pictured in the attached photographs with fellow exonerees, Ru-El Sailor and Charles Jackson, both also represented by FG+G, and Laurise Glover, who served 15, 27.5, and 20 years respectively, for crimes they did not commit.