Crime & Safety
Las Vegas Man To Be Freed After 22 Years In Prison For Murder He Didn't Commit
DeMarlo Berry was 19 when he was sent to prison. He's now 42-years-old.
What do you remember about 1995? It was the year that Toy Story and Braveheart came out not to mention Clueless and The Usual Suspects. Justin Bieber had just been born, Harry Potter was still in JK Rowling's head. There was no Twitter. There was no Facebook.
It was also the year that DeMarlo Berry was sent to prison for life for killing Charles Burkes, the manager of a Carls Jr.
On Friday, Berry will be released from prison.
Find out what's happening in Las Vegasfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
It turns out he was serving time for a murder he did not commit. (Subscribe to local news alerts on Patch).
Berry has been saying since the beginning, it wasn't him, that the police had the wrong person. That the killer was a man named Steven Jackson.
Find out what's happening in Las Vegasfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
It turns out he was right.
Jackson, who would be convicted in 1996 of a different murder, provided an affidavit in 2013 saying that he was responsible for the death of Burkes, who had been shot once in the back of his shoulder.
In addition, Berry's lawyers got an affidavit from one of the witnesses who admitted having lied on the stand and added everything he knew about the case he had learned from detectives.
Berry's lawyers tried to get him a new trial - and were opposed by the Clark County District Attorney's Office.
In 2015, a state Supreme Court Judge granted Berry a new hearing.
The following year, the DA's office created a Conviction Review Unit, which started looking into the case.
They finally interviewed Jackson who provided information about the crime scene that would not have been known by someone who was not there at the time of the murder.
In a statement that does not include any apology to Berry, District Attorney Steve Wolfson touts the work of this new unit saying it provides "a way for cases to be reviewed independently and evaluated on a variety of factors, including new evidence.
"The end result is Mr. Berry will be released from prison after over two decades behind bars."
On Friday, Berry will be released from the Southern Desert Correction Center.
Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.