KANSAS CITY, Mo. — As Kevin Strickland awaits his day in court after two months of delays, his faith in the system is waning, he told a national news network.
"I hold fast to my faith that God ain't gon' let me die in this jail," Strickland, 62, told "CBS Mornings" in a segment that aired Monday morning. "But I'm losing belief that the system is gonna work."
More than five months ago, Strickland received rare public support from Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker, who announced her office determined that Strickland, who was 18 when he was arrested, is "factually innocent" in a 1978 shooting on South Benton Avenue in Kansas City. The gunfire took the lives of John Walker, 20, Sherrie Black, 22, and Larry Ingram, 21.
In late August, Baker became the first Missouri prosecutor to use a new state law that allows prosecutors to seek to free prisoners they believe are innocent. In her motion, her office argued that Strickland should "not remain in custody a day longer."
But the Missouri attorney general's office, which contends Strickland is guilty and received a fair trial in 1979, has filed motions and appeals that have twice delayed a hearing that could lead to Strickland's freedom.
One of those appeals led to the Missouri Supreme Court disqualifying all judges in Jackson County from hearing the case. The court instead appointed Senior Judge James Welsh, who has set an evidentiary hearing for Nov. 8.
In his interview with CBS journalist Erin Moriarty, Strickland said the "roadblocks" to getting in court have seemed "endless."
"It hurts; I can't get that 43 back," Strickland said of the years he has been imprisoned. "There's nothing that they could do to make that right. My whole life is a memory of prison. I don't know anything else."
CBS also interviewed Eric Wesson, who is expected to testify during Strickland's evidentiary hearing. Publisher of The Call, Kansas City's Black newspaper, Wesson said the lone eyewitness to the murders twice tried to publicly recant her identification of him.
"She wanted to right or correct that wrong," Wesson told the Star last month.
In an investigation published in September 2020, the Star reported that, for decades, two men who pleaded guilty in the killings swore Strickland was not with them and two other accomplices during the murders. The testimony of the only eyewitness was paramount in the case against Strickland, but she later tried to recant, the Star reported.
