NICHOLLS, Ga. _ After 20 years behind bars, Dennis Perry walked free Thursday.
"It feels good to be free," the 58-year-old said outside the prison in southeast Georgia. "I've got a long life ahead of me."
Perry was arrested in 2000 and later convicted of the murders of Harold and Thelma Swain, who were shot inside their church in rural South Georgia in 1985. Perry's convictions were overturned last week because of new DNA evidence linking a former suspect to the crime scene.
Brunswick Superior Court Judge Stephen Scarlett, who tossed the 2003 convictions, granted a signature bond request Thursday morning. With the convictions gone, Perry now faces the original murder charges while the Brunswick district attorney's office decides whether to retry him.
"Thank you, your honor," said Perry, who watched on the other side of a webcam from the prison.
About 20 relatives and friends of Perry cheered in the courthouse parking lot after the judge announced his decision.
"God is good," Perry's wife, Brenda, said.
Perry's attorneys with the Georgia Innocence Project and the King & Spalding law firm issued a statement after news of his release: "We are grateful that the Court has ordered Dennis Perry's release. ... It does not escape our attention, however, that Dennis is not yet truly free despite compelling evidence of innocence on top of clear constitutional violations."
The statement called on the Brunswick Judicial Circuit district attorney's office to "demonstrate accountability and do the right thing." The attorneys added: "We hope that Dennis Perry's nightmare will soon be over and that everyone impacted by this tragic and unjust case can begin the process of healing and recovery."
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation reopened the investigation into the Swains' killings in May at the request of Brunswick District Attorney Jackie Johnson. Johnson had learned six weeks earlier that DNA linked former suspect Erik Sparre to a pair of glasses found inches from the victims' bodies inside Rising Daughter Baptist Church.
Perry's attorneys decided to conduct the DNA test after learning that reporting by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution showed Sparre's alibi for the night of the murders could not be true. The alibi had led investigators to drop him as a suspect in 1986 after his ex-wife's family contacted authorities to say that he had bragged about killing the Swains while referring to the couple by a racial slur. The victims were Black; Sparre is white.
In tossing Perry's convictions, the judge dealt a blow to the DA's office, which has worked to keep Perry in prison. Prosecutors, including Chief Assistant District Attorney John B. Johnson III, have faced widespread criticism for fighting to uphold Perry's conviction and attacking the emerging evidence against Sparre.
Johnson said Perry wasn't entitled to challenge his convictions because, immediately after the jury's 2003 verdict, Johnson offered to take the death penalty off the table if Perry would waive his appeal rights. Perry agreed.
Scarlett said Perry waived his rights to an appeal _ not a motion for a new trial. It would have been be a "miscarriage of justice" to prevent Perry from being heard on the motion. The judge characterized the evidence against Perry as "weak" compared to the new physical evidence on Sparre.
On Thursday morning, the state didn't oppose bond but asked for Perry to be banished from Camden County. Perry and his family had been worried about such a request because Perry's home is in the county.
"He's not going to be banished," the judge said.
In the parking lot, Perry's wife, watching through a livestream on her phone, fought tears. A friend, who dressed in a T-shirt and face mask featuring the logo of Perry's beloved Florida Gators, held onto her.
The relatives assembled outside the courthouse included a half dozen of Perry's grandchildren and great-grandchildren. They call him "Papa Sunshine." The kids have only seen Perry during visitations at the prison.
One grandchild, a boy they call Bubba, walked up to Brenda. "There's only one thing I have to say: Hallelujah," the boy said. She pulled him in for a hug.
Perry was convicted largely on the testimony of his ex-girlfriend's mother, who said Perry had told her he planned to kill Harold Swain. The state failed to disclose to the defense at trial that the woman would be paid $12,000 in reward money for her testimony. Evidence of the payment wasn't uncovered until 2018 when the "Undisclosed" podcast investigated the case.
Sparre's DNA wasn't tested when he was a suspect because DNA testing was in its infancy in the mid-1980s. Investigators dropped Sparre as a suspect because of his alibi that he was on the clock at a Brunswick Winn-Dixie.
But the Atlanta Journal-Constitution determined that the "manager" who called police to vouch for Sparre apparently gave a fake name. The man who actually ran the store back then told the newspaper that he never spoke to police about the murders.
