Gerald Reed’s mother eagerly waited outside Stateville Correctional Center for him to walk out Friday — a day after the governor commuted his life sentence.
Armanda Shackleford said she’s been waiting nearly three decades for her son’s freedom and just wanted to hug him.
“I didn’t think it would ever get here,” Shackleford said as she stood next to Reed’s attorney Elliot Zinger and other supporters. “I didn’t give up.”
Gov. J.B. Pritzker commuted Reed’s life sentence for a 1990 double murder to “time served.” The governor’s decision was based on a petition saying the 57-year-old Reed faced serious health risks from the spread of the coronavirus in prison.
“Mr. Governor, I want to say God bless you and happy Easter,” Shackleford told reporters.
After his mother and his supporters stood for hours outside the prison, Reed was freed late Friday afternoon to cheers. He plans to live with a niece in Naperville.
“If it wasn’t for the community I wouldn’t be out here,” he told reporters. “The system kept saying ‘guilty’ — guilty of what? Standing up against it?”
“I lived in Stateville for 30 years — hard, max penitentiary — but I survived it,” he said.
Reed’s mother said he would soon get to enjoy his favorite foods: lemon meringue pie, pineapple upside-down cake and lasagna.
Reed’s attorneys have said they’ll now turn their attention to trying to have his murder conviction vacated. If that happens, Zinger said he would file a wrongful-conviction lawsuit.
Reed had been granted a new trial in 2018 after his oral confession to the killings was tossed out, but last year another judge surprisingly reversed course and ruled he should stay in prison.
Reed claims he was tortured into confessing, but a special prosecutor has said forensic evidence tied him to the murder weapon and that Reed boasted about the killings of Pamela Powers and Willie Williams on the South Side.
