Sharrif Wilson, one of two Brooklyn men freed in 2014 after being wrongfully imprisoned for close to 22 years died Saturday (Jan. 10). He was 38.
Wilson was pronounced dead at the Mt. Sinai Hospital in Manhattan at 10:59 p.m. He suffered from acute respiratory distress syndrome, a condition partly brought on by his years behind bars. “He was a healthy 15-year-old boy when he went into prison, and he emerged obese and unhealthy,” his lawyer, Adam Perlmutter, told the Huffington Post.
The native New Yorker was convicted in the slayings of his mother, sister, and cousin, and was coerced into confessing and implicating friend Antonio Yarbrough as an accomplice. He recanted the admission in a 2005 letter, but it would take almost a decade before both men would be exonerated for the brutal murders.
They were cleared after new DNA evidence found on a victim killed while Wilson and Yarbrough were incarcerated, matched DNA found on Wilson’s mother’s body.
Wilson said in an interview that he felt “horrible” about breaking under police pressure, and bringing Yarbrough into the story. Yarbrough released a statement through his attorney over the weekend expressing his condolences for Wilson’s family.
The men had filed paperwork to sue the city for the wrongful conviction. However, Wilson’s death solidifies the inadequacies in the “mechanism to compensate people harmed by the government,” Yarboughr’s lawyer Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma said. “His estate will collect, but it’s too late for Sharrif.”
For now, the main concern is making Wilson’s funeral arrangements. “We will take this process one day at a time,” Perlmutter said.
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Photo: CNN
