Willie T. Donald and Dr. Nicky Jackson.Photo: Geoffery Stellfox
On a cold winter day in 1992, Willie T. Donald, then 23, was shocked when he opened the door and saw police officers standing on the front step of his sister’s Indiana home.
“They informed me that they needed me at the Gary Police Station for failure to appear in court,” Donald, now 53, told PEOPLE.
He didn’t know what they were talking about, but he went willingly with the officers, eager to clear up the matter and get on with his day.
But when he got to the station, he realized they brought him there for something far more serious: He was the suspect in a murder and robbery he had nothing to do with and knew nothing about.
“Oh, it was a nightmare,” he says.
A nightmare that would haunt him for decades.
Christopher Smith/The Times of Northwest Indiana
In 1992, Donald was wrongly convicted for murder and armed robbery and sentenced to 60 years behind bars, missing big family events like his sister’s wedding and his father’s funeral.
Donald’s harrowing story is featured on Monday’s episode ofPeople Magazine Investigates. Titled “Alibi,” the episode airs June 20 at 9 p.m. ET on Investigation Discovery and also streams on discovery+. (An exclusive clip is shown below.)
For years, Donald maintained his innocence and fought for his freedom.
In 2013, he was offered the chance to plead guilty to the murder charge and get out of prison early. He refused the offer because he didn’t want to plead guilty to a crime he didn’t commit.
Lake County Prosecutor Bernard Carter, who offered Donald the opportunity to leave prison in 2013 if he pleaded guilty to the murder charge, told PEOPLE in 2021, “In my opinion, after reviewing the case, and obviously the court records support this, he did not commit this crime. They just had the wrong person.”
In 2006, the Medill Innocence Project at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, and later the Chicago Innocence Center, took on his case. They revealed that a gang member named Lavelle Thompson, 18, who was later murdered, had actually committed the crimes.
Finally, in 2016, after spending 24 years behind bars, Donald was exonerated.
He was excited about starting a new life, but it was far from what he had envisioned. When he was released, he had no savings, no car, no safety net to speak of and few job prospects.
Life became difficult for him in new ways. He tells PEOPLE he spent his days “trying to survive.”
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His entire life changed for the better when he met Dr. Nicky Jackson, an associate criminal justice professor at Purdue University Northwest in Hammond, Ind., in February 2016, shortly after he was released from prison.
Jackson helped him get a part-time job and a car — and for the first time, hope for the future.
In 2020, Jackson startedThe Willie T. Donald Exoneration Advisory Coalitionto connect Donald and others like him with the resources they need to get their lives back on track.
Willie T. Donald and Dr. Nicky Jackson.Geoffery Stelfox
His friendship with Jackson helps him get through the toughest of days. “Not everyone has a Mrs. Jackson,” he says. “She helped me out so much.”
Jackson says the feeling is mutual. “My life has changed and been enriched more so maybe than even Mr. Donald’s,” she says. “He’s given me so much.”
See more of Willie T. Donald’s story (“Alibi”) onPeople Magazine Investigates, airing Monday, June 20, at 9 p.m. ET on Investigation Discovery and also streaming on discovery+.
source: people.com
