After 22 Years In Prison, Innocent Man Walks Free (And Heads To Giordano's)

By Emma G. Gallegos in News on Apr 20, 2016 5:48PM

After serving 22 years in prison for a double murder he didn't commit, Eddie Bolden walked out of Cook County Jail yesterday. Bolden smiled and told reporters he was just grateful to finally be out: "I just want to live ... and be free."

Bolden, 46, said he wasn't angry, but he was teary and seemed dazed by simple things in the world outside world: "I haven’t seen a car in 20 years."

Bolden was convicted of the 1994 murders of Irving Clayton and Derrick Frazier, who were gunned down and then burned in a car in a drug deal gone awry, the Chicago Sun-Times says. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Bolden always maintained his innocence and spent his time in prison trying to get out. He dug into the legal library, searching desperately for a way to exonerate himself. When he sent a letter sent to private investigator Susan Carlson, it finally set the wheels in motion for charges against him to be dropped.

Bolden had always maintained that he had been in a South Side fried fish restaurant playing Ms. Pac-Man at the time of the murders. But it took Carlson to find eyewitnesses that Bolden's initial public defender had missed, and finally corroborate his alibi. She also pushed Bolden's attorney Ron Safer to take on the case. Last year, key witnesses discovered by Carlson were invited to testify in hearings that led to Bolden's eventual release. Safer called Carlson a "hero."

Sadly, Carlson died three years ago from complications of asthma, so she wasn't able to meet him outside the gates yesterday. Bolden told reporters, "She promised me she would be standing here when I got out, but I guess she couldn't control death."

"For a long time nobody cared," he said, according to the Tribune. "Nobody in court really cared, the appellate courts didn't care, the attorneys that my family hired didn't care."

Bolden says that he had spent so much effort trying to get out, he had few plans. He plans to see his 21-year-old son graduate from college on Saturday and get some deep dish at Giordano's. Safer offered to pay: "The meal is on me."