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Marcellus Bradford

State: Illinois
Incident Date: 09/17/86
 Age at Arrest: 17
 Conviction Date: 1988
 Age when Exonerated: 30
 Exonerated Date: 2001
 Time Served: 6.5 years
 Conviction: Aggravated kidnapping
 False Confession: True
 Implicated by Another Youth: True
Details

In January 1987, three months after twenty-three-year-old Chicago medical student Lori Roscetti was kidnapped, raped, and murdered, pressure was mounting on the police to find the assailant. Seventeen-year-old Marcellus Bradford was brought to the police station, where he was handcuffed and beaten by the police until he confessed to the crime. He also implicated his friends, fourteen-year-old and sixteen-year-old cousins Calvin and Larry Ollins. To avoid life imprisonment, Marcellus pled guilty in exchange for a sentence of only twelve years and brought testimony against the Ollins cousins, as well as eighteen-year-old Omar Saunders. Marcellus and the others were exonerated through DNA testing in 2001.