Featured Image Credit: YouTube/MauiNowNews
Topics: World News, News, Crime
Lucy Devine
A man who spent three decades in prison for murder has been freed after new evidence proved his innocence.
Gordon Cordeiro, from Hawaii, was released from jail after 30 years when Judge Kristin Hamman ordered the sentence be vacated.
Cordeiro, now 51, was serving time for the death of Timothy Blaisdell who died in 1994. While his initial trial ended in a hung jury, he was later found guilty of murder, robbery and attempted murder.
He was sentenced to life without parole, until the Hawaii Innocence Project took on his case.
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After the news was announced, Kenneth Lawson, co-director of the Hawaii Innocence Project, said: "He cried, we all cried.
"He believed that he was going to be exonerated... but having gone through two trials, you lose faith in the justice system.
"To finally hear a judge say, 'I'm vacating your convictions,' that's when it hit him."
Meanwhile, after finally walking free, Cordeiro said: "I'd like to go see my mum."
Tragically, Cordeiro's mother passed away before his release, after suffering with ALS, a type of motor neurone disease.
“Thanks for looking over me,” he said at her grave, just hours after he left jail. “Keeping me safe.”
Prior to his release, Hamman ruled that new DNA evidence would likely change the outcome of another trial.
New testing on evidence from the scene excluded Cordeiro as matching the DNA found on Blaisdell's body.
Meanwhile, the DNA profile of an unknown person was found on the inside pockets of the victim's jeans.
However, Maui County Prosecuting Attorney Andrew Martin has announced plans to appeal for bail to be imposed.
Cordeiro's attorneys argued that at the time of the murder, the 22-year-old was at home building a shelving unit with his family and installing a stereo in his sister's car.
"The police botched this case from the beginning and turned the number one suspect into the state's star witness, resulting in a 30-plus-year nightmare and miscarriage of justice for Gordon and his family," said Lawson.
Now that he's been released, Cordeiro says his plans include fixing cars, helping his dad and 'giving back to the community'.
As he stood outside the Maui Community Correctional Center, Cordeiro called it 'Freedom Friday'.
Much has changed in the region since Cordeiro was last a free man, some 30 years ago.
"Everybody is looking at their phones," he said.
While he now has a smartphone, he added: "I'm not staring at it yet. It keeps beeping and messages coming in, and it's different."