these shocking cases of wrongful imprisonment may well have ended as happily as they could, what about those innocents languishing away behind bars, hoping one day to be exonerated as well, wishing for a deliverance that may never come.

8.William Dillon — Spent 28 Years in Prison

Via floridainnocence.org

In 1981 William Dillon was a talented young baseball player days away from his first major league spring training, and a chance to pitch for the Detroit Tigers. Before he ever hit the mound and started throwing fastballs that spring, however, Dillon found himself arrested and charged with beating James Dvorak to death on a Florida beach. Dillon was included as a suspect in the police investigation because five days after the murder took place he showed up at the beach whereDvorak was found. That and the fact that a police dog vaguely identified the scent of the killer’s discarded shirt, which was found on the beach, on Dillon. The most damning evidence against him, even though many witnesses corroborated his alibi of never being on the beach, was the testimony of a jailhouse informant. Looking to reduce time on his own sentence, the convict testified that Dillon confessed to committing the murder to him while awaiting trial. In exchange for the testimony, prosecutors later dropped a pending rape case against the informant. Dillon was convicted, and for 28 years languished in state prison. After numerous unsuccessful appeals over the years a judge finally allowed DNA tests to be taken of the shirt worn by the killer in 2007.