Minnesota man leaves prison after serving 27 years for a murder he didn’t commit

By David K Li. NBC

Bryan Hooper Sr., 54, was released after a state judge on Wednesday vacated his conviction in connection with the 1998 murder of Ann Prazniak.

A Minnesota man walked out of prison on Thursday after spending nearly three decades behind bars for a murder that he not only didn’t commit but might have been carried out by the trial’s key witness, prosecutors and advocates said.

Bryan Hooper Sr., 54, was released from Stillwater Correction Facility after a state judge on Wednesday vacated his first-degree murder conviction in connection with the 1998 murder of Ann Prazniak, 77, whose body was stuffed in a box in her apartment.

“Today, the courts have affirmed what Bryan Hooper, his family, his loved ones, and his advocates have always known: Mr. Hooper is an innocent man,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a statement announcing Hooper’s release.

Great North Innocence Project, an advocacy group for prisoners who claim they were wrongfully convicted, said Hooper’s conviction relied heavily on the testimony of witness Chalaka Young, who is now in a Georgia prison and doing time for a host of crimes, including robbery, assault, and hijacking of a car.

The recently sober and religious Young confessed that she lied when pinning Prazniak’s slaying on Hooper and is now saying she did it, the group said in a statement.

“I am not okay any longer with [an] innocent man sitting in prison for a crime he did not commit,” Young wrote, according to the advocacy group.

Learn how the Attorney’s Office Conviction Integrity Unit reviewed Hooper’s case.

Many Black men are in prison as a result of the so-called war on drugs.

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