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63-year-old Terry Talley is a free man after spending the majority of his life in prison for crimes he did not commit, with the help of the Georgia Innocence Project.

Talley was charged in a series of violent sexual assaults that took place in LaGrange between Feb. and June 1981. Police said all of the attacks took place near the campus of LaGrange College. Four victims were white women, the other a Black woman. LaGrange police say investigators at that time had believed the similarities in the attacks were done by one Black male suspect.

The attacks happened at the same time police were investigating complaints of inappropriate and threatening behavior by a Black male city employee who had been seen on campus. While investigating the assaults, police said they found a set of gloves at one of the crime scenes that appeared to be the same as those worn by the city employee. The employee was subsequently fired.

Around the same time, in July 1980, Talley had been arrested for offering to pay a woman for sex. The woman claimed Talley grabbed her arm while trying to speak with her, prompting police to charge his with battery.

While questioning other victims of the near-Campus assaults, all five victims and neighbors identified him after allegedly identifying other suspects. Telley’s lawyers were never told he’d been included in any sort of lineup or photo identification related to the assaults. Not long after, Talley was charged with the assaults, and the original pay for sex case.

Despite his denials, Talley’s first sexual assault trial took place on April 19, 1981. The trial lasted only a day from jury selection through verdict, with prosecutors using the victim’s belief that Talley was the attacker, even though she could not identify him. The Georgia Innocence Project said police didn’t disclose the victim had tentatively identified a different suspect before the trial and had a .34 blood alcohol reading when the attack happened.

Talley was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

The next day, a one-day trial on the second charge took place, with a jury finding Talley guilty and sentencing him to another life imprisonment.

Talley would then plead guilty in the other three cases.

The Georgia Innocence Project has been fighting Talley’s case, which had almost come to an end in 2008 after the Innocence Project asked for the court to use a DNA test to prove Talley was innocent.

One year later, that test excluded him as the source of the DNA in a rape kit used from one of the 1981 cases. In 2013, a Troup County Judge overturned the conviction in that individual case, but the indictment for the other four cases remained pending and intact, along with the original conviction and sentence for paying for sex.

After several years of investigating by the project and eventually by LaGrange police, the case made its way to Coweta Judicial Circuit DA Herb Cranford, where four of the cases were dropped. The fifth case remains under review.

We would like to thank WSB-TV Atlanta for the content. Click HERE to view the original comprehensive article.