Overview

• Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty filed a joint petition with the Great North Innocence Project on August 12 to vacate Brian Hooper Sr.’s 1998 murder conviction.
• The petition highlights a late-July affidavit in which the prosecution’s key witness recanted her trial testimony and confessed to killing 77-year-old Ann Prazniak.
• New evidence from the Minneapolis Police Department’s investigation suggests Hooper was not involved in Prazniak’s killing.
• Other witnesses, including jailhouse informants, have signed affidavits withdrawing their original statements against Hooper.
• The court has not yet scheduled a hearing and it remains unclear if prosecutors will charge the witness now serving time in Georgia.