Overview

• Brian Beals, wrongfully convicted in the 1988 murder of a 6-year-old boy, was released after 35 years in prison following the vacating of his conviction by a Cook County court.
• Beals, a college athlete studying to be a police officer at the time of his arrest, was identified as the shooter by the victim's mother, despite not being shown any line-ups or photographs.
• New evidence includes statements from five additional witnesses affirming that Beals was the intended target, not the perpetrator, and photographic enhancement of police images revealed bullet holes in Beals' car.
• The Illinois Innocence Project, involved in the case, called the exoneration the second-longest wrongful imprisonment in Illinois history.
• Beals' wrongful conviction represents a grave miscarriage of justice not only for him but also for the victim and their family, who have been denied true justice for decades, according to the state attorney’s office.