From their website:
Steve Barnes is spending the holidays with his family this year for the first time in two decades, and he still can’t believe it’s real.
“Christmas was always one of my favorite holidays,” he said. “I would help my Mom decorate the tree and we’d spend the holiday all together as a family.”
But in 1989, Barnes went to prison in upstate New York for a murder he didn’t commit. For 20 years, he spent the holidays in a prison cell, and his family didn’t celebrate much either, he says.
“Christmas is a depressing day in prison. They lock you in your cell early on Christmas Eve so the officers can go home to be with their families,” he said. “Those of us with families were wishing we could be with them, and I know it was even harder for the guys with nobody on the outside.”
This year is different. DNA testing obtained by the Innocence Project proved Barnes’ innocence, and he was freed two days before Thanksgiving. He helped his mother decorate the Christmas tree, and he’ll be ringing in 2009 with a new life ahead of him. On January 25 he will turn 43 years old, and his friends are planning to throw him one big party to celebrate the 20 birthdays he missed.
“I was a walking dead man. In order to get parole, I had to admit guilt, and I couldn’t admit to something I didn’t do,” Barnes said. “Now, after 20 years, it feels like a miracle to spend the holidays with the people I love.”
Donate online today to help the Innocence Project free the innocent in 2009. All gifts in December will be matched dollar for dollar by a group of Innocence Project donors.
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