A Minneapolis man who was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1998 was released from prison after a key witness in the investigation confessed to the crime, according to the freed inmate’s attorney and the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office.
Bryan Hooper Sr., who had been convicted for killing a 77-year-old woman 27 years ago, was released from the Stillwater Correctional Facility on Thursday after Chalaka Young, a “key witness” in Hooper’s trial, allegedly confessed to the murder in July, Hooper’s attorney said.
“It’s amazing how he has held on to his dignity and his optimism and has never given up, just as his kids never gave up on him,” Jim Mayer, the legal director for the Great North Innocence Project (GNIP) and Hooper’s attorney, told ABC News.
The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office confirmed Hooper’s innocence and that he was freed after a judge vacated his conviction.
The county attorney’s office also confirmed the state’s “key trial witness had come forward not only to recant her testimony against Mr. Hooper, but to confess to killing Ms. Prazniak and concealing her body,” the prosecutor’s office said in a press release on Thursday. The judge’s court order also confirms Chalaka Young as the witness who confessed to the crimes, according to documents obtained by ABC News.
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“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. It is our duty as prosecutors to hold the correct individuals responsible for their actions, and that duty demands that we acknowledge our mistakes and make things right as quickly as we can. When our Conviction Integrity Unit learned that another person had confessed to the crime for which Mr. Hooper was convicted, they worked tirelessly to clear his name and secure his release,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a statement.
On April 15, 1998, police found the body of 77-year-old Ann Prazniak in a cardboard box in the bedroom closet of her third floor apartment near downtown Minneapolis, Mayer said.
When her body was discovered, police learned that people had been “coming in and out of that apartment” as it had been used as a “drug haven” for some time after Prazniak’s death, Mayer said.
Police spoke to several witnesses, including Young, who denied any knowledge of the murder during her first three interrogations, Mayer said. But during her fourth meeting with police back then, they “became more aggressive with her because they had found her fingerprints on some packing tape” which was the same tape that was used to “bind up the victim,” Mayer said.
Officials began to threaten Young with murder charges and she began to give a narrative that pointed fingers at Hooper, Mayer said.
“She ends up telling them a story about how this man, Bryan Hooper, as it turns out, forced her to serve as his lookout while he committed the crime,” Mayer said.
After Young’s conversation with authorities, Hooper was then charged with first-degree murder, Mayer said. As he was awaiting trial, “jailhouse informants” said Hooper had “told them that he committed this crime,” Mayer said.
“That was the evidence that was against Bryan Hooper at his trial, and that was enough to get him convicted and sentenced to life in prison way back in 1998,” Mayer told ABC News.
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Over the years, all the jailhouse informants recanted their testimony and admitted the inmate “had never confessed to killing anybody,” which led Hooper, now 54, to try to receive post-conviction relief -- with each attempt failing, Mayer said.
Mayer said “it was never deemed good enough by the courts to set aside the conviction,” due to the original testimony from Young, their key witness.
But all of that changed on July 19, when Young, who was serving a sentence in a Georgia prison, confessed to murdering Prazniak, Mayer said.
In a signed, handwritten statement, Young said “I am not okay any longer with [an] innocent man sitting in prison for a crime he did not commit,” the GNIP said in a press release.
She shared with law enforcement in recorded conversations that “she committed this murder, that she acted alone, that she hid the body” and that she had “falsely accused Bryan Hooper in order to draw attention away from her own guilt,” Mayer said.
“I have never seen a more powerful and compelling recantation/confession like this one. If you listen to those recordings, you can hear the anguish in this woman’s voice about the enormity of the harm that she has caused the Hooper family, and she really feels it. It’s pretty striking,” Mayer told ABC News.
On Aug. 12, the GNIP -- which had assumed representation of Hooper -- filed a petition in Hennepin County District Court “asking that his conviction be vacated and that he be freed,” the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office said in a press release. A hearing was held on Sept. 2 and the next day, the judge issued “an order vacating Mr. Hooper’s conviction,” the county attorney’s office said.
“We are relieved that Mr. Hooper can finally return home to his family after 27 years, and I want to again apologize to him and his family for our office’s role in that injustice. We wish Mr. Hooper all the best as he begins to navigate a world that is barely recognizable from the world he knew in 1998,” Moriarty said in a statement.
Hooper was finally able to reunite with his family, including his four children, on Thursday, with Mayer saying the freed inmate was “ready to go home.” When he was released, he was asked about Young and what he would say to her, to which he replied he “appreciated she finally came forward and God bless her.”
Mayer said Hooper, who had spent his time in prison learning software coding and even wrote his own brief in one of his attempts at post-conviction relief, plans on “catching up and spending time with his family.”
The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment on whether Young will be charged after her alleged confession. Young is currently in custody at the McRae Women’s Facility in Helena, Georgia, on unrelated charges.
It remains unclear whether Young has an attorney who can speak on her behalf.
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