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Larry Ollins

State: Illinois
Incident Date: 09/17/86
 Age at Arrest: 16
 Conviction Date: 1988
 Age when Exonerated: 29
 Exonerated Date: 2001
 Time Served: 13.5 years
 Conviction: Murder, aggravated criminal sexual assault, armed robbery, aggravated kidnapping
False Confession: False
 Implicated by Another Youth: True
Details

In January 1987, three months after twenty-three-year-old Chicago medical student Lori Roscetti was kidnapped, raped, and murdered, pressure was mounting on the police to find the assailant. Sixteen-year-old Larry Ollins, who had been in trouble in the past for burglary, was brought in to the police station for questioning, where he was handcuffed, slapped around, and interrogated. Ollins refused to confess. However, the police had also brought in Ollins's fourteen-year-old cousin Calvin and seventeen-year-old friend Marcellus Bradford. After undergoing hours of interrogation and after hearing the police promise that they could go home if they only confessed, Calvin Ollins and Bradford both confessed to the sexual assault and murder and implicated Larry Ollins. In 1988, the two Ollins cousins and a fourth, Omar Saunders were convicted of the crime and charged to life without the possibility of parole; Bradford pled guilty and offered testimony against each of them in exchange for a reduced charge of only aggravated kidnapping and was sentenced to twelve years. Bradford later recanted, accusing the police involved in his investigation of coercing him into falsely confessing and implicating the others. All four were exonerated through DNA testing in 2001 after serving almost fourteen years of incarceration.



Post Exoneration: