Tyrone Noling is an innocent man on Ohio’s death row. He has spent more than fifteen years in prison for two murders that he did not commit, despite the fact that:

• There is absolutely no physical evidence tying him to the murders.
• All of the principal witnesses against him have recanted their testimony.
• Recently discovered evidence that was withheld at trial points to credible alternative suspects.

In April 1990, Cora and Bearnhardt Hartig were tragically shot to death in their home in Atwater, Ohio. Neither Tyrone’s fingerprints, nor those of his alleged accomplices, were found in the Hartig home, despite uncontroverted evidence that the perpetrator touched many items and ransacked the home. DNA testing of a cigarette butt found at the crime scene excluded Tyrone and his alleged accomplices. No eyewitnesses placed Tyrone or his young friends at the scene of the crime.

The lack of evidence led then-Portage County Sheriff Kenneth Howe to dismiss Tyrone and the other youths as viable suspects, saying “It just didn’t fit.”

The fact that the boys even became suspects is puzzling. The police had absolutely no physical evidence from the crime scene pointing to any of them. The only thing that the police did have was the fact that in early April 1990, Tyrone and his friends were involved in a handful of minor thefts and two bumbling home robberies, including one in which Tyrone accidentally discharged a .25 caliber gun—a gun that was not the Hartig murder weapon. Not only did these crimes take place in another town miles away, they were strikingly different in nature from the cold-blooded murders of the Hartigs.

Evidence developed since trial suggests that because of the lack of evidence, an investigator—who the prosecution brought in two years later to “solve” the high-profile crime—simply relied on coercing, threatening, and manipulating witnesses to build a case against Tyrone.

More evidence supporting Tyrone’s innocence is still being sought, including DNA testing on crime scene evidence that could help identify the true perpetrator.

Despite the troublesome doubt about the reliability of Tyrone’s conviction, he has yet to receive a hearing on the merits of his innocence claims.

For more information about the evidence of innocence, read an executive summary of the case. [link to executive summary]