Eddie told police that Jackson fired the handgun, Ronnie Bridgeman doused the victim with acid and his brother drove the getaway car. But detectives had obtained a statement from a local paperboy, 12-year-old Eddie Vernon, who knew the Bridgemans and Jackson.
Police never found the murder weapon, and Jackson and his friends, the brothers Wiley and Ronnie Bridgeman, insisted they were elsewhere at the time of the shooting and had never laid eyes on Franks. Franks was doing business there-he sold money orders-when, according to police, a pair of assailants splashed acid on his face, clubbed him, shot him several times, stole about $425 and fled. Soon after returning home he and two friends were arrested for killing Harold Franks outside a neighborhood convenience store. At 18, he enlisted in the Marines, hoping to make a career of it, but within a year was granted an honorable discharge for a balky back. Jackson, who is short and lean, with a creased forehead and pitted cheeks, grew up on Cleveland’s East Side, the first son of a large working-class family. Beginning at age 18, Jackson spent 39 years in an Ohio prison for a crime he didn’t commit-the longest prison term for an exonerated defendant in American history, and a staggering example of how the criminal justice system can wrong the innocent. I’ve been given an opportunity, you understand? And I’m not going to waste it by holding grudges.”
“But it has nothing to do with whether I’m here in this nice house, or whether I’m homeless. “I intend to live well,” Jackson continues, pouring himself a glass of pomegranate juice. Ballard and one about ancient Egyptian mythology. There are framed portraits of Bob Marley, flags commemorating the Cleveland Cavaliers’ 2016 NBA championship and numerous books, including stories by J.G. His Nike-clad feet are propped on the end table. Ricky Jackson, 59, is sprawled across a leather couch in the basement of his new house in Chesterland, Ohio, some 20 miles east of Cleveland. Because I know exactly how much time they took away from me.” “I feel such a sense of urgency these days.
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