Death Row Inmate Released From Jail

Michael Roy Graham Jr. walked through the Louisiana State Penitentiary gates a free man after the murder convictions that put him on death row for 13 years were dismissed, officials said. His release came one day after the state attorney general’s office dismissed charges that he and co-defendant Albert Ronnie Burrell murdered an elderly couple in 1986. A new investigation of the case was launched earlier this year when a state District Court judge threw out the 1987 convictions of Graham, 37, and Burrell, 44, after defense attorneys cited questionable trial testimony and a lack of physical evidence linking the pair to the crime. DNA tests--unavailable in 1986--on blood found at the murder scene that was presumed to come from one of the intruders did not match either Graham or Burrell.