Tyler Nick Yarris was convicted and sentenced to death for a 1981 murder he didn't commit. He spent 23 years in prison, mostly in solitary confinement, with a bank receipt and family dinner proving he was 28 miles away when the crime happened. His three-day trial and the brutal conditions of death row nearly destroyed him.
Chapters
I have the distinction of having begun life twice. In 1981, I was arrested and falsely accused of the rape and murder of a woman I never met in my life. Convicted and sentenced to die for a rape and murder I didn't commit at the age of 21 in 1981. I was originally arrested in 1981 for attempted murder and kidnapping of a police officer. A woman named Mrs. Craig was murdered in Delaware. The murder prosecution that I was charged with of Linda Mae Craig, and then for the first time ever began seeking the death penalty. I was acquitted by a jury and that made the prosecutor insane. They went after me with the death penalty and gave me a 3-day murder trial. I was given a 3-day murder trial at the age of 20 and sent to death, sentenced to die plus 60 years, and then I was sent to one of the worst prisons in America. I would endure 23 years of solitary confinement from that point. I was innocent. Men were throwing themselves off the tiers and killing themselves in misery because they couldn't take it. I lived on a unit where the average rate of survival was 5 years. I told you, the first 2 years of my sentence, every day I kept my mouth shut. I didn't care what was done around me or not. You weren't allowed to say a goddamn word, and they meant it. You're not allowed to talk to other inmates, nothing. I dare you to sing Happy Birthday to yourself like I did. I paid for that one. Look, you know it's obvious I didn't kill anyone. I was home with my mother, my father, and my sister having dinner 28 miles away from the murder scene. There's no possible way with a bank receipt at 3 PM that day that this murder happens at 4:05 that I'm anywhere near Delaware killing this woman.
