A man who spent 17 years in prison for a crime he always insisted he didn’t commit was eventually freed after a remarkable discovery revealed a near-identical lookalike may have been responsible all along.
Richard Anthony Jones was convicted over a 1999 robbery in Kansas despite repeatedly maintaining his innocence and having an alibi.
Several people testified that he was attending his girlfriend’s birthday party when the robbery took place, but prosecutors argued otherwise and a jury ultimately found him guilty.
Jones was sentenced to 19 years behind bars and for years, he continued fighting to clear his name.
His breakthrough came when attorneys working with innocence organizations uncovered another man who closely matched the description given by witnesses.
That man, Ricky Lee Amos, reportedly looked so much like Jones that even people involved in the case struggled to tell them apart.
According to investigators, Amos also had connections to the location linked to the robbery and matched details witnesses had provided at the time.
When witnesses were later shown photos of both men, they could no longer confidently identify Jones as the robber.
After spending 17 years in prison, he was finally released in June 2017.
Following his release, Jones sought compensation under a Kansas law designed to help people who have been wrongly convicted and the outcome resulted in a life-changing payout.
Jones was awarded $1.1 million by the state, along with a certificate of innocence that formally cleared his name.
He also had records relating to his conviction expunged and was granted access to counseling and healthcare benefits.
Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt said the case met the requirements laid out under the state’s mistaken-conviction statute.
“We are committed to faithfully administering the new mistaken-conviction statute the legislature enacted,” Schmidt said in a statement at the time.
Although investigators came to believe Amos may have been responsible for the crime, he was never prosecuted.
By the time Jones was exonerated, the statute of limitations had expired.
Jones’ attorney, Alice Craig, previously said her client did not appear to hold any personal resentment toward the man believed to be his doppelganger.
“I don’t think so, because it’s not Ricky’s fault that this happened,” she said.
For Jones, the ruling brought an end to a legal battle that lasted nearly two decades and finally restored his freedom after losing 17 years of his life to a case of mistaken identity.
