Wrongfully Convicted Man Won Freedom, Is Shot Dead

He ended up with only three years of freedom. Alprentiss Nash, who spent 17 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit, was shot to death in Chicago Tuesday, reports DNAinfo. His attorney tells ABC 7 that the 40-year-old was shot while being robbed after stopping at a gas station on the Near West Side. A suspect is in custody. Nash had walked out of prison in 2012 after DNA tests linked another man to the murder he was supposed to have committed at age 20. He used the last three years to complete a culinary program and to travel, and he was looking for work at the time of his death.

"He was really happy to be free, and he never talked about his time in prison," his mother tells the Chicago Tribune. "He wanted to just get past it and be happy. He was overjoyed and excited about building a new life." Nash had received a $200,000 payout from the state and was seeking millions from a lawsuit against the city, and the Tribune reports that the new car and fancy clothes he favored may have attracted the wrong attention. "He had been robbed last year," says his attorney, Kathleen Zellner. "He was stressed out, and he felt pressured and that people were after him. People thought he had money." (More wrongful conviction stories.)