For Shaurn Thomas, faith triumphed over 24 years of injustice
By Will Bunch
Exoneration of Shuran Thomas
View Case Timeline (See Feb. 6, 2012, Page 5)
“… After all, who wouldn’t be bitter about the ordeal that Thomas went through after Philadelphia cops began looking at him and his pals in North Philadelphia’s Abbotsford Homes housing project as suspects in the then-unsolved 1990 murder of Puerto Rican businessman Domingo Martinez, who was shot and robbed while transporting $25,000 in cash from a bank to his check-cashing business? Bitter about the homicide detectives who took two confessions from a key witness against Thomas after his first one proved false. Bitter about the prosecutors who refused to believe his seemingly rock-solid alibi that he was at a hearing on an unrelated juvenile offense at Center City’s Youth Study Center at the moment of the murder, and who questioned his signature on a subpoena from that morning. Bitter at police who somehow managed to lose for more than two decades the homicide case file that named several alternate suspects, until it was miraculously found earlier this month…”