Ohio man, 83, acquitted in wife’s murder after serving 45 years of life sentence, maintaining his innocence

An 83-year-old man was acquitted Wednesday after spending 45 years in prison for his wife’s murder — which he always maintained he didn’t commit.

A jury in Cleveland deliberated for less than 90 minutes before declaring Isiah Andrews not guilty, in his second trial for the 1974 slaying of Regina Andrews. She had been stabbed 11 times in a hotel, her bed-linen-swathed body dumped in Forest Park, according to WOIO-TV.

One of the first things the newly seated jury learned was something the first set of jurors had never been told: Police had initially arrested another man in the killing.

Isiah Andrews had already been released last year after a judge ruled that prosecutors failed to let a jury know in 1975 that another suspect had been interviewed, The Associated Press reported — key evidence that was withheld. It was partly a matter of timeline, news site Cleveland.com reported, given that another man who’d been arrested had an alibi for the window during which investigators initially thought Regina Andrews had been killed. But they did not revisit that interview, even after revising their timeline, and that suspect died in 2011.

Prosecutors held that the other man had been ruled out as a suspect.

“They let the murderer go because they messed up on the time of death,” defense attorney Marcus Sidoti told jurors.

Further, no physical evidence linked Isiah Andrews to the crime. He spent more than four decades in prison before being granted a new trial in 2020 and released on bond. His second jury trial began last Tuesday.

Much of the testimony consisted of reread transcripts from the first trial, since six of the witnesses who would have testified are dead, reported WEWS-TV.

Andrews’ exoneration was partly fueled by the work of the Ohio Innocence Project, which has helped free more than 30 wrongfully imprisoned people. Attorneys for the Ohio Innocence Project had hoped Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley would dismiss the charge against Andrews. O’Malley instead offered a plea bargain that would keep Andrews out of prison if he pleaded guilty to killing his wife.

Andrews, ever the loyal husband, told visiting Judge Tim McGinty, “I want justice for my wife,” and rejected the offer.

The elderly man, who according to WEWS uses a wheelchair and has cancer, expressed immense relief after the second verdict, saying it “relieved all the weight off” him, and declaring, “I’ve become free.”

With News Wire Services