one Minnesota The man was wrongly convicted of murder, who was released as a false implicated by a woman released after the crime, who stayed in prison for nearly thirty years.
State District Judge Marta Chou dropped Bryan Hooper’s first-degree murder the day before. A spokesman for a great North Innocent Project said he was released from Stillwater Correctional Institution Thursday morning.
“Today, the court affirmed Bryan Hooper, his family, his loved ones and his advocates, all the time: Mr. Hooper is an innocent person,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a statement. “As prosecutors, it is our duty to keep the right individuals accountable for their actions and to be obliged to acknowledge our mistakes and make things right as soon as possible.”
Project spokesman Hayley Poxleitner said Hooper was reunited with his children and planned to have dinner with them and spend time with his family. He also plans to live in the Twin Cities area where his children live now.
In 1998, a jury convicted Hooper of premeditated murder, felony murder, murder and felony murder in the theft, while kidnapping the death of 77-year-old Ann Prazniak. His beliefs depend mainly on the testimony of a woman who said she had admitted to the crime since then.
Police wrapped Plazniak’s body in the closet of her Minneapolis apartment in April 1998. Her cause of death was ruled to be suffocated, and she died for two weeks before police found her body, according to court documents.
Hooper was sentenced to three sentences and could be released in 30 years. In 2020, a judge approved his request, demanding that he be convicted and sentenced to three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of first-degree murder for the same person.
Last month, Moriarty announced her office’s support for Hooper’s release, saying a key trial witness withdraws her testimony during an office review of the case and admits to killing Prazniak and hiding her body. Moriarty said the prison informants implicated Hooper also withdrew their testimony.
Moriarty’s office and the Great Northern Innocent Project demanded the court’s evacuation of Hooper’s conviction.
“The court ruled that Mr. Hooper’s conviction was contaminated with false evidence, and without such false testimony, the jury might have reached a different conclusion.”
The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office Chief of Staff Shawn Daye said the Plazniak case will return to the Minneapolis Police Department for any additional investigation as Hooper is cleaned up and released.
Officials said the woman who admitted to being killed will be in a Georgia prison for crimes and will be released within about four years.
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