The last time John Michael Harvey was in Fort Worth, he couldn't wait to get away.
Pale, his head shaved and weighing a bony 130 pounds, Harvey had just been released from a Texas prison after spending 12 years there for a crime he didn't commit. Everything he owned was in two small bags.
"I just came out of a terrible place," Harvey said as he walked away from the courthouse where he had been wrongfully convicted of child molestation. His immediate plans? He didn’t know, except to say, "I’m leaving Texas."
More than three years later, he recently returned to try to finally put the ordeal behind him.
He is tanned and fit from jogging on a Florida beach. He has gained 50 pounds and has a girlfriend. He received financial support from his family after his release.
But at 43, Harvey can't shake the bitter fact that while in prison he lost his parents, his faith and almost his life.
"That's a hard pill to swallow, when you have a big chunk of your life taken away. . . . More than 25 percent of my life was spent suffering for a crime I didn't do. Being locked up in a cage."
Read the full story at star-telegram.com.