Bryan Hooper Sr. exonerated after 27 years in prison for wrongful murder conviction

After 27 years behind bars for a crime authorities now say he didn’t commit, Bryan Hooper Sr. is a free man.

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty and the Great North Innocence Project announced that Hooper has been exonerated and is expected to be released from Stillwater Correctional Facility on Thursday.

RELATED: Hennepin County asks court to vacate 1998 murder conviction

“Mr. Hooper’s conviction was tainted by false evidence, and that without this false testimony, the jury might have reached a different conclusion,” Judge Marta Chou said during her decision to vacate his conviction.

Hooper has been incarcerated for over 27 years for the 1998 murder of 77-year-old Ann Prazniak.

The 77-year-old woman’s body was found in a closet in her Minneapolis home, bound with tape and wrapped in a blanket.

The medical examiner ruled she died of asphyxia two weeks to a month before her remains were found, court documents state.

Hooper has always maintained his innocence.

The breakthrough in his exoneration came on July 29, when Chalaka Young, the “star witness” of Hooper’s trial, came forward of her own volition and confessed to killing Prazniak and concealing her body.

Young initially claimed in the late 90s that Hooper made her act as his lookout while he attacked Prazniak and then forced her to help wrap up the body.

Four other witnesses testified at trial that Hooper “made incriminating statements”; those secondary witnesses have all since recanted their statements.

“I am not okay any longer with an innocent man sitting in prison for a crime he did not commit,” Young wrote while detained in a Georgia prison for an assault charge.

In follow-up interviews with Georgia law enforcement, Young confessed that she had fabricated a story about Hooper and “stuck with” it at trial. She also explained that her sobriety and newfound faith led her to come clean about the murder.

Fingerprints found at the scene showed Hooper had been in the home. But none of those fingerprints were located on any items related to the murder.

After Hooper was found guilty on three counts of first-degree murder, the judge presiding over the case sentenced him to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years.

“We are relieved that Mr. Hooper can finally return home to his family after 27 years, and I want to again apologize to him and his family for our office’s role in that injustice,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said. “We wish Mr. Hooper all the best as he begins to navigate a world that is barely recognizable from the world he knew in 1998.”

Moriarty previously said her office would consider seeking murder charges against Young after a resolution to Hooper’s case came. The news release sent out on Thursday did not state if charges would be brought against Young.
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