‘They Just Wanted to Close the Case’: Ohio Man Wrongly Incarcerated for 24 Years for Murder Accuses Cops of Beating False Confession Out of Him Despite Witnesses Identifying Another Man
A man who spent 24 years in prison for a murder he did not commit filed a new lawsuit accusing detectives of beating a false confession out of him and allowing the man who openly admitted to the crime to walk free.
Frank Drew was released from prison in 2022 after his conviction for a fatal shooting in Evanston, Ohio, in 1996 was vacated.
He has since filed a federal civil rights suit against the city of Evanston, Cook County, eight former officers of the Evanston Police Department, and a Cook County assistant prosecutor, alleging they were involved in his wrongful conviction.
Drew’s conviction stems from a shooting on Dec. 12, 1996, that killed Ronald Walker.
According to the lawsuit obtained by The Kansas City Star, Walker was standing at an intersection when two men approached him, shot him, and then fled the scene. Several witnesses who saw what happened provided suspect descriptions and helped detectives identify the shooter as Gregory Boyd.
Boyd confessed that he and two other people were responsible for Walker’s death, but he was released from police custody, the suit states.
The case went cold for two years. Then, in January 1998, police arrested an accused gang member who faced up to 45 years in prison for unrelated weapons and drug charges.
The complaint states that detectives were “still under pressure to close the then-cold Walker homicide investigation,” so they threatened to pursue charges connected to Walker’s death against the accused gang member by “falsely claiming that physical evidence and other witnesses implicated (him).”
Detectives coerced the man into providing a false statement that said Drew and another man he knew came to his home and admitted to shooting Walker, even though Drew didn’t match the suspect description and there was no physical evidence connecting him to the murder.
Police also compelled witnesses to give false statements and manufactured false police reports to bolster the fabricated story, the suit states.
In February 1998, police took Drew into custody on an unrelated matter where they also questioned him about Walker’s murder.
During the interrogation, detectives physically struck him multiple times to force a confession out of him and threatened him with more physical violence if he did not sign a false statement, according to the suit. Out of fear, he falsely confessed to the murder.
The accused gang member who wrongly incriminated him testified in court against Drew in exchange for a plea deal where he would spend four years in prison with time served for half the term.
Drew was convicted and sentenced to 60 years in prison. He was 18 years old.
It wasn’t until 2022 when the accused gang member admitted under oath that his 1998 testimony was a lie and that he testified against Drew to secure a lesser sentence “and in response to improper police pressure,” the suit states.
Drew’s co-defendant also recanted his statement saying he and Drew committed the shooting.
According to the Exoneration Project, whose attorneys represented Drew, Drew was freed from prison in 2022 after an evidentiary hearing but still faced a murder retrial. It wasn’t until March 2024 that the state dropped all the charges he faced for Walker’s shooting.
Attorneys who are representing him now in the federal lawsuit say no evidence tied Drew to the shooting, only “false witness statements and his own brutally coerced false confession.”
“Evanston police knew Frank was innocent and they didn’t care. They just wanted to close the case,” Drew’s attorney, Alyssa Martinez, told Evanston Now. “They didn’t care what lies they had to tell to do it. They didn’t care who the real killer was, and they didn’t care that they were ruining our client’s life.”
The suit alleges that the defendants committed malicious prosecution, conspiracy, and violation of due process.
The city of Evanston said it does not comment on pending litigation.