A North Carolina man who spent nearly five years in prison after being wrongfully convicted for assaulting an elderly white woman in 2015 is speaking publicly about his ordeal after he was released from the Mecklenburg County jail last month.

Willie Shaw, a 48-year-old certified nurse assistant, spoke on SiriusXM Urban View’s “The Clay Cane Show” earlier this week about his time in the North Carolina criminal justice system.

“I honestly felt like I was in a living nightmare,” Shaw said. “When I was in the courtroom, the first thing I said was, ‘This stuff happens on TV. This is something somebody would put on TV.’ I couldn’t believe even after I got in prison, I still couldn’t believe that it was actually happening… because there’s no way you just convicted me of a crime with no evidence.”

In 2015, while Shaw was working as a nurse assistant at a long-term care facility in Mint Hill, he was accused of sexually assaulting an 86-year-old resident who later died. After spending 4.5 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, Shaw was exonerated on Jan. 19, 2021 after years of work by the Duke Law Wrongful Conviction Clinic.

On the day in question, security cameras captured Shaw entering the unidentified woman’s room at around 10:20 p.m., then briefly exiting to the report the woman’s gastrointestinal bleeding.

State prosecutors alleged Shaw had assaulted the woman prior hours earlier, at 2:45 pm when he provided her intimate care during her shower. However, medical experts said the assault happened 30 minutes to two hours prior to 10 p.m.

Days later, the woman died from her injuries that were allegedly a result of the assault and Shaw was arrested and charged with first-degree sex offense. Shaw’s employer vouched for him and there were no witnesses of the alleged abuse.

Shaw told Clay Cane that his defense attorney, Dean Loven, who he calls a “public pretender,” stated to him, “This is his exact words, he said, ‘A white woman died and somebody has to pay for it.’ I said, ‘Well, you need to find a person that did it.’ He said, ‘Why would we, we have you?”

In 2016, Shaw entered an Alford plea, which allowed him to accept punishment yet maintain his innocence.

He said he was told he would face a murder charge with a life sentence if he did not accept the plea deal.

Shaw pled guilty to Felony Patient Abuse and Neglect and was sentenced to a minimum of eight years and eight months and a maximum of 11 years five months.

After pleading guilty, Shaw immediately began trying to prove he was innocent. The Wrongful Convictions Clinic found through their investigation that the state’s allegations did not match the medical evidence. In addition, the clinic found that Shaw’s defense encouraged him to plead guilty.

A geriatric medicine expert testified during a judge-order evidentiary hearing in December 2020 that in video footage of the resident taken after 2:45 p.m., when the assault has allegedly taken place, the woman showed no signs of injury.

After three days of testimony, the prosecution decided there wasn’t sufficient evidence to support the contention and the defense and the state jointly requested that Shaw’s case be vacated.

On Jan. 19 a Mecklenburg County Superior Court judge vacated the conviction and ordered the release.

During the interview, Shaw expressed to Clay how difficult it’s been transitioning home after years away from his family. “I’ve only been out a few weeks and I’m not even going to lie to you, it’s scary. I’ve done almost six years in prison for a crime I didn’t commit. I’ve lost all that time with my children. My grandson don’t even know me.”

Shaw is the fourth Wrongful Conviction Clinic client in the past two years to be exonerated, along with Charles Ray Finch and Dontae Sharpe in 2019 and Ronnie Long in 2020. Collectively, the four men spent more than 115 years in prison for crimes they did not commit.