DETROIT – Duane Williams, 55, from Detroit, has found a new purpose in life, but the scars from his incarceration still linger.
“I didn’t get to go to funerals; the relationship between me and my wife is worse now,” Williams said on Tuesday. “Nothing can fix that. And what’s happening inside of me, no money can fix that.”
He served nearly 11½ years of a life sentence from 2013 to 2024.
Williams was wrongfully convicted of arson and murder in connection with a house fire on Aug. 20, 2012, on Fielding Street on Detroit’s west side.
The blaze killed his mother’s live-in boyfriend, 67-year-old Bobby Cross, and his stepson, 42-year-old Darryl Simms.
Williams and his attorney, Todd Flood, announced on Tuesday (July 22) that they are suing Wayne County, the city of Detroit, and three police and fire investigators for $100 million in damages.
“You said evidence. This was manufactured evidence,” said Flood.
Flood is especially bothered by what he feels was a concerted effort to pin the crime on an innocent man.
“I think about how fractured this family must be because people didn’t care about the truth,” Flood said. It resonates. It shocks the conscience.
The State Appellate Defender’s office revealed false testimony by a jailhouse informant claiming Williams confessed to setting the fire.
Meanwhile, a fire investigator testified that there were no smoking materials near where the fire started.
However, a picture from the initial report of the fire showed a lighter near the fire’s point of origin, a living room couch.
The fire has since been deemed an accident.
These revelations led to Williams’ conviction being vacated on June 18, 2024, and fully dismissed by the state last October.
Williams is now working to help free other people who are wrongly incarcerated.
“Because this, I’m not the first situation, and unfortunately, because nobody has ever been held accountable. It doesn’t stop, it doesn’t stop anybody else from a wrong act, so it’s going to keep happening,” Williams said.
Local 4 reached out to the city of Detroit about this lawsuit, and they stated that they cannot comment on pending litigation.