Man, 60, spends 20 years in jail after he was framed by lover’s husband who killed her
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When 60-year-old Horace Roberts was released from prison about two weeks ago, he couldn’t wait to toss his prison clothes into a trash can after spending more than 20 years behind bars.
Roberts had paid the heavy price for having an affair with another man’s wife. He had been sentenced to jail for allegedly killing his lover at the time, Terry Cheek, in 1998.
New reports reveal that in fact, it was Creek’s husband, Googie Harris, and his nephew Joaquin Leal, that committed the crime. They had strangled Creek and dumped her lifeless body on the side of a freeway and implicated Roberts, whose truck was found nearby.
The California Innocence Project, which looked into the murder case involving Roberts in 2003, said it became interested in the case because there was no physical evidence linking him to the crime.
The Non-Governmental Organisation said a DNA testing on crime scene evidence in 2017, had shown that two unidentified male individuals were involved in the murder.
And just last year, DNA under Cheek’s left hand fingernails was discovered to have matched Leal, a convicted sex offender, while DNA under her right hand fingernails and on a bloodstain on her pants matched an unknown male, who would later be identified as Harris.
The organisation’s Director, Justin Brooks, said it was a classic case of setup.
“It’s the oldest story there is in the murder business. Husband kills wife who is cheating on him. The twist in this case is that the husband then set up the lover to go to prison for the rest of his life,” he said.
Quite outrageously, Harris continued to maintain that Roberts committed the crime, and even showed up at Roberts’ 2011 parole hearing to oppose his release.
Roberts said shortly after his release and as he was reunited with his family in South Carolina on October 3, that “this is what I missed more than anything – my freedom.”
Harris, and his nephew Leal, have now been arrested and will be charged with the murder today.
