An innocent man was sentenced to 19 years, but after the judge reexamined the evidence in his case, he ordered that the man be set free
Richard Anthony Jones was living a peaceful life in Missouri when everything changed in 1999—he was arrested and wrongly convicted of an aggravated robbery he always claimed he didn’t commit. Although he had witnesses, including his girlfriend, confirming he was with them at the time of the crime, the court relied solely on an eyewitness identification.
No fingerprints or physical evidence tied him to the scene. Jones was sentenced to 19 years in a maximum-security prison. After years of failed appeals, he reached out to the Midwest Innocence Project and the University of Kansas’ Project for Innocence.
Their investigation uncovered a shocking truth: a man named Ricky Lee Amos, who looked nearly identical to Jones, lived near…
