An innocent man spent decades in prison for a Black couple’s murder. Nearly 40 years later, police say they found the killer

His DNA wasn’t a match for evidence in the murder of a Black couple nearly 40 years ago. Why an innocent man served decades for a crime he didn’t commit

There’s no shortage of laughter in Dennis Perry’s house. Ask him about his grandkids, and he instantly starts to chuckle. And if the subject of fishing or how much he loves his wife, Brenda, comes up, you’re rewarded with a belly laugh. The kids call him “Papa Sunshine,” a nickname befitting a man whose smile you can hear through the phone. That Perry can laugh at all is something of a miracle – especially after all he’s been through. In 2003, Perry, who is White, was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences in prison for the brutal 1985 slaying of a Black couple named Harold and Thelma Swain at their church in southern Georgia. He has always – emphatically – maintained his innocence: throughout his arrest, his trial and conviction, and every single day of the nearly 21 years he spent incarcerated. In 2020, attorneys with the Georgia Innocence Project and an Atlanta-based international law firm, King & Spalding, presented a judge with a wealth of new DNA evidence to prove what Perry says he knew all along: “You got the wrong man.” In a matter of months, Perry was free from prison, back home in the loving embrace of his wife and the gaggle of kids and grandkids who adore him. But the wrongful conviction stole decades of his life and with Perry’s exoneration came a tidal wave of new questions: How did the justice system get this case so wrong? And if Perry didn’t murder the Swains all those years ago, who did?