“Like the day of my arrest, I felt like I was in a bad dream. I just needed to wake up” - Mike Crump

Learn more about Mike’s case by reading Part 4 of Mike's own description of his wrongful conviction, presented by the Death Row Soul Collective on Facebook on April 29, 2022. 

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Part 4 - Here comes the verdict!

Mike speaks…

When the judge began to read the verdict, I was confused. He wasn’t saying that I was innocent. In fact, he was saying the opposite. His words washed over me in that moment, but when I later got a copy of the trial transcripts I was able to read the precise words he had said to me when I was falling apart inside, waiting to hear the words “not guilty”. Waiting to hear that I was going home. 

Instead, this is what the judge said: “In reviewing the evidence, I find that (the eyewitness) who made the eyewitness identification, that her testimony shows her to be observant, credible, articulate and truthful. She made her identification in a convenience store, again on the photographic line-up and again here in court, and she was subject to a strong cross examination, very detailed. And her testimony concerning her identification didn't change. The rest of the Commonwealths’ case corroborates the facts of this case. I find beyond a reasonable doubt that there's been a wilful, deliberate, pre-meditated killing here with malicious intent to kill. And accordingly, I find you guilty of first degree murder of Eric Lee Jones and I find you guilty of the unlawful and felonious use of a firearm in the commission of murder. Sheriff, take charge of the prisoner."

As he said these words, I didn’t think he was talking to me. He had to be talking to someone else right? The courtroom erupted but I didn’t hear any of that, because at that moment, it was like the world had stopped. I remember standing there in shock and confusion, whilst the chaos happened around me. When I briefly snapped back to reality I heard crying, and turned to see it was coming from my family. I recall seeing my mom’s face, full of shock.

Before I had time to think, I was bundled out of the courtroom.

I waved good-bye to my family. I wasn’t crying. I was on autopilot. I was unable to process what had just happened. Like the day of my arrest, I felt like I was in a bad dream. I just needed to wake up.

I was immediately taken back to a holding cell where I paced up and down in complete shock. I was flabbergasted. I was mad. I was disappointed. I was hurt. I could not believe it. I was asking myself why? How? This is not real. The judge made a mistake, right?

After being transferred to another cell in the basement of the courthouse, I continued to pace. It was then that I heard the sound of a female screaming and crying. I immediately recognised it was my little sister. Amongst the chaos after the verdict, she had flown across the courtroom angry with the eyewitness whose testimony had secured my conviction. She had been dragged out of the courtroom and now I was watching as she was dragged into another jail cell. We couldn’t see each other, but the sound of my little sister falling apart is what pushed me over the edge. 

That was when my tears started, but I couldn’t let my little sister see or hear that. She was crying out that she loved me, and I responded that I loved her too, that everything would be ok. I told her it wasn’t over. I was going to fight and I would be home soon.

I believed that. I truly believed that although things hadn’t gone the way I had expected or hoped that day, this was just a small blip in my road to justice and freedom. We just needed to correct the mistake the judge had made and I would be home. I wouldn’t be behind bars forever, right?

What I didn’t know then at the age of 19, was that once you are wrongly convicted, it is virtually impossible to reverse that.

Once you are convicted, they lock you up and throw away the key, ensuring that your voice isn’t heard, and no one hears your story. Any avenues for recourse are set up to fail, and the chances of you ever getting justice are one in a million.

I didn’t know it then, but everything that had happened in that courtroom on March 12, 1996, everything that happened in the lead up to the trial, and even afterwards, was all concocted to ensure I was found guilty and put behind bars with almost a zero chance of getting out. 

I would later realise that my defender’s tactic to present no defense, had secured my conviction and there would be virtually nothing I could do about it.

Yet, that day, as I listened to my little sister crying in another jail cell, I truly believed that I would be home soon, because I was going to fight as hard as I could, and never stop fighting until both Nike and I both got the justice we deserved.

* At the age of just 18 years old, Michael Crump was arrested and wrongfully convicted of the tragic murder of 21-year-old Eric “Nike” Jones in Virginia after an eyewitness misidentified Mike due to his hoodie.

* Please sign and share this petition, which the nonprofit UNCUFF THE INNOCENT will be using to support Michael Crump's case for freedom by urging Virginia’s Governor and Attorney General to investigate his wrongful conviction.

#WrongfulConviction 

#InnocenceMatters 

#FreeMikeCrump