Freedom Rings
Mysterious Ways|Dec/Jan 2020
The night I had the dream began like most nights—with me lying awake on my prison cot, each excruciating detail of my arrest and sentencing running through my head. It had been years since I’d been convicted for a crime I did not commit, but the entire ordeal was still fresh in my mind. As soon as I lay down in my cell to try to sleep, the replay would begin. This particular night started out no differently….
Kirk Bloodsworth PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
Freedom Rings

August 1984. It happened so early that the sun hadn’t yet risen. Violent pounding on the front door woke me. I stumbled toward it, half-awake. I opened the door, instantly blinded by flashlight beams. “Step outside, Mr. Bloodsworth!” someone shouted. What on earth? My eyes ached as they adjusted to the light. I was surrounded by a group of police officers with guns drawn and pointed at me. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Dawn Hamilton.”

A nine-year-old girl’s brutalized body had been found in the woods behind a mall. Authorities received an anonymous phone call from someone who said I matched the police sketch of the man spotted near the scene of the crime.

I looked nothing like this sketch. The suspect was described as more than six-foot-five, skinny, with curly blond hair and a bushy mustache. I was a six-foot, 200-pound, clean-shaven former Marine who had bright red hair and no prior arrests. But those things didn’t seem to matter. Neither did the fact that no physical evidence linked me to the crime scene. In court, five people testified that it was me that they’d seen. They were sure I had murdered that poor little girl.

When the judge read the verdict in March 1985 and the handcuffs snapped closed around my wrists, I was in shock. The word guilty was like a punch to the gut. At 24 years old, I had been sentenced to death. What made it all worse was that I knew it wasn’t just me who’d been wronged. Dawn Hamilton’s family members hadn’t gotten the justice they deserved. The real perpetrator was out there somewhere and could still hurt others. It made me sick. None of it felt real. This was a mistake, and someone would realize it—wouldn’t they? But weeks turned into months, and months into years, and no one had….

Denne historien er fra Dec/Jan 2020-utgaven av Mysterious Ways.

Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.

Denne historien er fra Dec/Jan 2020-utgaven av Mysterious Ways.

Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.

FLERE HISTORIER FRA MYSTERIOUS WAYSSe alt
Ivy Dishes
Mysterious Ways

Ivy Dishes

“My mom found a house for us to look at,” said my fiancé, Jon. “It’s in Richfield, not far from where I grew up.”

time-read
4 mins  |
February/March 2021
The Duet
Mysterious Ways

The Duet

“Can you perform a hymn for us next week?” my pastor asked me after Sunday service.

time-read
2 mins  |
February/March 2021
The Girl in the Dream
Mysterious Ways

The Girl in the Dream

Was this a church? The high, vaulted ceilings made it seem like one—almost but not exactly.

time-read
5 mins  |
February/March 2021
News From Around Our Wonderful World
Mysterious Ways

News From Around Our Wonderful World

Liverpool, England Joanne Carr is hailing her son, Dougie McInerney, as her guardian angel.

time-read
2 mins  |
February/March 2021
A Light in the Blizzard
Mysterious Ways

A Light in the Blizzard

I stepped on the gas and shifted into drive, then reverse, then back into drive again.

time-read
4 mins  |
February/March 2021
Straight From the Fish's Mouth
Mysterious Ways

Straight From the Fish's Mouth

Florence, Italy. I’d been there before on one of those scruffy five-dollar-a-day youth-hostel jaunts through Europe, but now, just graduated from college, I was wondering what to do with my life.

time-read
5 mins  |
February/March 2021
Divine Callings
Mysterious Ways

Divine Callings

Have you ever felt called to a purpose?

time-read
8 mins  |
February/March 2021
Dad's Voice
Mysterious Ways

Dad's Voice

As I reached to turn off the lamp on my bedside table, my eyes fell on the card my brother Isaac had given each of us siblings on what would have been Dad’s sixty-eighth birthday.

time-read
3 mins  |
February/March 2021
Ben's Answer
Mysterious Ways

Ben's Answer

It was midafternoon, and I was already curled up on the couch in the living room with no plans to move.

time-read
3 mins  |
February/March 2021
A Doll's Hat
Mysterious Ways

A Doll's Hat

My fears around the surgery built all day.... God, please let me be as strong as my young patients are.

time-read
3 mins  |
February/March 2021