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Hubert Geralds, Jr.

Other Chicago Exonerations from Death Row
https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/PublishingImages/Hubert_Geralds%20(1).jpg
Hubert Geralds, Jr., 34, was convicted by a jury on November 14, 1997, of murdering six women in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood.

The first victim, Rhonda King, 18, was found strangled to death on December 21, 1994.

The last, Mary Blackman, 42, was found by Geralds’s sister, Angela, on June 17, 1995, in a trash bin behind a neighbor’s house.  She contacted authorities, describing her brother as a drug addict who occasionally became violent when doing drugs, and Geralds was arrested.

A seventh woman identified Geralds as the assailant who raped her on April 14, 1995, and from whom she narrowly escaped.
 
Under interrogation by police, Geralds, who was mentally challenged--he was described as having the mind of an eight-year-old, confessed to all six murders.

After the three week trial, the jury convicted Geralds and found nothing in mitigation to preclude imposition of the death penalty. On January 9, 1998, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Michael P. Toomin sentenced Geralds to death.
 
On February 10, 2000, prosecutors moved to vacate the conviction for the King murder after a different serial killer, Andre Crawford, gave a credible confession to killing King. DNA testing identified Crawford's DNA and excluded Geralds in that murder.

Prosecutors also vacated the other five convictions. Geralds then pled guilty to the five other murders and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
 
— Rob Warden
 

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Posting Date:  Before June 2012
Last Updated: 2/12/2020
State:Illinois
County:Cook
Most Serious Crime:Murder
Additional Convictions:Rape
Reported Crime Date:1994
Convicted:1997
Exonerated:2000
Sentence:Death
Race/Ethnicity:Black
Sex:Male
Age at the date of reported crime:30
Contributing Factors:False Confession
Did DNA evidence contribute to the exoneration?:Yes*