WHITEVILLE, N.C. — For the first time in nearly 40 years, Joseph Sledge woke up behind bars with a chance of becoming a free man.
The 70-year-old man needed one more win at an innocence hearing. As three judges listened to closing statements Friday about how Sledge was wrongfully convicted in the 1976 stabbing deaths of a mother and her adult daughter, he wrote down a few words on a yellow Post-it note — “closure,” ”please” and “exonerated.”
A few hours later, carrying his belongings in plastic bags, Sledge emerged from a North Carolina jail, saying he was looking forward to what most people consider the most mundane of activities: “Going home. Relaxing. Sleeping in a real bed. Probably get in a pool of water and swim for a little while.”
A special three-judge panel unanimously voted Sledge had proven he was innocent of the killings and ordered his release.
But his freedom almost didn’t happen because evidence had been lost for years.