WILMINGTON, N.C. (AP) – A man convicted of committing murder when he was 15 said Monday that he could only imagine the pain the victim’s family experienced, but he was unequivocal in stating his innocence: “I swear on my life I didn’t do it.”
Johnny Small’s comments came at a hearing Monday that could lead to his release. A Superior Court judge will consider whether Small should have been convicted now that a childhood buddy, David Bollinger, recanted testimony accusing Small of killing Pam Dreher in 1988. An autopsy report indicated Dreher was shot in the head at point-blank range while she was lying on the floor of her tropical fish store.
Judge W. Douglas Parsons is hearing the matter without a jury. The judge could toss the conviction, order a new trial or uphold the conviction.
About 150 people falsely convicted of crimes – a record number – were exonerated in 2015, according to the National Registry of Exonerations. The registry is a project of the University of Michigan Law School and has documented more than 1,850 such cases in the U.S.
Bollinger, 47, and Small, now 43, faced each other Monday for the first time since they were teenagers on opposite sides of a murder trial. Bollinger has said he testified only because prosecutors promised charges he faced would be dropped in exchange and threatened the death penalty if he didn’t cooperate. Bollinger said he repeated a story pinning the crime on Small that was fed to him by a homicide investigator on the Dreher case.