Man wrongly convicted of killing 2 Michigan hunters in 1990 agrees to $5.25M settlement
DETROIT (AP) – A man serving nearly 21 years in prison for the deaths of two Michigan hunters has agreed to a $5.25 million settlement after accusing police of failing to turn over evidence that could have helped him at trial, an attorney said Monday.
Jeff Titus is released in 2023 and murder convictions expunged at the request of prosecutors. The Innocence Clinic at the University of Michigan Law School and two investigators convinced authorities that the man who killed the hunters in 1990 may have been a serial killer from Ohio.
Titus had long declared his innocence.
“It’s been a long road for Jeff,” attorney Wolf Mueller said. “He’s 74. He’s lost twenty years of his life. The money doesn’t make up for the loss of decades, but it allows him to leave that part of his life behind.”
An email seeking comment from the attorney representing a retired homicide detective in the case was not immediately responded to.
Doug Estes and Jim Bennett were fatally shot near Titus’ property in Kalamazoo County in 1990. Titus was initially cleared as a suspect, but 12 years later murder charges were laid against him. Prosecutors portrayed Titus as a hothead who disliked trespassers.
Students and staff at the University of Michigan law school were trying to get him a new trial when a 30-page file from the original investigation was found at the county sheriff’s office. It was a blockbuster: It referred to an alternative suspect, Thomas Dillon of Magnolia, Ohio.
Jacinda Davis on the TV network Investigation Discovery, and Susan Simpson, via podcast “Undisclosed” It cast doubts about Titus’ guilt and questions about Dillon’s possible role.
Dillon died in prison in 2011. He was arrested in 1993 and eventually Pleaded guilty to killing five people He was hunting, fishing or jogging in Ohio.
The case decided Monday did not center on Dillon as an alternative suspect. Instead, police are accused of violating Titus’ rights by not sharing information that could cast doubt on a key witness’s testimony at trial, Mueller said.
