- Born
- Died
- Birth nameRandall Dale Adams
- At age 27, Randall Adams was wrongfully convicted of murdering a police officer, then served 13 years under a death sentence in Texas. Documentary film maker Errol Morris, a former private detective, investigated the case for 3 years, and came to believe the quiet, even-tempered Adams a very unlikely suspect.
In Morris' award-winning movie The Thin Blue Line (1988), a former suspect, David Ray Harris, said Randall Adams was innocent. Harris admitted the murder at a hearing for a re-trial, granted as a result of the film. Harris was a juvenile at the time of the murder, and thus ineligible for the death penalty in Texas. Adams was granted a re-trial and found not guilty. David Harris was later executed for an unrelated murder.
Since his release, Randall Adams has worked against the death penalty. He has no arrests since his 1989 release.- IMDb Mini Biography By: David Stevens
- SpouseApril Lynne (Gates) Rusch Gutter(December 17, 1993 - November 18, 1996) (divorced)
- ParentsCanso AdamsOla Mildred Hamilton
- Married the sister of a death-row prisoner.
- His mother died in December, 2010--two months after his own death at 61. He is survived by his sister.
- He was convicted and sentenced to death row in 1977 by lethal injection. On May 5,1979, the United States Supreme Court ordered a stay. His sentence was commuted to life in prison without parole. He was finally free in March 1989.
- He lived in his native Ohio upon his release in 1989; lived in Upstate New York; Houston, Texas area; and finally in Ohio.
- The man you see before you is here by the grace of God. The fact that it took 12-1/2 years and a movie to prove my innocence should scare the hell out of everyone in this room. and if it doesn't, then that scares the hell out of me.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content