IL - Mark Maxson freed after nearly 25 years in prison

Inmate freed after nearly 25 years in prison when DNA clears him in boy's killing

Two decades after the brutal murder and sexual assault of a 6-year-old boy shocked Chicago's Roseland neighborhood, new DNA evidence led a Cook County judge Tuesday to throw out the conviction of a man who wrongfully spent nearly a quarter century in prison for the crime.

Hours later, Mark Maxson, who was serving a life sentence, walked out of Stateville Correctional Center near Joliet, where he was met by his attorneys, Elliott Zinger and Larry Dreyfus, and his 78-year-old mother.

"It's a bit overwhelming now," Maxson, 55, said later by telephone as he waited to be served a steak at a restaurant. "I knew this day would come. It was only a matter of time."

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The new DNA evidence not only exonerated Maxson but also matched a convicted murderer who lived seven blocks away from where the first-grader's body was found under a pile of trash, empty bottles and debris in an abandoned garage, according to court filings.

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Maxson's attorneys credited State's Attorney Anita Alvarez's conviction integrity unit with pushing the case forward, expediting DNA testing after Judge Thaddeus Wilson ordered that evidence be tested in April.

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Two decades later, two murder cases unravel

Maxson initially drew the attention of police because he told a TV reporter he bought chips for 6-year-old Lindsey Murdock and told the boy to go home a day before he was found dead under debris in an abandoned garage near 107th and State. But police said Maxson’s story kept changing.

He allegedly confessed that he sexually assaulted and killed the boy in the garage after smoking crack and drinking beer.

Maxson accuses the detectives of punching and kicking him during their interrogations and says he was coerced into giving a confession.

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One of the now-retired detectives who allegedly struck him was Robert Dwyer. He has been accused of abusing suspects in other murder cases under former Cmdr. Jon Burge, who went to prison for lying in a lawsuit regarding the torture allegations against him and his detectives.

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Before he was sentenced to life in prison, Maxson insisted he didn’t kill Lindsey.

“All of the evidence belonged to someone else,” Maxson told Judge Daniel Locallo at his sentencing in 1994. “I am charged with a crime I did not commit.” Locallo responded that Maxson possessed a “malignant heart” and needed to be eliminated from society.

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I cannot come up with a solution to fix it for everyone.

I do know it's far too easy to charge someone with a crime they didn't commit. Just because someone accuses them of it. In many cases it's nothing but a person claiming they committed a crime and the suspect claiming they did not.

It's also far too easy for someone to be convicted of that crime they didn't commit, when exculpatory evidence is ignored.

It is scary. It could happen to anyone. Someone decides to accuse you of a crime, they can. It's just disturbing and sad.

You can't give someone 20+ years of their life back. You can't give them their reputation back. It's an irreversible mistake and I wish it could be prevented.