In some ways, the exoneration of James Reyos in Odessa, Texas, has a familiar ring to it. A reexamination of evidence from a decades-old murder convinced the state's highest court to clear him earlier this month, as the Texas Monthly recounts. But the story has a unique twist: Reyos, 67, was exonerated after two fans of the Crime Junkie podcast—a young married couple from Odessa—heard his story on the show and retold it to the husband's father, who just happens to be the chief of police in Odessa, per the Los Angeles Times. The story begins back in 1983, when Reyos was convicted of murdering an Irish Catholic priest named Patrick Ryan in a motel room. Both men were closeted gays at the time, and Reyos became the main suspect when investigators discovered they'd spent some time together, including on the day of the murder.
Reyos had what Texas Monthly calls an "ironclad alibi" that proved he was more than 200 miles away at the time of the murder, but he called police about a year after the crime and confessed: He was drunk and felt guilty that accepting a ride from the priest on the day he was killed somehow contributed to the murder. He would quickly recant, to no avail. It's a tangled tale, and when Harlee and Michael Gerke heard it recounted on Crime Junkie on a long car ride, they brought it up to Michael Gerke's father, also named Michael Gerke, Odessa's chief of police.
"As soon as they told me about the case, I'm like, 'Surely that can't be true,'" the elder Gerke tells the Times. The police chief had investigators take a new look at the case, and they were surprised at how thin it was. The clincher came when fingerprint evidence, once thought to have been destroyed, pointed to three other men, all now deceased. Zero physical evidence tied Reyos to the crime. The Innocence Project of Texas then got involved, and this month, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals declared that Reyos (already out of prison) was innocent. Reyos spent a total of 24 years incarcerated for a murder he didn't commit, and the state of Texas will pay him about $2 million in compensation. (More true crime stories.)
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