Detroit Free Press
After serving 16 years behind bars, Kenneth Nixon walked out of prison as a free man and was reunited with his family after felony murder charges were dismissed Thursday by a Wayne County Circuit Court judge.
Nixon was granted relief by Judge Bruce Morrow after an investigation found that he failed to receive a fair trial. He was immediately released from Michigan Reformatory in Ionia.
Nixon, 34, was sentenced to two life terms in connection to a Detroit house bombing that killed a 10-year-old boy and an infant in 2005. He was 18 at the time. Nixon and his girlfriend were arrested and charged with murder, arson, and four counts of attempted murder; she was acquitted by a jury.
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Wayne County prisoner wrongfully convicted of murder in 2005 to be released Thursday
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and last updated 2021-02-17 09:20:57-05
(WXYZ) â The Wayne County Prosecutor s Office announced a grant of relief to prisoner Kenneth Nixon, who was 18 when he was convicted of first-degree murder and felony firearm in 2005.
Nixon was previously sentenced to life in prison without parole.
On May 19, 2005, shortly before midnight, prosecutors say a Molotov cocktail was thrown into a home in the 19420 block of Charleston, causing the deaths of a 10-year-old boy and a 1-year-old girl. Their mother and her other children, including her 13-year-old son, were also in the home at the time and sustained injuries.
Man charged with mutilating body in connection with missing 29-year-old Livingston County woman
Kayla Pierce was reported missing by her mother in November
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DETROIT – Dowan Knighton, 47, is in jail in connection with the recently discovered remains of 29-year-old Kayla Pierce of Livingston County.
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy charged Knighton with mutilation of a dead body, concealing the death of an individual and tampering with evidence.
All of this started with a call to police. Detroit police said Pierce’s mother reported her missing on Nov. 24, 2020.
A few months later, Local 4 cameras were on the scene Thursday as officers with the Detroit police, Michigan State Police and the Livingston County Sheriff’s Department found her remains in Detroit on Feb. 11 at about 8 p.m.
Detroit Free Press Editorial Board
Accusing anyone of racism is a sure way to elicit a defensive response. Suggest that institutional racism is rampant, and most white Americans will react with the same reflexive denial, insisting they neither practice nor condone it.
But institutional racism isn t an attitude, or a policy; it s an outcome. To diminish it and ultimately eradicate it, we first have to measure it.
So we re asking leaders in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties to undertake an extraordinary effort: Gather the data necessary to document, and quantify, the racial inequities that infect each county s criminal justice system, following the example of civic leaders in Washtenaw County.