Death Row exoneree has waited on 3 NC governors to say he was innocent, pardon him
Glen Edward Chapman, 56, has waited on three governors for an answer.
That long wait came after being wrongfully convicted of murdering two women in Hickory in 1994 and getting put on Death Row for 13 years.
In 2007, a fuller story came out. Prosecutors had left out key evidence. A judge ordered a new trial in 2007 and prosecutors dropped the charges. He left prison that year.
Chapman filed a petition for a pardon of innocence with then-Gov. Bev Perdue, a Democrat, in 2011 and met with her attorneys but never got an answer. Then he waited on Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican.
Now he’s waiting on Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat in his second and final term. Like others who’ve filed pardon petitions, he hasn’t heard much.
“You don’t even have to tell me verbally that you’re sorry if that’s going to be too much for you,” Chapman said in an interview with The Charlotte Observer. “But at the same time, don’t cover it up.”
In a letter last week, one of Chapman’s attorneys asked the governor’s office for an update on the petition, citing recent reporting from the Observer on the state’s slow and secretive pardon process. But Cooper’s Clemency Office only responded to the attorney by saying that the case is “active and pending review.”
Looking for an apology
In 1994 a Catawba County jury convicted Chapman of murdering Tenene Yvette Conley and Betty Jean Ramseur. The two were found in abandoned houses in Hickory, and Chapman’s sperm was found in Conley’s body. The jury sentenced him to death. He admitted he’d had sex with Conley, but denied killing the women.
Years after his conviction, new attorneys representing him in his appeal found that prosecutors withheld evidence that would have cleared him: someone else’s confession, witness testimony, forensic evidence that indicated Conley died from an overdose and more.
Chapman lives in Durham now. He’s become an advocate for criminal justice reform. Talking to people about wrongful convictions has been therapeutic, he said.
“I was into drugs and alcohol, but I turned that leaf in my life over,” he said. “I’m constantly staying busy, trying to keep myself going.”
In 2010 he sued the city of Hickory and two detectives who investigated him. That suit was settled.
Still, Chapman is looking for closure.
“It’s still sort of a chapter in his life that rears its head, especially when he’s in the Hickory area,” said Carlos Mahoney, an attorney for Chapman.
While in prison, the mother of his sons and the love of his life died, Chapman said. And he has had mental and physical health issues, he said.
Two of Cooper’s leading staffers previously told the Observer that they won’t comment on individual pardon petitions.
“A politician can’t tell you what it’s like to be on Death Row,” Chapman said. “They ain’t never been there.”