Sunday's Houston Chronicle featured two news articles. First, "A mother always knows," by Cindy George.
Doris Curry often points to a framed poster in her front room of footprints in the sand, an illustration that shows how a believer can be carried by God through trying times.
It's her quickest explanation for how she found the strength to endure her first-born's 18 years locked up on a wrongful conviction, some of which was spent on Texas death row.
What's even harder to understand is how she faced life in a small town like Brenham, where almost everyone knew that her son, Anthony Graves, was a convicted murderer believed to be involved in the slayings of six people. On Wednesday, her 45-year-old son was released and declared innocent by special prosecutors. His family enjoyed a celebratory feast at home on Saturday.
"I have faith and hope, and that's how I fought that war," said Curry, now 62, who always believed her son was innocent.
It's a journey that cost Graves his freedom and required incredible sacrifice from his family — particularly his mother.
And:
Curry has spent most of her life taking care of people. She had Anthony Graves at 17 and by 19 was supporting two children with a job at Dairy Queen. A workforce program allowed her to get hired as a caretaker at the Brenham State School. By her mid-20s, she had five children and later took in her ill sister's four kids.
The wrongful charges against her son weren't the first time she experienced injustice. Curry's brother was killed in 1970, and her estranged husband was murdered in the early 1980s.
She quit her job in November 1992 to cash in her retirement savings for Graves' legal defense. One administrator "thought they shouldn't hire me back because I could be threatening to the people who work there - like I did something," Curry remembered.
At work, she wondered about the suspicious looks. Some people would question her about her son's case - and not in a supportive way.
"One secretary asked me: 'If your son didn't do it, how come he's not out?' And some people whispered, thinking that he was guilty. I could tell people were talking about me, and it made me uncomfortable."
Dr. Vineeth John, associate professor of psychiatry at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, said the concept of shame becomes "even more painful" when relatives are convinced of their loved one's innocence.
"Many people are not prepared to tackle an event of such magnitude that brings so much social ostracism," John said. "This is a woman with a resilient mind-set surrounded by a loving family who helped her retain a sense of hope."
Safiya Ravat writes, "Slain victims' relatives looking for peace."
After almost two decades of attending trials, hearing intricate details of how his mother, two daughters, sister, niece and nephew were stabbed, killed and set ablaze in 1992, Keith Davis and his family hope to find peace after the exoneration of Anthony Graves, the only remaining suspect convicted in the murders.
Graves, 45, who spent the last 18 years in prison for the murders of Davis' six family members, was released Wednesday after prosecutors in a retrial filed a motion to dismiss charges against Graves due to lack of substantial evidence.
The exoneration brought a mix of emotions to relatives of the victims, some of who spoke out for the first time Saturday.
A few were outraged, believing Graves to be a guilty man set free. Others, like Davis, stood by the justice system's verdict.
"If Anthony Graves is innocent, then he very well should be released," Davis said. He, along with his brother and sister, believe that Graves' exoneration was appropriate due to the lack of evidence.
Davis admits that though there was no physical evidence against Graves from the very beginning, he did believe him to be guilty for many years.
"For 18 years it was embedded in us to believe that he was guilty," Davis said.
But after sitting through numerous trials against both Graves and co-defendant Robert Carter, who was executed in 2000 for the murders, Davis began to notice patterns that cast doubt into his mind about Graves' involvement.
Next, let me return to Friday's coverage. It starts with a Dallas Morning News editorial, "Death-row case underscores fallibility."
Let us recount the grave injustices inflicted upon Anthony Graves. He has spent the last 18 years behind bars, including 12 on death row, for a murder he did not commit. Prosecutors never established a plausible motive linking him to the 1992 deaths of six people who were shot, bludgeoned and stabbed to death in Sommerville, Texas, near Bryan. And prosecutors hid crucial exculpatory evidence that would have helped exonerate Graves.
On Wednesday, Burleson County District Attorney Bill Parham conceded that Graves "is an innocent man" and obtained his release. "There is nothing that connects Anthony Graves to this crime," he said after completing a five-month investigation of his predecessor's seriously flawed handiwork. "I did what I did because that's the right thing to do."
Graves is, no doubt, overjoyed today as he relishes his first hours of freedom and the ability to hug his mother whenever he wants. But if Graves harbors resentment and outrage over former District Attorney Charles Sebasta's egregious behavior in this case, he is absolutely justified. Graves owes his freedom in no small part to the work of University of St. Thomas journalism students, the Texas Innocence Project and Texas Monthly magazine.
Nothing excuses what prosecutors and investigators did in a blind pursuit of a conviction, an expansive account of which appeared in Texas Monthly's October issue.
The other Friday news coverage includes, "Team overturning Graves case blasts ex-DA," by Brian Rogers for the Houston Chronicle, and, "An army of believers," by Jeannie Kever.
Earlier coverage begins with this post.
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