10 People Who Were Probably Wrongly Executed

9. Leo Alexander Jones

Leo Jones was convicted of shooting Officer Thomas Szafranski in his patrol car in Jacksonville, Florida in May 1981. He was arrested after two fire rifles were found under his bed, one of which was found to be covered in his fingerprints. He subsequently confessed to the murder of Szafranski but later retracted it claiming that police had beaten the confession out of him.

Laboratory tests of the weapons found in Jones' apartment were "inconclusive" when determining whether they had recently been fired. Twelve eyewitnesses in total came forward stating that they saw another man, Glen Scofield (who was Jones' roommate) carrying a rifle after Officer Szafranski was shot. One witness claimed that Schofield passed her on the stairs of her apartment shouting "them crackers are after me."

Despite the amount of witnesses who came forward stating that the saw Glen Scofield near the crime scene, one even stating that Scofield confessed to Officer Szafranksi's murder, the State put Jones to death on 24th March 1998.