A man jailed for murder for 34 years has had his conviction quashed after it was revealed that one of the main witnesses was lying.
Kash Delano Register broke down and cried on Thursday after a Los Angeles judge threw out his conviction for shooting dead elderly Jack Sasson in April 1979.
The conviction was overturned after Sharon Anderson, sister of one of the main witnesses, Brenda Anderson, told a court that the testimony used to send Register to jail was a lie.
Nineteen-years-old Brenda was a neighbor of 78-year-old Sasson, who was shot five times.
She told police that after hearing shots, she looked out of a window and saw an African-American fleeing the scene.
She identified the gunman as Register. The two had been at High School together.
Her testimony was the main pillar of he prosecution case.
No murder weapon was ever discovered, no fingerprints found at the scene matched Register’s and police and prosecutors were accused of suppressing evidence.
Register’s girlfriend also testified that he was with her at the time of the shooting, reports the Los Angeles Times.
Register, now 53-years-old, was sentenced to 27 years to life and had always pleaded his innocence, something which he believes kept him in jail, where he was inmate No. C11693.
“It appears that the only reason that I have been consistently denied parole is because I have maintained my innocence,” court papers revealed he once told the parole board.
In 2011, another of Brenda Anderson’s sister, Sheila Vanderkam discovered via the Internet that Register was still incarcerated.
She then got in contact with Register’s attorney to tell him her sister Brenda had been lying all those years ago. Vanderkam had even worked at the same LAPD station where detectives investigated the case. But her pleas to one detective went unheeded.
“The detective placed his finger over his mouth (like a shush sound) and just stared at me,” she said in her court statement. “He made it very clear to me, without actually saying anything, that I was to stay out of it.”
Prosecutors will make a final decision next month to release or retry Register.
h/t Daily News
