A California Black man spent 38 years behind bars for a crime he spent decades pleading his innocence. Now, he’s just been awarded a landmark multi-million dollar wrongful conviction settlement — reportedly the largest in the state’s history — and his lawsuit is claiming Inglewood cops and a district attorney framed him.
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In June 1983, Roberta Wydermyer left her home late one night to buy cigarettes and medicine, according to reports. She was abducted, sexually assaulted and murdered by a single gunshot to the head. When she didn’t return home, her husband, Billy Wydermyer, and his friend, George Pinson, went looking for her. They spotted her car and tried to follow it when a suspect shot Billy in the head. He survived. His wife’s body was later found in the trunk of her stolen Cadillac.
Maurice Hastings, a Black man, was charged and put on trial, but the jury was deadlocked. A second trial found him guilty for her murder and the attempted murder of both her husband and Pinson, even though there was zero physical or forensic evidence linking him to the crime. He even provided an alibi.
But that didn’t matter… he was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
During Wydermyer’s autopsy, the coroner collected body fluids of the suspect during a sexual assault examination, according to the district attorney’s office. Hastings sought DNA testing to compare that evidence in 2000, but the district attorney denied his request.
Per The Guardian, he maintained his innocence for years and even submitted a claim to the DA’s conviction integrity unit in 2021. That’s when DNA testing confirmed the tested semen was not his. In 2022, at 69 years old, Hastings’ conviction was vacated — only after he spent nearly four decades behind bars.
To add insult to injury, the bodily fluid retrieved during the victim’s exam belonged to Kenneth Packnett, who was arrested mere weeks after Wydermyer’s death for a unrelated car theft. Law enforcement even found items taken from Wydermyer when she was slain, including jewelry and a coin purse, with him. Packnett also had the same type of gun on him that was used to shoot the victims. He was never investigated.
Packnett had also been convicted of a separate armed kidnapping and forced copulation charge of a female victim who was also placed in a car’s trunk… details eerily similar to how Wydermyer was killed. He died in prison in 2020, prosecutors said, while serving time for kidnapping and rape.
Now, the City of Inglewood has agreed to pay Hastings $25 million dollars in what his lawyers say is the largest wrongful conviction settlement in state history.
But the story doesn’t end there. Even though he’s now free with a large lump sum of money, his lawsuit claims two Inglewood Police Department officers and the Los Angeles District Attorney investigator at the time framed him.
Per CBS News, attorneys alleged the Inglewood Police Department “falsified evidence of Hastings’s guilt and buried evidence corroborating his alibi, single-handedly framing an innocent man” and called Hastings’ alleged framing “policing at its worst.”
“No amount of money could ever restore the 38 years of my life that were stolen from me,” Hastings said in a statement. “But this settlement is a welcome end to a very long road, and I look forward to moving on with my life.”
Hastings, now 72, lives in southern California and is active in his church.
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