FLOYD COUNTY, Ga. — A second man is suing investigators connected to his conviction after he spent a quarter of a century in prison for a murder he did not commit.
Josh Storey now lives in Cobb County.
He was convicted in 1996 of murdering his friend Travis Bowling in Floyd County.
He was just 17 years old when he was arrested and was released 25 years later.
He has no work experience and just got his driver’s license a few months ago.
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His hope is that this lawsuit can somehow compensate him for the time he lost and help prevent other wrongful convictions.
“He is walking to work every day, showing up at Burger King, learning the skills he never learned as a kid,” Susan Simpson with Proof Podcast told Channel 2.
She’s behind the podcast that investigated the case against Storey and his friend Lee Clark.
The podcast found evidence that shed enough doubt for prosecutors to release the men in 2022 after spending 25 years in prison.
The two were accused of killing Bowling during a game of Russian Roulette. But in a lawsuit filed by Storey’s attorneys against Floyd County and investigators, they say Storey was coerced into a false confession.
And Simpson said that’s not all.
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“In order to make that case happen, in order to get a conviction out of nothing, they had to coerce one witness into falsely implicating them, falsely claiming she heard a confession she never heard,” Simpson said.
After the podcast, Storey pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter for supplying the gun that killed his friend.
He was released for time served and his record was cleared.
“He did not have the family support that some of the others I’ve worked with, some of the other cases I’ve worked on have had, so he is currently living in a motel,” Simpson said.
The lawsuit and Simpson want an award large enough to prevent other wrongful convictions.
“Especially in Floyd County where we know there have been other cases as well of wrongful convictions,” Simpson said.
Channel 2 Action News has contacted Floyd County and their attorneys for comment but has not received a response.
Channel 2′s Candace McCowan said getting compensation after wrongful imprisonment isn’t easy in Georgia.
Georgia is one of the few states that does not have a law that compensates the wrongfully convicted after their release.
You have to go through the legislature.
Attempts to do that earlier this year for two wrongfully convicted people passed the House, but were never given a hearing in the Senate.
So now they head to court.
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