It’s been nine years since William Richards was released from prison, but the emotional scars still linger from the 23 years he spent behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit.
“Every day was hell. You just keep saying, ‘I don’t deserve this. I didn’t do this,’ ” Richards, now 75, said in an interview with the Southern California News Group.
Indeed, the state Supreme Court agreed with Richards that he was wrongly convicted, blaming overzealous San Bernardino County sheriff’s investigators and prosecutors for botching the investigation into the murder of Richards’ wife, Pamela, who was killed in 1993 by someone who strangled her, beat her with rocks and crushed her skull with a concrete stepping-stone.
And last week, a federal court jury ordered the county to pay Richards $25.2 million for his wrongful conviction, which came after four criminal trials.
While the verdict came as welcome news to Richards, who now lives in Lexington, Oklahoma, he remained conflicted in a telephone interview — reflecting on what he had lost in those 23 years in prison, how long it took for his vindication, and how much he suffered while incarcerated.
Every day in prison was one of guarded caution, Richards said. Other prisoners labeled him a “wife killer,” and he was always a target. “I gave some scars and I got some scars. It’s a rough place,” he said.
From the time of his arrest until he walked out of the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga in June 2016 a free man, Richards has always maintained his innocence.
David McLane, one of three attorneys at the Pasadena law firm McLane, Bednarski & Litt who represented Richards in his civil case, said he and attorneys Marilyn Bednarski and Ben Shaw convinced the jury during the weeklong civil trial that sheriff’s investigators conducted sloppy police work and did not allow a deputy coroner to examine Pamela Richards’ body for more than 11 hours while they processed the crime scene.
“That’s their policy to this day,” McLane said.
The delayed examination of Pamela Richards’ body resulted in the failure to firmly establish her approximate time of her death. And for the defense, that meant everything.
Richards clocked off work from his job as a mechanical engineer at Schuler Manufacturing in Corona at 11:03 p.m. on Aug. 10, 1993. He arrived home to the couple’s undeveloped 5-acre property in the Summit Valley area south of Hesperia about 11:50 p.m., shocked to discover his wife of 22 years dead.
Richards received a call from an acquaintance at 11:55 p.m. and then called 911 at 11:58 p.m. reporting his wife’s death. He called two more times before the first deputy arrived on scene at 12:38 a.m.
Investigators and prosecutors argued that Richards killed his 40-year-old wife sometime between the time he arrived home and the time he made his first 911 call.
McLane said exculpatory evidence that could have helped prove Richards’ innocence — such as a blond hair found under Pamela Richards’ fingernail that belonged to neither her nor her husband — was never presented to the defense during any of the criminal trials.
While Pamela Richards had blond hair at the time of her death, McLane said she bleached her hair and was naturally a brunette.
“This hair was blonde at the root. If that hair came from Pamela Richards, that hair should have been brown. And that evidence was suppressed from the defense,” said McLane, adding that DNA testing confirmed the hair strand belonged to an unknown third party.
DNA testing also revealed that hair and blood samples taken from a cinder block and concrete paver used to crush the victim’s skull was not that of either the victim nor her husband, court records show.
Additionally, a bite mark on Pamela Richards’ thumb, which prosecutors argued was inflicted by her husband, was not introduced as evidence until his third criminal trial. A prosecution expert testified that Richards’ teeth matched the bite mark, but then later admitted he was wrong. It was unclear if DNA testing was ever run on the bite mark to see if it matched that of Richards.
While McLane believes the county will appeal the verdict and attempt to get the jury award reduced, county spokesman David Wert said that decision will ultimately have to be approved by the Board of Supervisors.
“The Board of Supervisors will be advised of the verdict and decide what the next steps will be,” Wert said in an email on Tuesday, July 8.
District Attorney Jason Anderson declined to comment on the jury verdict.
Released from custody after 23 years, Richards found himself in a world unfamiliar to him — with no money, no family and no home.
“Everything I had was gone. All my friends died, all my family died,” Richards said. He wound up staying indefinitely with the family of an attorney for the California Innocence Project, which took up Richards’ case and helped in his fight for freedom.
Five years after his release, on June 18, 2021, a San Bernardino County Superior Court judge granted a motion filed by Richards’ attorney and declared him factually innocent. Since that qualified him for reparations from the California Victim Compensation Board, Richards filed a claim with the board. Two weeks later, he was granted more than $1.1 million.
Richards said the money allowed him to travel, purchase a home and vehicle, and settle down in Oklahoma. He has also remarried, and met his new wife, Marcella, while traveling in Hong Kong.
However, Richards now feels justice is complete with the recent jury award.
“I find it very satisfying,” he said. “After more than 30 years of this, I can pick up the pieces and move on.”