LaMonte Armstrong was released from prison on Friday after his lawyers were able to prove that he had been wrongfully sentenced to life in prison for a crime he did not commit. Although Armstrong swore 17 years ago to fight his conviction after he was sentenced, the journey was rough, pain staking but paid off at the end. Nearly 17 years ago, a Greensboro, N.C., jury convicted Armstrong of murdering his mother's best friend, a beloved college professor named Ernestine Compton, by stabbing her and strangling her with an electrical cord. A judge sentenced him to life in prison. Prosecutors had sought the death penalty.
According to Armstrong "I'm confused, lost and little bit fearful of the unknown," he said said in a phone interview. "I wasn't ready to get out of prison last Friday."
He won that fight on Friday afternoon, when Superior Court Judge Joe Turner threw out his conviction. Two hours later, he was released from the county jail. He is 62 years old.
Police said they now believe another man, Christopher Caviness, was the real killer. Under pressure from Armstrong's attorneys, Greensboro investigators re-tested evidence from the case and matched a palm print from the murder scene with Caviness, who was identified as a suspect by police early in the case. A year after Compton was killed, Caviness went to prison for murdering his father. He died last year in a car crash.
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