Star witness pointed the finger and Milwaukee man lost 27 years for murder – until she confessed she was the real killer

A man in Milwaukee was convicted of murdering a 77-year-old woman and served 27 years largely thanks to a star witness who claimed to have seen the entire thing. Now the star witness, serving time for an unrelated crime and having time to sit with guilt, finally revealed that she was the one who actually committed the crime.

The man, Bryan Hooper Jr., has since been released. The common description of justice has always been that it’s blind. As Aaron Spencer recently discovered when he decided to do everything it took to protect his family — justice is not about who’s right or even what happened; it’s about what you can prove

Sadly for Hooper, when he was falsely accused by Chakala Young of killing the 77-year-old Ann Prazniak in 1998, four other witnesses corroborated her version of events. On the fateful night Prazniak was murdered, the crime scene police found a body in a cardboard box tied with Christmas lights in her Minneapolis apartment. The body was later identified as Prazniak herself, and considering both Young’s and Hooper’s fingerprints were on the body, they became the main suspects.

What followed was a chain of events that could be the makings of one of the best crime documentaries we’ll ever see. First, Young claimed that Hooper forced her to be on the lookout while he killed Prazniak. Then, from the police investigation, it was discovered that the apartment was known for prostitution and rampant drug use — a detail of note because the four witnesses who corroborated Young’s story were found to be unreliable and started retracting their statements one by one in the years that followed, until Young eventually decided to come clean herself.

The Daily Beast was able to source a quote by Young, who reportedly wrote in a letter: “I am not okay any longer with an innocent man sitting in prison for a crime he did not commit, soul [sic] purpose here is not to make any excuse but to take responsibility for two innocent lives that I have destroyed and… to make true amends for once in my life.” She wrote the letter while serving an 8-year sentence (not connected to the murder case).

Hooper’s attorney celebrated the overturned conviction by stating that they’re happy now that the court also accepts what his family has always known: the man is innocent. A straight-up confession with no strings attached is rare. It cannot be overstated how people usually claim their mental health was compromised or even deny their crime to their dying day. So while Young took almost three decades of a man’s life, she at least had the decency of taking it back eventually. As per the judge, if she hadn’t made the false testimony all those years ago, “conviction was tainted by false evidence and that without this false testimony, “the jury might have reached a different conclusion.”

When Hooper was asked by the press what he plans to do now that he’s free, he had one major thing in mind: reconnecting with his family. Reportedly, he will live in the Twin Cities area where his family resides. He went on to tell the press that his immediate order of business was having dinner with his family on his first night of release.

Befittingly, when he was finally let out of prison, his family and friends met him at the prison gates. As for Young’s fate, the murder case will now be reopened and investigated by the Minneapolis Police Department.