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After decades behind bars, wrongfully convicted man races against losing his sight
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BATON ROUGE — A man who spent 45 years, 18 months and three days in prison for a crime he did not commit is now facing the possibility of losing his sight.
Wilbert Jones was 19 years old when a judge sent him to prison in 1973 for raping and kidnapping a Baton Rouge nurse, a crime he repeatedly insisted he never committed.
Louisiana's Innocence Project later proved to a court that Jones had been wrongfully convicted. At the time of his release, he had spent more time in prison than any other recognized wrongfully convicted person in the United States, according to the Louisiana Innocence Project.
"I was innocent, and I knew one day I was going to get out," Jones said.
He says his faith kept that hope alive through those years.
Richard Davis of the Louisiana Innocence Project says Jones' story is not an isolated one.
"Innocence and Justice Louisiana is a nonprofit law office that represents wrongfully convicted people, that is, people who are imprisoned in Louisiana for crimes that they did not do," Davis said.
Davis says wrongful convictions in Louisiana outpace other states.
"Louisiana has one of the highest known wrongful conviction rates in the country," Davis said.
"The best academic studies would suggest that between three and five percent of people in prison did not do the crime that they were convicted," he said.
After his release, Jones met and married Mary. The couple has been married for seven years.
"I watched 46 years in a prison," Jones said. "Prison all my life and I'd like to go see places that I've dreamed of before."
Now Jones is going blind. His wife says doctors have done everything possible to save his vision.
"He was told that everything he could do had been done to try to save his vision. His left eye is already gone," Mary Jones said.
The couple wants to travel and see the country together while he still can.
"I hope I get to see my husband enjoy the things that were denied to him while he was incarcerated. That's what I live for," Mary Jones said.
Wilbert and Mary Jones have started a GoFundMe account to help make that travel possible.
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