Good Kids, Bad City
by Kyle Swenson
From an award-winning investigative journalist—the dramatic story of the longest wrongful imprisonment in the United States to end in exoneration, and the city that convicted themIn the early 1970s, three African African American men—Wiley Bridgeman, Kwame Ajamu, and Ricky Jackson—were accused and convicted of the brutal robbery and murder of a man outside of a convenience store in Cleveland, Ohio. The prosecution's case, which resulted in a combined 106 years in prison for the three men, rested on the testimony of Ed Vernon, a preteen with questionable motives of his own. The actual murderer was never found. Almost four decades later, Vernon recanted his testimony, and Wiley, Kwame, and Ricky were released. Theirs was the longest wrongful imprisonment to end in exoneration in American history, and in Good Kids, Bad City, investigative journalist Kyle Swenson tells their story, and that of the city that wrongfully convicted...