Mo. Woman Who Served 43 Years in Prison for Murder Is Set Free 1 Month After Conviction Is Overturned

After some four decades in prison, Sandra Hemme may soon have the tragic distinction of being the longest serving woman ever known to be wrongfully convicted in the United States.

In 1980, Hemme, who reportedly struggles with mental illness, was tied to the murder of a Missouri librarian despite no forensic evidence or witnesses after she made a confession while she was “so heavily medicated that she was unable to even hold her head up and was restrained and strapped to a chair,” according to the Innocence Project, who represents her.

A Missouri judge last month said there was “substantial and objective” evidence that had not been presented, linking Patricia Jeschke’s murder to a now-deceased local policeman who had “extensive” criminal behavior and had likely been by fellow officers.

After 43 years behind bars, on Friday, July 19, Hemme, now 64, is now free.

Exiting the car that escorted her out of Chillicothe Correctional Center, she was greeted with the outstretched arms of her sister, who never stopped pushing to prove her innocence.

“She has spent more than four decades wrongfully incarcerated for a crime she had nothing to do with,” Hemme’s legal team said in a statement announcing her release from prison, adding that: “She is surrounded by her loved ones, where she should have been all along. We will continue to fight until her name is cleared.”

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In June, Judge Ryan W. Horsman overturned Hemme’s capital murder conviction in an order obtained by PEOPLE, calling the woman who had spent more of her life behind bars than outside them, “the victim of a manifest injustice.”

“It would be difficult to imagine that the State could prove Ms. Hemme’s -

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guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” Horseman wrote in his 118-page decision, adding that he considered her “innocence to be clear and convincing.”

Heading Friday's release, the judge admonished the attorney general for keeping Hemme behind bars even after an appeals court said she could go home, by allegedly having his office call the warden and other prison officials and asking them to keep her incarcerated, PBS News reported.

“I would suggest you never do that,” Horsman said, per the outlet, adding: “To call someone and tell them to disregard a court order is wrong.”

The judge said, per the outlet, that if Hemme were not promptly freed, he wanted Bailey to appear in court himself.

The Innocence Project has launched a petition urging her exoneration, an official step that could permanently clear her name.

The Missouri Attorney General’s Office habitually opposes such exoneration efforts, like in the recent cases of Kevin Strickland and Lamar Johnson, who, after decades wrongfully behind bars, were ultimately exonerated in 2021 and 2023, respectively. Both men have since been released from prison.

Earlier this month, Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who oversaw Hemme’s case, filed a writ of habeas corpus reviewed by PEOPLE, asking the Missouri Supreme Court to block the Circuit Court of St. Louis County from considering DNA evidence in a scheduled hearing next month for the death row case of Marcellus Williams, which his lawyers — also with the Innocence Project — say would prove his innocence in a knife-stabbing case from 1998.

Williams is set for execution September 24, 2024. ⁠

PEOPLE reached out to Bailey and his office regarding exoneration efforts in both Hemme’s and Williams’s cases. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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