Pete Coones, exonerated in Kansas City, Kansas, murder, dies after 108 days of freedom
Olin “Pete” Coones Jr., who spent more than 12 years in prison before he was exonerated of murder 108 days ago in Kansas City, Kansas, died Sunday, his attorneys said. He was 64.
Coones’ death comes three and a half months after his 2009 murder conviction was vacated by a Wyandotte County judge. While he was a free man, Coones was released “in a body that was broken,” his lawyers said in a statement.
“Though Pete was no longer imprisoned, his death — like his unjust conviction — is the result of continued state neglect and mistreatment,” said his attorneys at the Midwest Innocence Project and law firm Morgan Pilate. “The evidence suggests that he ultimately succumbed to health conditions that went undiagnosed and untreated during his time in prison.”
Coones for years pleaded his innocence to anyone who would listen. He was freed after his attorneys argued he was framed in the 2008 deaths of Kathleen and Carl Schroll. They asserted the shooting was actually a murder-suicide carried out by Kathleen.
After hearing that evidence during a days-long proceeding, Judge Bill Klapper determined Coones’ trial had been marred by prosecutorial misconduct. The Wyandotte County District Attorney’s Office then moved to drop the charges against him.
No physical evidence tied Coones to the crime. At trial, his daughter confirmed he was at home in the hours around the shooting.
Investigators had failed to find crucial physical evidence at the crime scene, and Wyandotte County prosecutors later turned to an unreliable jailhouse informant. They hid and “manufactured” evidence to convict Coones, his lawyers said Sunday.
“His life was stolen because his innocence did not matter,” they said.
Coones’ exoneration was the first innocence claim to go to court that began in District Attorney Mark Dupree’s conviction integrity unit — the first created in Kansas.
When he was released from the Wyandotte County jail, Coones hugged Dee, his wife of more than 40 years, and their children. He later met his grandchildren for the first time.
In an interview with The Star a week later, Coones became emotional as he told Dee that she was what kept him going during his wrongful imprisonment. He recounted the weddings, birthdays and Christmas celebrations he missed.
Coones also said Kansas desperately needs to create a system to track its use of jailhouse informants. Like Coones, more than 140 people since 1966 in the U.S. have been exonerated in murder cases that involved jailhouse informants, according to ProPublica.
“What happened to me is wrong,” Coones said. “It shouldn’t happen to anybody.”
One of Coones’ attorneys, Lindsay Runnels, said Coones was excited to become a part of the innocence movement and wanted to play a role in helping reform legislation about the use of incentivized informants. She described him as thoughtful and generous.
“He thought about the people who were left behind,” Runnels said Monday. “He wanted to work.”
Coones’ lawyers said the public can support his family by donating to their online fundraiser on GoFundMe.
This story was originally published February 21, 2021 at 6:32 PM.
