After more than 20 years in prison, Indianapolis man exonerated in murder and set free

Editor's note: This story was originally published in March.  We are republishing it as we look back at some of our most-read stories of the year.

Leon Benson, incarcerated for nearly 25 years for the execution-style murder of a Plainfield man, has steadfastly maintained his innocence.

On Thursday, Benson, 47, walked out of the Correctional Industrial Facility in Pendleton a free man after an investigation revealed police failed to disclose critical pieces of evidence, including information implicating someone else in the killing. He had spent more than half of his life behind bars, 10 years of which, he said, was in solitary confinement.

"It is so surreal. I just walked out of prison, literally, a few hours ago. I'm here. It's really poetic," Benson said after a champagne toast with his friends, attorneys and family, including his 26-year-old daughter who was only 2 when he was imprisoned.

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Benson was convicted for the murder of Kasey Schoen, who was shot five times while sitting in his truck near downtown Indianapolis in the early morning hours of Aug. 8, 1998. He was tried twice. The first ended in a mistrial after six of 12 jurors voted not guilty. Benson was convicted after he was retried in July 1999 and was sentenced to 61 years in prison.

Lara Bazelon, an attorney for Benson and director of the Criminal & Juvenile Justice and Racial Justice Clinics at the University of San Francisco School of Law, said the case against him relied on the questionable identification of an eyewitness ― a white woman ― who gave police only vague descriptions of a Black man in dark clothing she saw while standing across the street.

"It had all the hallmarks of a case that screams wrongful conviction," Bazelon said. "There was no forensic or physical evidence and it rested almost entirely on the cross-racial identification of a stranger who was standing 150 feet away and peering into the near darkness."

The woman, a newspaper carrier, told police the shooter was standing on a sidewalk next to the passenger side window when he shot at Schoen. She was not able to give detectives facial descriptions and only said she saw a 5-foot-8-inch tall Black man in his 20s. She also said he wore a dark shirt, a baseball cap and pants with three white stripes on them.

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In addition to the woman's testimony, the case also relied on another witness' statement saying he saw Benson near the victim's truck moments before and after the shooting and Benson's own admission that he was in the area around that time.

What jurors did not hear, according to Benson's post-conviction petition, was information police were told by critical witnesses who did not testify at the trial. That included an eyewitness who identified a different man as the shooter and another person who was with Benson at a nearby apartment when Schoen was killed.

Benson was released a day after Marion Superior Court Judge Shatrese Flowers ruled in his favor. His exoneration was the result of a joint investigation by the University of San Francisco's Racial Justice Clinic and the Marion County Conviction Integrity Unit.

Benson's case is the first exoneration by the Conviction Integrity Unit since it was created in 2021 by the prosecutor's office to "identify, remedy and prevent wrongful convictions."

"This has been a long and difficult process for everyone involved but justice requires that we set aside this conviction," the Marion County Prosecutor's Office said in a statement. "The challenges presented in this case underline the importance of why the Conviction Integrity Unit was established and why we continue to identify and remedy wrongful convictions and ensure that justice and fairness are upheld."

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Early evidence pointed to another shooter

Indianapolis Police Department detectives believed earlier in their investigation that another man, not Benson, was the shooter.

Weeks before the shooting, a man named Joseph Webster, also known as Looney, was stopped multiple times by officers in the neighborhood where Schoen was killed. In his possession was a .380 handgun ― the same kind used to kill Schoen ― and about 40 rocks of cocaine, according to documents.

Three days after Schoen was killed, Det. Alan Jones, the lead investigator, asked two other detectives to bring Webster to the homicide office for questioning. But Webster, according to documents, asked for his attorney and declined to talk.

None of the evidence against Webster was ever disclosed to prosecutors or to Benson's attorneys.

Jones ultimately zeroed in on Benson after a new witness, an allegedly mentally ill man, came forward and told him Detroit (Benson's nickname) was the shooter, according to documents. The newspaper carrier also later identified Benson from a photo array.

But on Aug. 15, 1998, a week after the shooting, another witness came forward.

That witness told detectives that he saw the shooting from across the street and recognized the shooter as someone he had seen in the neighborhood, including hours before the crime. He identified Webster in a photo array and told detectives he was wearing a dark shirt, a baseball cap and black pants with three white stripes on them ― the same description the newspaper carrier gave police.

Hours before the shooting, Webster showed him he had a .380 handgun, the witness told police.

More evidence implicating Webster surfaced.

Another detective learned from his confidential informant that Webster had bragged about the shooting to his ex-girlfriend, the detective told Jones in a handwritten note. A man identified only as Eddie witnessed the shooting and said Webster "shot white guy in head," according to the note.

Still, "there's no evidence that Det. Jones ran down any of these leads," according to the post-conviction petition.

By the end of August 1998, police received two Crime Stoppers anonymous tips saying Webster was the killer. But, in his report, Jones wrote that a second suspect was still under investigation.

"However, with the arrest of Leon Benson," Jones wrote, "I am clearing this case."

Detective admits failure to turn over critical evidence

In May 2022, more than 20 years after Benson was convicted, Jones signed a sworn declaration admitting he did not turn over critical evidence to prosecutors. As a result, none of the evidence pointing to a different suspect was turned over to Benson's attorneys.

Benson's attorneys argued that Jones provided prosecutors a "sanitized" version of the investigative documents and treated the newspaper carrier's testimony as the "heart of the case." Her identification of Benson caused Jones to disregard all the other evidence implicating Webster, the attorneys argued.

That was problematic, Bazelon said, citing longstanding research that intra-racial identification of strangers is not reliable.

"Numerous studies have shown that white people aren't good at identifying Black people and vice versa," Bazelon said. "Most Americans live fairly segregated lives and don't have a lot of exposure to people of other races. ... We are bad at identifying people outside of our own racial group. Period."

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The newspaper carrier also saw the suspect under the worst possible scenario: She had just witnessed a crime. The shooter had started walking toward her direction, and she was in fear for her life.

"She's a different race, she's not close to what happened, she's not from the neighborhood, she's afraid," Bazelon said. "It's all the ingredients you need for a mistaken ID. It's not on purpose. It's not malicious. It's because she believed it, but she was wrong."

And yet, Jones relied heavily on her testimony.

"He focused on her because she was straight out of central casting. She's young, white, gainfully employed, had no criminal history, a good Samaritan, called police immediately, was cooperative," Bazelon said. "On the surface, she's a perfect witness."

An Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department spokesman said the agency needs to gather more information before it can comment.

While Benson was sent to prison, Jones remained in law enforcement. At some point, he left IMPD and moved to the Marion County Sheriff’s Department. Jones left the department in 2013 after he was arrested for drunk driving in an unmarked department vehicle.

'Truth never dies'

The last 24 hours for Benson began rather typically. He played chess as he normally does. He had known the judge's decision was looming, but he didn't know it had happened.

"I was getting a little stir crazy," he said.

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At about 9 a.m. Thursday, as he was reading a book by the hip-hop mogul James Prince, a counselor told him he'd be released immediately.

"When they told me, I just raised my hands up," he said. "I'm like, "Man, I'm exonerated!"

Throughout his two decades behind bars, he said he'd always known he'd be freed. He began writing to organizations focusing on exonerations as early as 2000.

"Truth never dies," he said. "It's only rediscovered."

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Leon Benson exonerated after imprisonment for Indianapolis murder