Massachusetts man who spent decades in prison for a murder he didn’t commit will receive $13 million

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. (AP) – In the nearly three decades that Michael Sullivan was behind bars, his mother and four siblings died, his girlfriend moved on with her life and he was severely beaten in multiple attacks in prison.

All for a murder he had long claimed he never committed.

Earlier this month, Sullivan, 64, achieved a measure of justice when a jury in Massachusetts found him innocent of the 1986 murder and robbery of Wilfred McGrath. He was awarded $13 million — even though state rules limit rewards for wrongful convictions to $1 million. The jury also found that a state police chemist gave false testimony at trial, although his testimony did not guarantee Sullivan’s conviction.

It is the latest in a series of convictions overturned in the state in recent years.

“The most important thing is to declare myself innocent of the murder and remove it from my record,” Sullivan said at the office of his lead attorney, Michael Heineman, in Framingham, Massachusetts. “The money will obviously help me a lot.”

A spokesman for the Massachusetts attorney general said, “We respect the jury’s verdict and are considering whether an appeal is appropriate.”

Sullivan was convicted of murder and armed robbery in 1987 after police said McGrath was robbed and beaten and his body dumped behind an abandoned supermarket.

Authorities focused on Sullivan after learning that his sister had been out with McGrath the night before the murder and the two had gone to the apartment she shared with Sullivan. Another suspect in the murder, Gary Grace, accused Sullivan and his murder charge was dropped. Grace testified at trial that Sullivan was wearing a purple jacket the night of the murder, and a former state police chemist testified that he found blood on the jacket and a hair consistent with McGrath and not Sullivan.

Sullivan was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. Grace, however, pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact to murder and was sentenced to six years in prison. Emil Petrla, who beat McGrath and helped dispose of his body, pleaded second-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole, but died in prison.

“I couldn’t believe I was convicted of murder,” Sullivan said, recalling that prosecutors mentioned the purple jacket five times in their closing argument. “My mother cried in the courtroom, my brother cried. I cried. It was very difficult for me and my family.”

For Sullivan, prison would be a nightmare. In one attack he almost had his nose bitten off and in another he almost lost an ear. And because he was a lifer, the prison system wouldn’t allow him to take classes to gain much-needed skills

“It’s very hard for a person, especially when you know you’re innocent,” Sullivan said. “And prison is a bad life, you know. Life in prison is hard.”

But in 2011, Sullivan’s fortunes changed dramatically.

Sullivan’s attorney requested a DNA test – which had not been available at the first trial – which found no blood on the coat. The tests also found that substances on the coat did not contain McGrath’s DNA and it could not be determined whether hair found on a jacket belonged to him.

Dana Curhan, a Boston attorney who represented Sullivan from 1992 to 2014 and advocated for the DNA test, said Sullivan always told him that McGrath’s blood was not on the jacket. But he was surprised to learn there was no blood, which would have undermined the prosecutor’s argument that Sullivan beat McGrath to a “bloody pulp.”

“At closing, the prosecutor essentially said, ‘Hey, if he wasn’t the one who did it, why did they find blood on both cuffs of the jacket?'” Curhan said. “He repeated that over and over again. We have no blood or DNA match. You would expect someone who does what they are accused of to be covered in blood. There is no blood. That really was the case.”

A new trial was ordered in 2012 and Sullivan was released in 2013. He spent the first six months in home isolation and had to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet for years.

“As I walked out the front door I was in an emotional state,” he said.

In 2014, the Supreme Court upheld the decision to grant Sullivan a new trial, and in 2019 the state decided not to retry the case. At the time, Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said it was virtually impossible for her office to successfully retry the case against Sullivan because some witnesses had died and the memories of other potential witnesses had declined.

Sullivan admits he “switched off” after his release and continues to struggle to cope in a world that changed dramatically during his time in prison. Before he was arrested, he had worked at a peanut factory and planned to go to school, become a truck driver and eventually work for his brother, who owned a trucking company.

Instead, he left prison with no employment prospects and no hope of finding work. He still can’t use a computer and mostly helps his sister with odd jobs. His girlfriend, who he had known since he was 12, visited him in prison for a decade but eventually had to “move on with her life.”

“I still haven’t really gotten used to the outside world,” Sullivan said, adding that he spends much of his time with his Yorkshire terrier, Buddy, and the pigeons he keeps at his sister’s house.

“It’s hard for me,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m constantly scared… I’m pretty much a loner.”

Sullivan’s sister, Donna Faria, said the family “didn’t believe for a minute” that he killed McGrath. They supported the trial and spoke to Sullivan twice a week during his incarceration and visited him every few months.

But Faria laments everything Sullivan lost in prison, noting that he “never had children and never married like the rest of us.”

“If he didn’t have me, my brother would have been walking the streets like many homeless people,” Faria said. “It’s almost like he doesn’t trust people. When he is near his family he feels safe. If not, he won’t do it.”

These days, Sullivan spends most of his time at Faria’s home in Billerica, Massachusetts, often doing her family’s laundry, just as he did for his fellow inmates in prison. Despite the jury’s award, Sullivan doesn’t expect his life to change all that much.

Sullivan will treat himself to a new truck, but said he wants to save most of the money to ensure his nieces and nephews have everything they need when they turn 21. Sullivan has not received therapy for the hardship he has endured, but his attorney Heineman said he plans to ask the court as part of the sentence to provide him with therapy and educational services.

“You will have money. This will make me very happy,” he said. “The most important thing is my nieces and nephews – I take care of them.”