Man who spent 50 years in jail for murder he didn’t commit given staggering payout – but only after

Glynn Simmons was finally released from prison in 2023 at the age of 70 after spending nearly 50 years behind bars for a murder he did not commit. His case became one of the most shocking wrongful convictions in American history, making him the longest-serving person ever exonerated in the United States.

Simmons lost 48 years of his life in prison, including two years on death row, after being convicted of the 1974 murder of Carolyn Sue Rogers. Rogers, a 30-year-old liquor store clerk in Edmond, Oklahoma, was killed when two armed men entered the store during a robbery. She was shot in the head and later died from her injuries. Another person inside the store, 18-year-old Belinda Brown, survived the attack.

For decades, Simmons maintained that he was innocent. At the time of the crime, he was not even in Oklahoma. He was approximately 700 miles away in Harvey, Louisiana, spending the holiday season with family and friends. During his trial, six different witnesses testified and confirmed that he was in Louisiana when the murder happened.

Despite this, Simmons was convicted after a trial that lasted only three days. The key evidence against him came from the surviving witness, Belinda Brown, who identified him as one of the gunmen. Based largely on that identification, Simmons was sentenced to death.

Years later, serious problems with the case began to emerge. Police had been investigating several similar robberies and another murder at the time. One man, Leonard Patterson, had already confessed to some of those crimes. Patterson had attended a party where Simmons was also present, and police gathered several people from that party to participate in identification lineups.

What the jury never heard was that Brown had previously identified other suspects before pointing to Simmons. They were also never told that her original description of the shooter did not match Simmons. Those important details were kept from the defense and never presented during the trial.

Nearly five decades later, Simmons’ attorneys uncovered police reports that had been hidden from the defense team for years. These reports raised serious doubts about the reliability of the witness identification that had put him in prison. By the time the conviction was overturned, prosecutors themselves admitted there was no physical evidence linking Simmons to the crime.

After his release, Simmons spoke openly about what had happened to him. He rejected the idea that his conviction was simply a mistake.

“I don’t call it a miscarriage of justice. It wasn’t a mistake. It was a deliberate act. It was a conscious disregard of justice,” he said.

Although Simmons was finally free, he never received an apology from the state for taking nearly half a century of his life.

Initially, Oklahoma awarded him only $175,000 in compensation after his release. Many people felt that amount was nowhere near enough considering the years he had lost. Simmons later filed a civil rights lawsuit against the City of Edmond and the estate of a former Edmond detective involved in the case.

In 2024, the Edmond City Council approved a settlement of $7.15 million for Simmons. The settlement was intended to compensate him for the 48 years he spent wrongfully imprisoned.

His lead attorney, Elizabeth Wang, said that no amount of money could ever return the years that had been stolen from him, but she hoped the settlement would help him move forward with his life while continuing efforts to hold others accountable.

Even after his release, Simmons has spoken about the emotional burden he carried for decades. He admitted that anger and bitterness were natural feelings after losing so much of his life.

“There’s been anger there for almost 50 years — anger, bitterness,” he said.

“But you have to regulate it or it’ll eat you up. What’s been done can’t be undone, so I don’t wallow in it.”