A Minnesota father has been freed from his life sentence for murder after a star witness who helped put him behind bars nearly three decades ago grew “soul sick” with guilt and confessed to the killing.
Bryan Hooper Sr. walked out of the Stillwater Correctional Facility and into the arms of his children on Thursday as he was wrongly imprisoned for 27 years for the 1998 murder of 77-year-old Ann Prazniak, the Great North Innocent Project announced.
The Hennepin County District Court exonerated Hooper Sr. over Prazniak’s murder when they received a handwritten confession from Chalaka Young — the key witness who had testified against him — who admitted to killing the 77-year-old.
In April 1998, Prazniak was found dead inside a cardboard box in her Minneapolis apartment. Officials ruled Prazniak’s cause of death was asphyxiation and she died more than two weeks before police discovered her body.
During the two weeks, neighbors said the 77-year-old’s apartment was being used as a “drug haven” and for prostitution, according to the non-profit.
Young’s fingerprints were found on pieces of tape on the floor of the apartment, which investigators found to be similar to the tape found on Prazniak’s body.
She denied any knowledge of the murder when she was questioned and blamed Hooper Sr. for Prazniak’s death after she was threatened with murder charges.
Young told police Hooper Sr. forced her to act as the lookout while he killed the 77-year-old, helped him hide the body, and threatened to kill her.
Hooper Sr. admitted he was inside Prazniak’s apartment as police found his fingerprints in her living room, but he denied any involvement in the murder.
Young — who was on trial for unrelated criminal charges at the time during Hooper Sr.’s trial — was given a lighter sentence for working with prosecutors.
The false testimony was further backed up by four additional witnesses who claimed Hooper Sr. killed Prazniak. All four witnesses were also offered incentives and have recanted their testimony over the years.
In July, while locked up for an eight-year sentence in a Georgia prison for aggravated assault, Young took “responsibility for two innocent lives that I have destroyed.”
“I am not okay any longer with [an] innocent man sitting in prison for a crime he did not commit,” she wrote in the letter. “Soul [sick] purpose here is not to make any excuse but to take responsibility for two innocent lives that I have destroyed and…to make true amends for once in my life,”
Young also repeated the admission to investigators and even to family on a recorded prison phone line.
“We are convinced that Bryan Hooper did not commit that crime; he has been in prison for 27 years for something he didn’t do,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Morarity said in a statement.
“We can never return what was taken from Mr. Hooper in 1998 and for that, I am sorry. However, we can do the right thing today, and today we are joining the petition to vacate Mr. Hooper’s conviction.”
In 1998, Hooper had been ordered to serve three life sentences with the possibility of being released after 30 years.
Now a free man and reunited with his family, Hooper Sr. is looking forward to the future and making up for the time he’s missed, Great North Innocent Project spokesperson Hayley Poxleitner said.
He plans to remain in the Twin Cities, where his children live.
“Twenty-seven years of missed birthdays, missed milestones, holidays. 27 years of lost opportunity and time that we can’t get back. But today we don’t have to lose, we don’t,” his daughter, Bri’ana Hooper, said in a press conference.
Prazniak’s case will be returned to the Minneapolis Police Department for further investigation, according to Hennepin County Attorney’s Office Chief of Staff Shawn Daye.
Young is expected to be released from prison on the unrelated charges in about four years.
She has not yet been charged in Prazniak’s murder.
with Post wires
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