More than 40 years after he was arrested for a murder he didn’t commit, a Southern California man accepted a $25-million wrongful conviction settlement offered by the city of Inglewood on Monday.
Maurice Hastings, 70, spent 38 years in prison before being found factually innocent by a California Superior Court in 2023. He was in the process of suing two Inglewood police detectives and the estate of an L.A. County district attorney’s employee before the city settled.
The law firm representing Hastings — Neufeld, Scheck, Brustin, Hoffman & Freudenberger — said the settlement was the largest in state history for a wrongful conviction. That could not be independently verified.
“No amount of money could ever restore the 38 years of my life that were stolen from me,” Hastings said in a statement. “But this settlement is a welcome end to a very long road, and I look forward to moving on with my life.”
Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts Jr. agreed that money couldn’t compensate for “all those lost years, all the missed opportunities and times with your family.”
“We definitely wish the gentleman the best going forward in his life,” Butts said.
Inglewood police did not respond to a request for comment.
Hastings was arrested in 1983 in the carjacking, rape and murder of Roberta Wydermyer and the attempted murder of her husband, Billy Wydermyer, and his friend George Pinson.
The effort to exonerate him was led in part by the Los Angeles Innocence Project and the California Forensic Science Institute at Cal State LA.
Biological evidence collected from Roberta Wydermyer had been preserved but never tested, despite Hastings asking the L.A. County district attorney’s office as far back as 2000, according to the Innocence Project.
Hastings wrote in 2000 that the evidence, gathered for a sexual assault kit, “will conclusively show that I was not the person involved with the deceased at the time of the crime.”
That evidence was eventually tested in June 2022, and Hastings was freed in October that year.
DNA evidence eventually pointed to serial rapist Kenneth Packnett, who died in 2020. Packnett carjacked Roberta Wydermyer on June 19, 1983, according to court documents.
Roberta Wydermyer had been running errands when she stopped at the Boys Market on Crenshaw Boulevard.
Packnett forced her to perform oral sex and then shot her in the head with a revolver. He drove around in the victim’s Cadillac Eldorado for a day with her body in the trunk, court documents state.
Roberta Wydermyer’s husband and friend, Pinson, looked for her near where she disappeared and saw Packnett driving around in her vehicle.
The two men caught up to Packnett, inquired about Roberta Wydermyer, and then followed him when they were not satisfied with his answer. Packnett eventually fired three shots at their vehicle, with one hitting Billy Wydermyer in the head, according to court documents.
He was rushed to the hospital and survived.
Despite evidence at the time pointing to Packnett, which included numerous witness accounts, Inglewood Dets. Grant Price and Russell Enyeart pinned Hastings as a suspect, court documents say.
Hastings had used a calling card number that belonged to Roberta Wydermyer and was in her wallet at the time of the slaying. The number had been given to him by an acquaintance.
Price and Enyeart also created composite descriptions of a suspect who resembled Hastings and not Packnett, though Billy Wydermyer and Pinson gave details that pointed to Packnett, according to court documents.
The detectives were also alleged to have fabricated evidence against Hastings, including false testimony from witnesses, court documents state.
“What happened in this case represents policing at its absolute worst,” Hastings’ attorney Katie McCarthy said. “Price not only caused Hastings’ wrongful conviction but also allowed the true perpetrator to remain free to terrorize other victims.”
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