Convicted of killing a WWII vet as a teen, Philly woman is cleared. Police acted in ‘bad faith,’ DA says.

In 2010, 17-year-old India Spellman signed a confession to the robbery and murder of George “Bud” Greaves, an 87-year-old Navy veteran who was gunned down outside his Cedarbrook home.

But last year, one of the former homicide detectives who obtained her statement was charged with perjury for allegedly lying about beating a man until he signed a confession in a different murder case. And now Spellman, who was convicted of murder and sentenced to 30 years to life in prison, has been exonerated.

Spellman and her family had maintained that she was at home with her father and grandfather, chatting on Facebook and talking on the phone, when Greaves was killed, and presented testimony and cell phone records to support that claim. And a key witness against her testified that his statement, taken when he was just 14, was also the result of coercion by the same homicide detective, James Pitts.

In a courtroom packed with family and friends of Spellman, a 29-year-old woman in long braids, Common Pleas Court Judge Scott DiClaudio said Thursday that he did not find her alibi or the defense witnesses credible.

But he did find that her trial was unconstitutional because prosecutors had not disclosed relevant information, including a message from an eyewitness who said she “never saw faces” of the attackers and the troubling Internal Affairs record of the detective who took Spellman’s statement.

The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office — which had agreed more than eight months ago that Spellman was due a new trial because of those violations — now says she was “likely innocent.” The office formally dropped charges Thursday.

”I’m just happy to be home with my family, and I thank God. ... I’ve been telling them for years that I was innocent,” Spellman said outside the courthouse, weeping as she embraced her mother, grandparents, and brother. “I feel like the prison system, it’s messed up. There’s a lot that needs to be fixed: living conditions, how officers talk to people.”

Spellman’s case was the subject of a 2021 Inquirer investigation that found striking similarities between the allegations in her case and a larger pattern of misconduct by Pitts. Dozens have accused him of abuse, and at least nine murder cases he worked on have been dismissed or overturned. The city has paid more than $3 million to settle lawsuits by seven people who accused Pitts of civil-rights violations.

Spellman is thought to be the first woman exonerated of homicide in Philadelphia in 30 years. She’s also the first woman exonerated with the backing of the DA’s Conviction Integrity Unit, which has helped free 26 people under District Attorney Larry Krasner.

» READ MORE: Dozens accused a detective of fabrication and abuse. Many cases he built remain intact.

At trial, Spellman was identified in court by two eyewitnesses, as well as by the teenage codefendant, Von Combs, who served time in the juvenile system for the crime. But prosecutors said what appeared to be a mountain of evidence actually reflected “multiple failures of the justice system.”

An expert hired by the DA’s Office found that the witnesses’ identifications were not reliable because they had never picked Spellman out of a photo spread or lineup. (The undisclosed message that the eyewitness “never saw faces” underscored those concerns.)

Prosecutors also said that they could not conduct gunshot residue testing of Spellman’s clothing from the time of the crime because “the Philadelphia Police Department intentionally and in bad-faith destroyed the [evidence] while this petition was pending.”

Prosecutors also now credited long-standing claims by both Spellman and Combs that Pitts had coerced them to sign confessions. Among the telling details they cited in court filings: Spellman’s “confession” contained only information already known to investigators. And Combs’ “confession” contained phrases that echoed Pitts’ testimony. They also revealed that Combs “was brought to court and compelled to testify against Spellman” consistently with that coerced statement “under threat of contempt.”

In one court filing, prosecutors also hinted at an alternate suspect: “The mother of Combs — who made Spellman a suspect by suggesting to police that Spellman was involved, more closely matches the initial descriptions that [eyewitnesses] provided than does Spellman.”

They declined to discuss any ongoing investigations in Greaves’ murder.

At a hearing in November, Combs denied any role in the crime and alleged that his statement, taken by Pitts and Detective Ohmarr Jenkins, was fabricated by detectives.

Attempts to reach Pitts and Jenkins on Thursday were not successful.

Prosecutors provided the judge with a paper copy of a statement from Myrtle Ryan, 95, who described herself as the closest living relative of Greaves and said she now believed in Spellman’s innocence, and was “greatly saddened that she has become another victim of this incident through no fault of her own.” (That statement was not introduced in court because DiClaudio crumpled it and dropped it behind him, saying, “It’s completely irrelevant.”)

Spellman’s lawyer, Todd Mosser, previously represented a man who was exonerated of murder in 2017 after Mosser presented testimony from 10 witnesses who said Pitts had beaten or otherwise pressured them to sign statements. In that case, Common Pleas Court Judge Teresa Sarmina found Pitts “continuously and systematically makes use of a distinct group of abusive tactics designed to overcome an interrogation subject’s resistance and coerce him or her into signing a statement.”

Yet, after a similar hearing including many of the same witnesses, a different judge, Barbara McDermott, found none of those allegations credible.

Sarah Morris, who met Spellman more than a decade ago in jail, while running youth programs for the Youth Art and Self-empowerment Project, said the injustice in this case seemed evident all along.

“I’m really relieved to see they finally got it right. But this never should have happened. This case just speaks powerfully to why we really need to look at how we’re treating young people,” Morris said. “It’s so wrong and unjust that young people are interrogated without their parents. We know that police really take full advantage of that.”

Outside the courtroom, Spellman’s family thanked lawyers for the DA’s office with hugs. Michael Garmisa, who heads the DA’s Conviction Integrity Unit, offered each of them an apology.

Spellman’s family said a celebration, starting with a Super Bowl party, would be planned later.

For now, Spellman’s mother, Morkea, said, “I just want to hug my daughter and be able to not have somebody tell me, ‘No touching.’ ”