Glynn Simmons

Glynn Ray Simmons grew up in Harvey, Louisiana, a small shipping town on the West Bank of the Mississippi outside New Orleans. He was one of 13 children in a close, religious Christian family. His father died in a car accident when Simmons was young, and his mother raised the children on her own. He later described his family as "an average poor family, like everybody else."

At 17 he became a father when Annie Rose Smith, whom he had known and dated on and off since their early teens, gave birth to their son, Glynn Ray Simmons-Smith. The couple decided not to marry. By the end of 1974 Simmons was in his early twenties, a father of a three-year-old, and, in his words, "just a young kid moving around, doing things." His mother encouraged him to go and stay with his aunt, Dorothy Norris, in Oklahoma City for a fresh start.

Simmons was never a strong student and dropped out of school as a teenager (he told The Guardian he left at 14). He trained as a welder but found little work.

He was semi-literate when he entered prison. On death row he and the man in the neighbouring cell, who could not read, agreed to teach each other. Simmons went on to write legal briefs, short stories and poems, earned literacy certificates and taught himself enough law to draft his own appeals. "Writing is fighting," he said. "Reading is fleeing. You read a book and you escape."

Shortly before 9:30 p.m. on December 30, 1974, two armed men robbed the Edmond Liquor Store in Edmond, Oklahoma. Clerk Carolyn Sue Rogers, 30, was shot in the head and killed. Customer Belinda Brown, 18, was also shot in the head and survived. Simmons was in Harvey, Louisiana, that night playing pool at local bars, and did not arrive in Oklahoma until January 5, 1975.

In February 1975, police investigating a separate double murder learned that the suspects, Leonard and Delbert Patterson, had attended a January 19 party at the home of Simmons's relatives. Officers brought in everyone they could find from the party for lineups. Brown viewed eight lineups and selected several different people, but on February 8, 1975, Simmons and another party guest, Don Roberts, whom Simmons had never met before that night, were charged with capital murder.

At trial in June 1975 the prosecution relied almost entirely on Brown, who testified that she had identified only Simmons and Roberts. Several witnesses swore that Simmons was in Harvey on December 30. His defence lawyer, later disbarred, got his client's name wrong in front of the jury and did not call two further alibi witnesses. The all-white jury convicted both men on June 5, 1975, and in July they were sentenced to death. Simmons recalled his mother's "piercing scream" when the verdict was read.

Simmons spent about two years on death row, locked in his cell almost around the clock. In 1977 his death sentence was changed to life imprisonment after court rulings found Oklahoma's mandatory death penalty statute unconstitutional.

He told The Guardian he suffered episodes of mental illness that he believed helped him survive, and that he was a defiant prisoner in his early years. In 1985, after being moved to a minimum-security facility, he walked away and was caught about three weeks later near the Mexican border, receiving an extra five-year sentence.

In his later decades he focused on his case and on supporting other prisoners. "Hurt people heal people," he said. He was repeatedly denied parole, which he attributed to his refusal to express remorse for a crime he did not commit. In 1995 the trial prosecutor, Robert Mildfelt, wrote to the parole board in support of his release and noted that the eyewitness had described a man much larger than Simmons. A motion for post-conviction relief was denied in 1997 and a federal habeas petition was denied in 1998. A private investigator, Charles Michael Nobles, then obtained Edmond police records including a lineup report that had never been disclosed to the defence.

In January 2023, attorneys Joe Norwood and John Coyle filed an amended application for post-conviction relief arguing that prosecutors had withheld the lineup report showing that Brown had picked other people, and supplying new affidavits from witnesses who saw Simmons in Harvey. Oklahoma County District Attorney Vicki Behenna, former head of the Oklahoma Innocence Project, sought to vacate the conviction in April 2023.

In July 2023, Oklahoma County District Judge Amy Palumbo vacated the conviction and Simmons was released on bond, his handcuffs removed in the courtroom. "That was my first steps of freedom," he said. In September 2023 Behenna announced that her office would not retry him, citing a lack of available evidence, and the case was dismissed. On December 19, 2023, Palumbo declared him actually innocent, finding "by clear and convincing evidence" that he had not committed the crime. The National Registry of Exonerations recorded him as the longest-imprisoned exonerated person in the United States.

Simmons never married. His son, Glynn Ray Simmons-Smith (Glen), was a toddler when his father was arrested and grew up visiting him in prison. After the release, father and son lived together for a time in Oklahoma City before his son returned to Louisiana; they stayed in touch by phone. Annie Rose Smith's daughter, Keisa Smith, came to regard Simmons as a second father. Within days of his release Simmons met his grandson and great-grandchildren from Dallas at the Oklahoma City Zoo.

His first trip home to the New Orleans area came in August 2023, for the funeral of his oldest brother, Emmett Donald "Tag" Simmons. He returned in February 2024 for Mardi Gras, his first in 50 years. He bought a home in Oklahoma City, learned to drive again, and in 2024 launched Free Man's Food Truck, selling catfish, burgers, hot dogs and fries with a former cellmate, chef Andre Armstrong, as general manager. He also worked toward a nonprofit to help people leaving prison.

Simmons credited his Christian faith with carrying him through 48 years behind bars. "When the Lord set you free, you are free indeed," he told The Oklahoman. He was also frank about his anger: he rejected the phrase "miscarriage of justice," saying what happened to him was deliberate, and he called the state's $175,000 compensation insulting while stressing his "attitude of gratitude."

He argued that the parole system punished innocent people who refused to confess, describing "the burden of innocence versus the luxury of guilt." He insisted on being declared actually innocent rather than simply exonerated, and said his goal was to build "a wraparound support system" for people coming out of prison.

Simmons's case became a national and international symbol of wrongful conviction, mistaken eyewitness identification and withheld evidence. The National Registry of Exonerations lists the contributing factors as mistaken witness ID, perjury or false accusation, official misconduct and inadequate legal defence. His story was covered by the AP, CNN, the BBC, The New York Times and The Guardian, and in 2025 The Oklahoman published a multi-part investigative series, "Actual Innocence: A Fight for Freedom, 48 Years in the Making."

His compensation fight drew attention to Oklahoma's $175,000 cap on payments to the wrongfully convicted. His attorneys also pursued efforts to clear his co-defendant, Don Roberts, who had been paroled in 2008.

Simmons was released with no money and initially relied on a GoFundMe campaign, which raised more than $350,000. In January 2024 he filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the cities of Edmond and Oklahoma City and officers involved in his case. In June 2024 a judge approved a $175,000 settlement with the State of Oklahoma, the maximum allowed by state law, which worked out to less than $10 for each day he was imprisoned. In August 2024 the Edmond City Council voted to settle his suit for $7.15 million. Claims against Oklahoma City and a retired detective were reported as still pending at that time.

Simmons gave many interviews after his release, including to KFOR, KOCO, the BBC World Service, Piers Morgan Uncensored and The Guardian, which profiled him in February 2024. The Oklahoman's 2025 series by reporter Jessie Christopher Smith and visual journalist Nathan J. Fish included extensive video interviews with Simmons, his son and his family. He also spoke on criminal justice reform podcasts and panels in Oklahoma.

Before his release Simmons learned that cancer he believed had been surgically removed during the COVID-19 pandemic had returned and spread. He was treated with chemotherapy and underwent surgery to remove part of his liver, and reports described stage 4 cancer affecting his liver and colon.

He died on the morning of Wednesday, October 28, 2026, aged 72, a couple of weeks short of his 73rd birthday. Family and friends told The Oklahoman he died of complications of the cancer he had fought since his release. The place of death and funeral arrangements had not been made public at the time of writing.