JoAnn Parks suffered the ultimate injustice nearly three decades ago when, based on faulty science, she was convicted of murdering her three children, who perished in a house fire that she escaped.
On Tuesday, Parks, 54, walked out of prison on parole, free for the first time in 29 years thanks to the work of the attorneys from the California Innocence Project.
At the time of her conviction in Los Angeles County, prosecutors alleged Parks started the fire that killed her children in 1989 at their Bell home. She was convicted on three counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
But in 2011, an arson review panel examined the evidence in Parks’ case and concluded the fire was most likely an accident, according to the California Innocence Project.