Two Wrongly Convicted Killers to be Freed

DALLAS (AP) _ Two men wrongly convicted of capital murder 12 years ago were expected to be free again on Friday.

Claude Simmons Jr., 54, and Christopher Scott, 39, received life sentences in the 1997 murder of Alfonso Aguilar. Another man has now confessed to the crime, and Simmons and Scott were scheduled to be released.

Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins said a joint investigation between the Dallas Police Department’s Cold Case Unit and the Conviction Integrity Unit of the prosecutor’s office led to the developments.

Prosecutors said Alonzo Hardy, 49, confessed to the crime in a sworn statement from prison last summer. His alleged accomplice, Don Michael Anderson, 40, was arrested Tuesday night in the Houston area. Anderson was charged with capital murder, but Hardy has not yet been charged.

Hardy, who has been in state prison since 1999, is serving a 30-year-sentence on an unrelated aggravated robbery committed about a year after the murder, prosecutors said.

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