48 Hours: Lamar Johnson: Standing in Truth (CBS Saturday April 29, 2023)

48 Hours: Lamar Johnson: Standing in Truth airs Tonight on CBS

In 1995, when Lamar Johnson was just 21 years old, he was accused of killing his friend Markus Boyd. Despite Johnson’s claims that he was miles away with his girlfriend and daughter, Greg Elking’s testimony that he had identified Johnson in a police lineup was the primary basis for his conviction and life sentence. Almost 30 years later, Johnson’s conviction was overturned after Elking changed his mind about being Johnson’s identification witness. Erin Moriarty of 48 HOURS spoke with Johnson and Elking, who both discussed Johnson’s trial and Johnson’s subsequent efforts to prove his innocence.

“You feel like you’re in a hole or a sewer, and you’re looking up and you’re … calling out for help from people, and people are walking by because they don’t hear you,” Johnson tells Moriarty about his time in prison.

The Midwest Innocence Project, while investigating Johnson’s case years later, found a letter from Elking to a minister in which he recanted his trial testimony. However, progress on the case remained stalled until 2018, when the office of the St. Louis circuit attorney, led by Kimberly Gardner, finally agreed to reevaluate the conviction. A year later, her team released a report outlining all the ways in which Lamar Johnson’s conviction was flawed. In December 2022, a judge heard his case at an innocence hearing, and two months later, Johnson was exonerated due to a change in Missouri law.

Did it cross Greg Elking’s mind that he could have wrongfully imprisoned an innocent man?

“Yes, without a doubt,” he tells Moriarty. “I lied because I thought I was doing the right thing.”

48 HOURS: “Lamar Johnson: Standing in Truth” is produced by Marcelena Spencer and Emily Wichick. Mead Stone is the producer-editor. Stephen A. McCain is the development producer. Chelsea Narvaez is the associate producer. Atticus Brady and Joan Adelman are the editors. Lourdes Aguiar is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.

48 Hours: Lamar Johnson: Standing in Truth airs Saturday April 29, 2023 at 22:00 on CBS

Season 35 Episode 25

48 Hours is a CBS news magazine that investigates intriguing crime and justice cases that touch on all aspects of the human experience. Over its long run, the show has helped exonerate wrongly convicted people, driven the reopening — and resolution — of cold cases, and changed numerous lives. CBS News correspondents offer an in-depth look into each story, with the emphasis on solving the mystery at its heart. The program and its team have earned critical acclaim, including 20 Emmys and three Peabody Awards.

Featured image credit: CBS