Arrested at just 17 years old, Ryan Matthews spent five years on Louisiana’s notorious death row before DNA evidence uncovered by Reprieve led to his exoneration and release.
From the day he was arrested in New Orleans in 1999, Ryan protested his innocence. He was wrongly convicted of the murder of shopkeeper Tommy Vanhoose and incarcerated on Angola prison’s notorious death row.
In April 2004, Ryan was granted a retrial; in August that year all charges against him were dropped and he was released ‘in the interests of justice’.
Ryan's exoneration was due in large part to investigations conducted by Reprieve, including the discovery of DNA evidence that linked the ski mask used in the murder to another man, Rondell Love, who was incarcerated on a separate homicide. Love has confessed to numerous people about to committing the Vanhoose murder.
Pauline Matthews, Ryan's mother, was unable to touch her son for five years because of prison rules. On his release, she described the ride home from jail:
‘I had to hold his hand in the car to make sure it was real... I have no room for bitterness... All I want is Ryan to be free. What's been done, you can't undo."
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