I Shouldn’t Be Alive: Nick Yarris - an innocent man living on death row - Will and Woody

Nick Yarris shouldn’t be alive…

On December 21 1981, Nick and a friend stole a car. When arrested, he got into a physical confrontation with a police officer who claimed he was trying to kidnap him and attempting to murder him. When in jail, he saw a newspaper headline about the murder and rape of Linda Mae Craig, a woman who had been abducted in Delaware, USA. In an effort to win favour with the authorities and avoid the consequences of his pending charges, Yarris claimed that he knew who had committed the unsolved rape-murder. When the man he named, whom he had wrongly believed to be recently deceased, proved upon investigation to be plainly uninvolved, Yarris became the suspect number one. Nick was then charged with the abduction, rape and murder of Craig. After a short jury trial, Yarris was found guilty. In July 1982, at age 21, he was sentenced to death. He escaped custody when travelling from the sentence hearing. He was arrested in Florida a month later where he was returned to Pennsylvania’s death row.

In this interview, Nick discusses how his time in prison was one of the best things that ever happened to him; why Adrian Brody wants to portray him on stage and talks candidly about what it’s like to live on Death Row, knowing that you’re innocent.

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