Im just happy to give him his freedom back: Once imprisoned for life, Bay Area man freed, charges dropped in double murder case – The Mercury News

OAKLAND In a stunning turnaround, a Bay Area man who had been previously sentenced to life without the possibility of parole has been freed from jail and prosecutors dropped both murder charges against him.

At a Monday morning court hearing, the Alameda County District Attorneys office agreed to drop two murder charges against Patrick Willis, 57, attorneys on both sides of the aisle said. The move came three weeks after a jury hung 11-1 toward a not-guilty verdict at Willis second trial.

Im just happy to give him his freedom back, said Ernie Castillo, Willis attorney for the 2021 trial, giving credit to the tremendous effort by the attorney who worked on Willis six-year appeal.

Willis is now a free man for the first time since 2011, when a DNA hit linked him to the 1992 Oakland killings of Cheryl Walker, 31, and Marsha Gulley, 23, who were tortured and murdered in separate incidents. He was convicted and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in 2013, but six years later, an appeals court reversed the convictions, finding hed received an inadequate defense.

In his appeal, Willis cited the 20-year delay in prosecuting the case and the unavailability of two witnesses who were with one of the murder victims, Gulley, hours before her dead body was found in Oakland.

The testimony would have been exceptionally significant for the defense and its absence was undoubtedly prejudicial, the State Court of Appeals concluded in 2019. Although the man seen with Gulley was not considered a suspect, the fact that Gulley was seen alive within an hour of her death makes it less likely that defendant was the killer, the judges wrote, noting that presence of Willis DNA on the victim placed him with her as long as six hours before her death, or longer.

The court ordered a new trial for Willis, concluding his defense attorney was ineffective by not challenging the prosecutions move to exclude all testimony by police and witnesses concerning the statements of the unavailable witnesses.

During the 2021 trial, Castillo argued that both victims were sex workers who had been with other men that night, and that Willis was blamed because his DNA was the only sample police preserved. In an interview he said the real killers DNA had simply not been properly preserved and that he believes Willis is innocent.

In his 2013 trial, prosecutors pointed to witnesses who heard both women screaming combined with the DNA to argue that Willis was the only person who could have killed them during the narrow time frame. During his sentencing later that year, a despondent Willis shook his head throughout the hearing and at one point remarked, I dont even care, this newspaper reported at the time.

Staff writer David Debolt contributed reporting.

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Im just happy to give him his freedom back: Once imprisoned for life, Bay Area man freed, charges dropped in double murder case - The Mercury News