GRANDVILLE, Mich. – On the first official full day of his new life as a free man, Quentin Carter can sum up his feelings in one word: Happy.
“It’s not a good day it’s a great day,” Carter told us Friday as he sat with his attorney, an exoneration document in hand.
“It’s been horrible,” Carter added, on spending 17 years behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit, “real horrible.”
The case involved a then-10-year-old girl who police say was forced to lie about Carter’s involvement. The man who allegedly forced her to lie, Aurelias Marshall, was recently convicted in the 1990 murder of Joel Battaglia.
It was during the Battaglia cold case investigation that officials talked to the victim, who then revealed it was Marshall who sexually assaulted her and not Carter. Carter’s attorney, Anne Buckleitner, says the victim went to officials twice while Carter was behind bars and said that she lied about her testimony.
But as for Carter himself, he told us there’s no point in feeling angry or bitter.
“I got over that,” he said. “No anger towards anybody.”
