Chicago Man to Fight to Clear Name 30 Years After Wrongful Conviction in Ollie Jones Murder

CHICAGO (WLS) — A man who spent more than 30 years in prison for a murder he says he did not commit will spend Christmas at home.

Hilton Keller had his conviction vacated. Now, he plans to fight to clear his name completely.

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Keller walked out of the Cook County Jail just moments before the clock struck Christmas Eve Day.

With free will to hug his family and closest confidants for the first time in decades, Keller has not spared a second.

“I don’t know if I’m scared to go to sleep. I just don’t want to waste a time for sleep right now for some reason,” Keller said.

There is good reason.

Keller spent the last 33 years locked in jail for a murder he never committed, and in that time, life outside prison walls kept marching on.

His closest family came and passed.

“Keller expressed his struggles in life, admitting his inability to achieve much or alleviate the pain he experienced, particularly in his later years,” Keller shared candidly.

“Gertrude Barber, Keller’s aunt, revealed the heart-wrenching reality that he was unable to have a final moment with his mother before her passing. She lamented her condition being so severe that she couldn’t even cling to her only son, questioning his presence at that crucial moment,” recounted Barber.

An 18-year-old Keller was convicted in the 1991 murder of a man named Ollie Jones.

Both Keller and his attorney insist he was framed, set up by prosecutors eager to close the case.

“Stuart Chanen, Keller’s attorney, highlighted a significant turn of events during the trial where a key witness, who initially claimed Hilton had confessed, later admitted to fabricating the entire story, stating, ‘I concocted all those details,'” shared Chanen.

“There have to be some that they carry some liability, and they should not be immune to either prosecution when they do something so egregious. When they are clearly not acting in good faith, that there should be some level of consequences for that,” Keller said.

Now, at 51, life for Keller begins anew in a world he almost does not recognize.

“Don’t give up hope. Don’t do it,” Keller said.

Keller said after years in prison, he has almost no personal possessions.

Now, he will get re-acclimated with family and start putting life together, starting with things as simple as getting a phone.