Bill Clutter Investigations, Inc.

04/14/2026

News from the Ohio Innocence Project.

Larry Hayman, Esq., was recognized for more than a decade of leadership at the regional and national levels, as well as his ongoing commitment to access, mentorship and professional collaboration.

04/14/2026

I was honored to speak as a panel member of P*s led by Kitty Hailey and Russell Kolins at the conference called Post Conviction Process for Clearing the Wrongfully Convicted followed by the stories from 6 people freed from prison. Ari Gottlieb tells his story.

04/08/2026

Just another day . . . . My officer manager has a passion to help those unjustly confined behind bars.

03/20/2026

Congrats!🍾

Thanks to everyone at Ohio University who came out last night for our program on "Making a Career in Innocence Work." We appreciate all our partners who helped make this event a success -- the school's OIP-u chapter, the Black Law Students Association and Phi Alpha Delta Pre-Law Fraternity.

03/19/2026

Our new office manager in Springfield, Nicole Riley, did an office makeover, complete with a shade of paint called “Alibi” and hand-painted original art.

03/19/2026

A thought provoking post from the Montana Innocence Project

Behind every statistic about incarceration is a person, a family, and a story. A new national report from the Prison Policy Initiative, Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2026, brings those num…

03/14/2026

The end of the Bunn family running BUNN.

Sangamon County’s largest manufacturer was sold today to an out-of-town conglomerate, marking the end of five generations of control by the Bunn family. Bunn is now in the hands of the Ali Group, a Chicago-based foodservice international company that “designs, manufactures, markets and services ...

03/14/2026

A death row story you gotta read.

She was born into a world defined by segregation.

In 1941, in Arlington, Virginia, Joan Trumpauer Mulholland grew up in a completely white environment. Segregation was not debated or questioned. It was simply the way things were.

That began to change when she was ten years old.

A friend challenged her to walk through a Black neighborhood. Just walk through it.

So she did.

What she saw unsettled her. There was fear, distance, and tension between communities. Not because of anything people had done, but because of who they were.

She returned home with a thought she could not shake.

Something is terribly wrong.

That realization stayed with her as she grew older.

At eighteen, she enrolled at Duke University. But sitting quietly in classrooms while injustice surrounded her became impossible. She joined sit ins and noticed the contradiction around her. Many people spoke about love and faith on Sundays while defending segregation the rest of the week.

Eventually, she made a decision.

She left Duke.

In 1961, at nineteen years old, Joan joined the Freedom Rides, a movement challenging segregated interstate travel across the American South.

When one of the buses was firebombed in Alabama, many riders were forced to stop.

Joan volunteered to continue.

In Jackson, Mississippi, she was arrested for refusing to leave a whites only waiting room. Authorities sent her to the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman.

The prison had cleared out death row cells to hold the Freedom Riders.

She was nineteen years old.

She refused to post bail and chose to serve the full sentence. While imprisoned, she endured strip searches and harsh treatment meant to frighten and silence the riders.

But she did not leave the movement.

Instead, she enrolled at Tougaloo College in Mississippi, becoming the first white woman to attend the historically Black institution.

The risks were immediate. Crosses were burned on campus. She received constant death threats.

She stayed.

She worked alongside civil rights leaders such as Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King Jr.

In 1963, during a sit in at a Woolworth’s lunch counter, a mob surrounded the protesters. They shouted “race traitor,” burned her with ci******es, and cut her with broken glass while police watched without intervening.

For a moment, she believed she might not survive.

Just weeks later, Medgar Evers was assassinated.

At another point, members of the Ku Klux Klan surrounded her car with the intention of killing her. She survived that encounter as well.

By the age of twenty three, Joan had been arrested multiple times, imprisoned, beaten, and repeatedly threatened. Yet she continued to stand with the civil rights movement.

Today, she still speaks to young people and offers a simple piece of advice.

Pick the problem that troubles you the most.

Then begin.

Because if a nineteen year old woman from Virginia could stand up to hatred and endure it, others can find the courage to stand for what they believe in too.

03/14/2026

Fellow PI Mark Fullerton from Missoula, Montana, at the Roosevelt Arch at the North Entrance of Yellowstone National Park. Taking a break from the Federal Defender and Montana Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (MACDL) Chico Resort CLE program. Honored to be invited to speak.

12/21/2025

Join us this Tuesday December 23 at the south side of the Old State Capitol as we call on Governor Pritzker to free Tom McMillen. Get your Free Tom t-shirt at Prairie Archives 522 E. Adams Street, Springfield, IL

11/03/2025

Why did Pearson spend 30 months in prison after the solicitor learned of Weldon’s confession?

Michael Pearson, who was convicted of an armed robbery in 2010, is seeking a new trial after his co-defendant confessed to the crime. Pearson was sentenced to 60 years in prison, but his only link …

10/29/2025

Jury deliberations began today. Waiting for the verdict.

An Illinois jury has begun deliberations in the first-degree murder trial of a sheriff’s deputy who shot Sonya Massey, a Black woman in her home who had called 911 for help and was later killed because of the way she was handling a pan of hot water.