Ellen Reasonover Received A Life Sentence For Stopping For Change at Gas Station

On her way to do laundry in 1983, Ellen Reasonover stopped at a gas station to get change. Although she saw three men at the Dellwood, Missouri, station, nobody answered her repeated knocks at the window.
Reasonover later learned the station attendant had been murdered during a robbery. She told police what she had seen, but despite corroboration by an eyewitness, police focused on Reasonover.
Their investigation was based on testimony from two jailhouse informants who were promised leniency in their own cases for testifying against her.
State prosecutors also hid evidence of Reasonover’s innocence from her defense counsel.
Reasonover was convicted of a crime she did not commit and served 16 years of a life sentence before the state’s misconduct was proven and a federal judge ordered her release.
She might still be incarcerated if not for the efforts of the Centurion Ministries Innocence Project in New Jersey.