Anthony Porter was a semi-literate man framed in two drug-related killings who came within 49 hours of execution—among the 3% of defendants later found innocent since Illinois courts began imposing death sentences in 1977.

Meet three of the Northwestern University students who freed Porter from Death Row—and thereby revived the debate on the state’s death penalty—at the Illinois Woman’s Press Association’s May 15 meeting. As a benefit for Porter’s re-entry to the outside world, the three students will address IWPA’s annual awards luncheon for high school and professional journalists at the Courtyard at Marriott in Chicago.

Shawn Armbrust, Erica LeBorgne, and Cara Rubinsky were all students in David Protess’s Medill School of Journalism class in investigative reporting, in which 16 students teamed up on four different murder cases. Protess accepts information year-round on possible miscarriages of justice.

"We don’t know whether they’re innocent or guilty; we’re just trying to find out the truth," said Armbrust, who, with Rubinsky took the class in the fall and continued in the winter. LeBorgne join the class in January.

In Porter’s case, the mother of one victim had told police about two people in the 1982 death of a drug dealer and his girlfriend, Armbrust said. A man and woman were the last people seen with her daughter, the mother had told police.

Police never considered these reported witnesses as suspects, however. Instead, police showed up at the couple’s door with a photo of Porter, Armbrust said. The couple then left Chicago and were never interviewed again by police, she said.

Months studying court testimony and police reports and interviewing other inmates as well as a reenactment of the crime revealed inconsistencies with the case against Porter. The real possibility opened that someone else was to blame.

After talking to many relatives of the purported two people last seen with the victims, the group of six students finally found the woman witness in Milwaukee. Armbrust, Rubinsky, Protess, and a private investigator extracted her story while sitting in a restaurant.

To get a taped confession, they brought the witness to Armbrust’s suburban Milwaukee family home. Here the witness added the shocker that police had shown her—and the man she named as the real killer—a photo of Porter as their suspect.

Porter’s recent involvement in an incident of alleged domestic violence shows the difficulty of his transition from prison, Armbrust said.