Damon Thibodeaux

On Aug. 31, 2021, the world lost the infectious smile and joy of Damon Thibodeaux. Damon was the 142nd person exonerated from death row in the United States after new DNA evidence confirmed his innocence. He was exonerated and released in 2012 from death row at the Angola prison in Louisiana following more than 16 years of wrongful incarceration. He died in Jacksonville, Florida from COVID-19 at the age of 47, less than 10 years after his release. Damon was born on June 14, 1974 at Charity Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana. He moved with his mother and siblings across the South, through Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma as a child. Damon was arrested in 1996, at the age of 22, when he was working as a deckhand on a Mississippi barge, for the rape and murder of his cousin, Crystal Champagne. After more than nine hours of interrogation by police and after denying involvement multiple times, Damon eventually cracked, and gave the police a false confession to the crime, saying "I didn't know that I had done it, but I done it." Even though the confession didn't match the key facts of the crime scene or the murder, and even though there was no physical evidence linking him to the crime, he was prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced to death based on that false confession. More than a decade later, the Jefferson Parish District Attorney's Office agreed with his appellate lawyers to reinvestigate the case based on the glaring holes in the case presented at trial, ultimately paving the way for the DNA evidence proving his innocence and his full exoneration. Damon was represented by a host of attorneys, including the Innocence Project, the ACLU, the Capital Post-Conviction Project, and the Minneapolis law firm Fredrikson & Byron. After his release, Damon moved to Minnesota. He embraced his new life free from bars, chains, and constant surveillance. He earned his GED and became a long-haul trucker. He traveled the nation and even the world talking about his experience and the danger of wrongful convictions and the death penalty to civic groups and leaders, courts, and legislators. Damon's story was featured in the 2017 documentary, "The Penalty," and has been covered in a wide range of media stories and outlets. Even as he built a new life for himself after his stolen years, the horrors of his incarceration haunted him. He suffered nightmares that returned him to the harrowing experience of his solitary confinement in a small single cell and the crushing despair, loneliness, and hopelessness. The looming fear of execution came back to him. During his time on death row, two men from Louisiana's death row were executed and he had to listen as men he knew were walked to their death. Damon was a spiritual person whose belief in God helped him survive his ordeal. He faced significant challenges trying to rebuild relationships after so many years of forced isolation and incarceration. Damon met these challenges with a deep well of positivity. Despite what had happened to him, Damon continued to look forward, re-forging relationships with his family, and gathering about him many friends, who considered him family. Damon missed over a decade of earnings, and he died without receiving any compensation for his wrongful conviction. A claim for compensation was pending at the time of his death. Damon was a remarkable man, who will be missed by many. He was loved dearly by his family, his friends, and his attorneys. He is survived by his mother, Cynthia Thibodeaux, his two sisters, Vickie Chauvin and Alice Hensen, his brother, David Thibodeaux, his son, Joshua Thibodeaux, and his grandchildren.