Leon Benson, incarcerated for nearly 25 years for the execution-style murder of a Plainfield man, has steadfastly maintained his innocence.
On Thursday, Benson, 47, walked out of the Correctional Industrial Facility in Pendleton a free man after an investigation revealed police failed to disclose critical pieces of evidence, including information implicating someone else in the killing. He had spent more than half of his life behind bars, 10 years of which, he said, was in solitary confinement.
“It is so surreal. I just walked out of prison, literally, a few hours ago,” Benson said after a champagne toast with his family, friends and attorneys. “I’m here. It’s really poetic.”
Benson was convicted for the murder of Kasey Schoen, who was shot five times while sitting in his truck near downtown Indianapolis in the early morning hours of Aug. 8, 1998. He was tried twice. The first ended in a mistrial after six of 12 jurors voted not guilty. Benson was convicted after he was retried in July 1999 and was sentenced to 61 years in prison.`
Lara Bazelon, an attorney for Benson and director of the Criminal & Juvenile Justice and Racial Justice Clinics at the University of San Francisco School of Law, said the case against him relied on the questionable identification of an eye witness ― a white woman ― who gave police only vague descriptions of a Black man in dark clothing she saw while standing across the street.
“It had all the hallmarks of a case that screams wrongful conviction,” Bazelon said. “There was no forensic or physical evidence and it rested almost entirely on the cross-racial identification of a stranger who was standing 150 feet away and peering into the near darkness.”
The woman, a newspaper carrier, told police the shooter was standing on a sidewalk next to the passenger side window when he shot at Schoen. She was not able to give detectives facial descriptions and only said she saw a 5-foot-8-inch tall Black man in his 20s. She also said he wore a dark shirt, a baseball cap and pants with three white stripes on them.
In addition to the woman’s testimony, the case also relied on another witness’ statement saying he saw Benson near the victim’s truck moments before and after the shooting and Benson’s own admission that he was in the area around that time.
What jurors did not hear, according to Benson’s post-conviction petition, was information police were told by critical witnesses who did not testify at the trial. That included an eye witness who identified a different man as the shooter and another person who was with Benson at a nearby apartment when Schoen was killed.
Benson’s exoneration was the result of a joint investigation by the University of San Francisco’s Racial Justice Clinic and the Marion County Conviction Integrity Unit. The unit was created in 2021 by the prosecutor’s office to “identify, remedy and prevent wrongful convictions.”
“This has been a long and difficult process for everyone involved but justice requires that we set aside this conviction,” the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement. “The challenges presented in this case underline the importance of why the Conviction Integrity Unit was established and why we continue to identify and remedy wrongful convictions and ensure that justice and fairness are upheld.”
Early evidence pointed to another shooter
Indianapolis Police Department detectives believed earlier in their investigation that another man, not Benson, was the shooter.
Weeks before the shooting, a man identified in court records only as J.W., or by his nickname Looney, was stopped multiple times by officers in the neighborhood where Schoen was killed. In his possession was a .380 handgun ― the same kind used to kill Schoen ― and about 40 rocks of cocaine, according to documents.
Three days after Schoen was killed, Det. Alan Jones, the lead investigator, asked two other detectives to bring J.W. to the homicide office for questioning. But J.W., according to documents, asked for his attorney and declined to talk.
None of the evidence against J.W. was ever disclosed to Benson’s attorneys.
Jones ultimately zeroed in on Benson after a new witness, an allegedly mentally ill man, came forward and told him Detroit (Benson’s nickname) was the shooter, according to documents. The newspaper carrier also later identified Benson from a photo array.
But on Aug. 15, 1998, a week after the shooting, another witness came forward.
That witness told detectives that he saw the shooting from across the street and recognized the shooter as someone he had seen in the neighborhood, including hours before the crime. He identified the person as J.W. or Looney. He said J.W. was wearing a dark shirt, a baseball cap and black pants with three white stripes on them ― the same description the newspaper carrier gave police.
Hours before the shooting, J.W. showed him he had a .380 handgun, the witness told police.
More evidence implicating J.W. surfaced.
Another investigator, Det. Randy West, learned from his confidential informant that J.W. had bragged about the shooting to his ex-girlfriend, according to a note that West wrote to Jones. A man identified only as Eddie witnessed the shooting and said J.W. “shot white guy in head,” according to the note.
Still, “there’s no evidence that Det. Jones ran down any of these leads,” according to the post-conviction petition.
By the end of August 1998, police received two Crime Stoppers anonymous tips saying J.W. was the killer. But, in his report, Jones wrote that a second suspect was still under investigation.
“However, with the arrest of Leon Benson,” Jones wrote, “I am clearing this case.”
Detective admits failure to turn over critical evidence
In May 2022, more than 20 years after Benson was convicted, Jones signed a sworn declaration admitting he did not turn over critical evidence to prosecutors. As a result, none of the evidence pointing to a different suspect was turned over to Benson’s attorneys.
Benson’s attorneys argued that Jones provided prosecutors a “sanitized” version of the investigative documents and treated the newspaper carrier as “the heart of the case.”
“Her identification of Leon Benson caused him to change course and disregard evidence implicating J.W.,” the attorneys wrote. “She was a young white woman who knew none of the players, had no criminal record, and was an innocent bystander who happened to see a terrible crime in which a Black man took the life of a young white man who also had no criminal record and apparently no connection to the neighborhood and its residents.”
The newspaper carrier, the attorneys added, “had no reason to lie, but she could have been mistaken.” As Jones admitted recently, Benson and J.W. looked alike.
An Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department spokesman said the agency needs to gather more information before it can comment.
While Benson was sent to prison, Jones remained in law enforcement. At some point, he left IMPD and moved to the Marion County Sheriff’s Department. Jones left the department in 2013 after he was arrested for drunk driving in an unmarked department vehicle.