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Wrongly convicted of a more serious crime, Fort Worth man relishes newfound freedom

Aaron Dyson doesn’t harbor any ill-will against those who wronged him 24 years ago.

He is not angry with the district attorney who charged him with the wrong crime, a more serious offense that elevated his sentencing guidelines. He doesn’t think badly of the man who felt forced to give false testimony during his trial. He doesn’t dwell on those moments.

Instead, he looks forward to the next 24 years of his life and will lean on the lessons he learned in prison.

“I feel blessed,” he said on Tuesday, his fourth day as a free man. “I have my health. You know I didn’t sit down there just out of hand. I got a college education. I’ve read thousands of books. And I know that I’m a far better man now than what I would have ever been if I hadn’t went through the hardships that I had to go through in prison.”

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Dyson, 41, was sentenced to 50 years when he was 17 after he shot a man who had killed his best friend. While Dyson admits the shooting occurred, prosecutors charged him with engaging in organized crime and presented false evidence that Dyson was a member of the R-13 gang and that the shooting was gang related, which enhanced the charge and sentencing guidelines. The man he shot survived and was sentenced to 30 years in prison for killing Dyson’s friend.

Dyson was never a gang member and said the shooting was an irrational decision made out of grief and anger, which is what his defense team argued during his trial.

After spending more than two decades fighting for his innocence and trying to overturn his wrongful conviction, Dyson found relief through the Tarrant County District Attorney’s office’s Conviction Integrity Unit.

And finally, just before 1 a.m. on Saturday, Dyson walked out of the Tarrant County Jail, greeted by cheers from nearly 50 friends and family.

Now, it’s his time to move forward and create the life he always deserved.

A Mother’s Day gift

Angie Auldridge first spoke to the Star-Telegram about her son in November. She figured she and Dyson had only spent about a month together in his adult life.

She looked forward to getting to know the man he became, and hoped to have him home by Thanksgiving.

That goal changed to Christmas. And then New Year’s. And then her January birthday. And soon, Auldridge began to dream of her son showing up on her front door, surprising her with his return. Hope was often hard to find and keep as failures by the justice system kept bringing her down.

Then Mother’s Day crept up and she looked forward to getting his yearly present — a card with hand-drawn yellow roses, her favorite flowers.

But late Thursday, Auldridge’s phone rang.

“I was on the couch sitting and watching TV and I know he goes to bed at 7, because he has to get up so early in the mornings, and my telephone rang at 9:30, and I saw it was him,” she said. “I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, something’s wrong.’”

She answered the phone and got the surprise she’d been waiting for.

“He said, ‘Mom, the guard just came and told me to pack my things, that I was on a bench warrant, and that they were going to take me in the morning,’” she said.

Auldridge sat back and cried.

Less than 48 hours later, she became the second person to hug Dyson, just after his dad grabbed the first. On Sunday, they spent their first Mother’s Day together since Dyson was a teenager.

He bought her a bouquet of yellow flowers.

Fighting his own case

During the first 23 years of his lock up, Dyson thought he exhausted his legal options.

“I was in a hopeless situation,” he said. “I knew I was wrongfully convicted but I didn’t know what else I could do.”

Dyson busied himself with reading up on the law. He received an associate’s degree in prison and read every book he could get his hands on. He often wrote wordy letters home that astounded his mom.

Feeling down about his case again, Dyson vented about it to a fellow inmate. That man suggested Dyson contact the DA’s Conviction Integrity Unit, which investigates convictions and sentences handed down by the Tarrant DA (no matter who was in charge at the time) to determine if they were appropriate.

Dyson started the painstaking process of calling law firms to ask for their help in writing an application on his behalf.

Time and time again, he was denied.

“They told me that it was a waste of time,” he said. “It was very, very discouraging.”

"Many never contemplate the impact long prison bids have on not only the inmate, but also on those who love them. It is simply incalculable ... for most, the threads that connects one to life on the outside slowly sever with time."

Aaron Dyson in a 2020 letter to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram

A friend and criminal justice advocate, Wolf Sittler, pointed out Dyson’s talent for writing, and suggested to Dyson that he write the application himself.

So he did.

“I’ve learned over the years that nobody’s going to fight for you like you,” Dyson said.

Soon, Steve Conder, an investigator in the unit, contacted Dyson. Weeks later, Conder found that Dyson was wrongly charged based on false and coerced testimony given by one of the witnesses who incorrectly stated that Dyson was a member of the Mexican R-13 gang.

Had Dyson’s case been properly handled, he would have been charged with aggravated assault, with a maximum sentence of 20 years, which Dyson already served. Furthermore, he could’ve been released at least decade ago.

Tarrant County District Attorney Sharen Wilson, Sheriff Bill Waybourn and State District Judge Mike Thomas signed a letter to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles that asked it to reduce Dyson’s sentence to time served.

But Gov. Greg Abbott denied Dyson’s clemency petition.

In another attempt to reopen Dyson’s case, Wilson and Conder wrote to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in January. They asked it to reconsider its earlier decision to uphold Dyson’s conviction.

The court agreed.

During a virtual hearing in March, several of Dyson’s childhood friends testified that he was never a gang member and that the shooting was motivated by Dyson’s extreme grief. At least one of those people was in the gang himself and testified that it was impossible for Dyson to be a member because he’s white.

The man who wrongly testified in 1997 corrected his statements in the March hearing and explained that he was 16 when he was interviewed by police. He didn’t have an attorney present. His parents weren’t in the room. He was alone. He recalled feeling pressured by the prosecution to tie the shooting to gangs, he said.

Dyson watched as people he hasn’t talked to in more than two decades testified on his behalf.

“It was a blessing,” he said. “People getting up there and just telling the truth.”

The evidence collected during that hearing was sent to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for a final decision. In the meantime, the state agreed that Dyson should be released on a non-payment bond. He has no bond conditions, he said.

Reentering a technological society

Dyson’s life is full of choices now. He can choose what to eat at any given moment. He can choose where to work, how to dress, who to talk to. He struggles with his sudden freedom.

“There’s definitely, definitely anxiety issues,” he said. “In prison, you get one selection. There’s only one type of tortilla chips you can buy from the commissary and you go into these stores and there’s 100 different types of tortilla chips and it’s really overwhelming.”

But his friends and family have been helpful in his adjustment. One of those adjustments is something most people take for granted.

“When I got locked up, you had pagers and and payphones everywhere, and now, you know, you have these little computers in your hand,” he said.

Dyson excitedly held up his phone to his first selfie: A shirtless mirror pic that showed off his toned muscles and tattoos.

Both he and his mom say the last several days have been surreal. They fear waking up and ending the dream and will take every chance they can get to erase the last 24 years.