A coronavirus killed a man who spent a third of his life on death row for a murder he did not commit. Damon Thibodeaux, who was 47 when he died, was released from prison in 2012 after DNA tests helped prove his innocence at the death of his 14-year-old cousin. The state of Louisiana spent 15 years trying to kill him before he was released, but he rebuilt his life working as a long-distance trucker in Minnesota and later in Texas. He Star Tribune he reported that he was on the road to Florida in August when he was hospitalized with COVID, and that his condition suddenly worsened on September 2, when he lost his life to the virus. Steve Kaplan, a retired Minneapolis lawyer who helped free Thibodeaux, said, “It’s so unfair … I’m fighting to make peace with him, but you can’t.” His brother, David Thibodeaux, told Star Tribune: “He proved to everyone that he wasn’t the monster they made him to be … I think Damon is really at home and has found the peace he couldn’t find in the flesh.”
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