By BJ Austin, KERA News & Wire Services
Dallas, TX – Texas' highest criminal court has ruled that a Houston man who was freed earlier this year after being imprisoned 27 years for a rape he did not commit is actually innocent.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in a ruling issued Wednesday agreed with a lower court's recommendation that Michael Anthony Green be found innocent and his conviction set aside.
Green was released from prison in July after the Harris County District Attorney's Office reopened his case and new DNA tests it commissioned showed he did not commit the 1983 rape of a woman who had been abducted.
Bob Wicoff, Green's attorney, says his client was very excited by the court's decision.
Wife of American missing in border lake moves home
The wife of an American tourist presumably gunned down on the Mexico side of a border lake is leaving Texas and moving back home.
Tiffany Hartley said Wednesday she was on the road back to Colorado, three weeks after the 29-year-old says her husband was shot in Falcon Lake by Mexican pirates who ambushed the couple in speedboats.
Hartley says she "will have some quiet time to myself" once she arrives in Colorado but will continue to speak out about her husband.
Hartley says she'll be on the first plane back to Texas once authorities find the body of David Hartley. She said her moving home doesn't mean she's giving up.
Tiffany Hartley says the Mexican government should have all the information needed from her following a recent meeting.
Dallas exhibit gives sneak peek at Bush archives
A new exhibit will give the public its first glimpse of some of the artifacts in the archives of former President George W. Bush.
Artifacts on display in Dallas will include the bullhorn Bush used when he visited ground zero days after Sept. 11 and the pistol taken from Saddam Hussein when he was captured.
The free exhibit, "Breaking New Ground: Presenting the George W. Bush Presidential Center," opens Saturday and runs through Feb. 6 at the Meadows Museum on the campus of Southern Methodist University, where the center will be built.
Ground will be broken next month on the center, which will include the presidential library and the George W. Bush Institute. The center is expected to be open by early 2013.
Six Year Old Killed On Way To School
Arlington police say a six year old girl is the city's 16th traffic fatality this year.
Sarah Brazzell was on her way to school Wednesday morning - halfway across Park Springs Boulevard, on the median - when she turned around and ran back to her mother at the curb.
She was struck by an oncoming pickup. The driver stopped to help. Police say no charges are expected. Investigators say there's no indication speed was a factor, or that the driver was "under the influence."
Man Admits Stealing Property From Elderly And Dead
A 62 year old Fort Worth man faces a long prison term for stealing a million dollars worth of property from the elderly or recently deceased.
Investigators say Norris Fisher researched distressed properties belonging to elderly people, or those who had recently died. He then paid people to forge signatures on bogus property transfer deeds, or fraudulent heirship papers. Fisher sold the properties, as well as their mineral rights.
He entered a guilty plea Wednesday, and could get 20 years when he's sentenced in February.