Christopher Dunn — who spent 34 years in prison in connection with the 1990 murder of Ricco Rogers before being released on July 30 — has spoken out publicly about regaining his freedom for the first time.
The 52-year-old opened up in an interview with CBS Mornings about what it feels like to enter the world again after spending more than half of his life in prison after he was convicted of Roger’s murder in 1991 at 18-years-old.
“There’s a world I haven’t seen in 34 years,” Dunn admitted. “To see the trees move, to see other people walking, to see the automobiles driving by, that’s life.”
“I still can’t believe this is actually true,” he added of his release.
Dunn’s conviction was overturned by a Missouri judge on July 22 after two men, who were teenagers at the time the crime occurred, recanted their testimony of seeing Dunn shoot Rogers, citing coercion from police and prosecutors, per The Washington Post, The New York Times and BBC News.
However, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed an appeal to keep Dunn in prison, and the Missouri Supreme Court took up the case, per The Washington Post. They ruled that Dunn could be set free if the St. Louis circuit attorney had no plans to retry him, which they confirmed, eventually leading to Dunn’s release.
The 52-year-old had maintained his innocence throughout his imprisonment, though he noted to CBS Mornings that it was difficult to keep hope. When asked about the “worst part” of it all, he noted that it was “waking up everyday in prison and thinking to yourself, ‘This is another day that your life [doesn’t] matter, that you would’ve been better off if dead.’ ”
He said another difficulty in prison was going “without” the “security of my family,” as some of his family members were able to visit him in prison, while others weren’t. But as Dunn said on the steps of Carnahan Courthouse in St. Louis after his release, per CBS News, “I never gave up because my family never gave up.”
“It’s easy to give up in prison when you lose hope,” he continued. “But when the system throws you away, you have to ask yourself if you wanted to just settle for it or fight for it.”
Dunn noted that days after his release, he was still reacquainting himself with the world and his new life with his wife Kira Dunn. One of the surprises he’s getting used to includes the high price of goods.
“When my wife gave me these things here, I looked at the price tag and it scared me,” Dunn shared. “There’s no way in the world I would’ve paid this much money on a shirt, a pair of pants and shoes [in the 1990’s].”
He also shared that there were many things he wanted to do on his bucket list — which he joked was now a “pail.”
“I’m [going to] go see a [Chicago] Cubs game,” he said, adding that he also wanted to go “skydiving, scuba diving” and drive across the country to California to celebrate his 10-year anniversary with his wife.
“I don’t think that we are really believing it’s real,” Kira told CBS Mornings. “We feel like we’re dreaming. I know we said to each other if we wake up the next morning and it’s still happening then we can start to believe it, but I think we’re still struggling to believe it.”
