Roger Carlos Ray walked out of prison after more than 33 years behind bars, freed when a long-buried Detroit Police Department file undercut the testimony that had put him away for a 1987 murder he always said he did not commit. He was 28 years old when he was arrested in 1993; he is 62 now.
Ray was convicted that year of felony murder and a firearms offense and sentenced to life in prison in connection with the killing of John Holmes, who was beaten and shot inside a Detroit apartment building on April 19, 1987, according to a 2024 opinion from the Michigan Court of Appeals. Holmes’s body was found in the building’s boiler room. The case against Ray rested heavily on Edmond Wright, a resident of the same apartment building who testified at trial and implicated Ray in Holmes’s death — even though, per that same appellate opinion, Wright’s first statement to police on April 21, 1987 never mentioned Ray at all. It was only in a later statement that Wright told investigators Ray had admitted shooting Holmes twice in the head while the two men were hauling items to a dumpster.
A File That Sat Undisclosed for Decades
Years after Ray’s conviction, a private investigator working his case obtained a Detroit Police Department miscellaneous file containing information that had never been turned over to the defense. Among the contents, as detailed in the Court of Appeals opinion, was a redacted photocopy of Wright’s own identification card — found by police inside Holmes’s apartment, with a file note stating it had been wedged between the cushions of a sofa. The discovery mattered because the opinion also notes Wright had been considered a suspect in the murder investigation and gave inconsistent accounts to investigators over time.
Attorney Peter Dee said the file contained exculpatory evidence, and attorney Tiffany Howell said the withheld information prevented Ray’s defense from effectively challenging the prosecution’s case. In October 2024, the Michigan Court of Appeals vacated the denial of Ray’s third successive motion for relief from judgment, finding grounds to examine the newly discovered evidence and whether it amounted to a violation under Brady v. Maryland, and ordered further proceedings in the trial court.
From New Trial to Dismissal
Wayne County Circuit Judge Paul John Cusick granted Ray a new trial on May 11, 2026. Ray remained incarcerated while prosecutors weighed whether to retry him. During those proceedings, Jason Mitchell testified that Wright had made statements implicating himself in Holmes’s death.
Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office communications director Maria Miller confirmed that Detroit police had maintained a miscellaneous file that was not disclosed during Ray’s original prosecution, and said prosecutors ultimately decided not to retry him because they were unable to proceed. Wayne County Circuit Judge Rula Aoun signed an order on October 13, 2026 dismissing the charges against Ray without prejudice — a dismissal that is not a formal acquittal and technically leaves open the possibility charges could be refiled — and the order directed Ray’s immediate release, according to reporting by MLive.
Missed Milestones and a Simple Wish
Ray missed watching his children grow up, graduate, and build families of their own. He had two children who were about a year old when he went to prison and were 34 and 35 years old by the time he came home; one of his children, a daughter, became a nurse during the decades he was away. Behind bars, MLive’s report notes, Ray studied law in prison libraries, teaching himself legal research and how to prepare arguments for his own case.
Ray said he had not committed the murder and refused to give up fighting the conviction, and he described learning of his release as indescribable. Per the same account, he said a bath was his simple wish after getting out, something he had talked about throughout his incarceration. He spent his first night of freedom at a hotel in Bloomfield Hills and is now living in a house arranged by his family. He hopes to help young people and advocate for mental health awareness going forward.
What Compensation Could Look Like
Ray’s attorneys plan to seek compensation under Michigan’s wrongful imprisonment compensation law and also plan to pursue federal civil-rights litigation, according to MLive’s report. Michigan law, under MCL 691.1753, allows someone convicted and imprisoned in a state correctional facility for a crime they did not commit to bring an action for compensation, though it is not established here whether Ray meets every requirement of that statute.
Such claims do not always move smoothly. A ProPublica investigation found that of 103 people who filed Michigan wrongful-imprisonment compensation claims between 2017 and late 2023, about 68% received compensation — and the outlet detailed how Marvin Cotton Jr., whose murder conviction was overturned in 2020 after nearly two decades in prison, saw his own claim challenged by the Michigan attorney general’s office. A separate accounting from the National Registry of Exonerations found that of 107 compensation petitions filed statewide as of July 2024, 77 exonerees had received compensation, five remained pending, and 25 had been denied, with the state having awarded nearly $52 million in compensation overall by that point. In a different Michigan case discussed by Michigan Public in December 2025, a man and his daughters won a $7.5 million federal settlement from the city of Detroit after he had already been awarded roughly $1.2 million from the state.
