Imagine spending 30 years in prison for something you didn’t do. It was a reality for two Connecticut men. We featured some of their stories in the NBC CT Investigates original documentary, Traces of Doubt: The Forensics of Dr. Henry Lee.
Now Shawn Henning, who now lives out of state, is sharing his story in his first sit-down interview since his exoneration.
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SIGN UP “Disgust is the word for our system. It is disgusting what our system does. They did this to teenage kids. Was I a saint as a kid? I was not,” said Henning, who was released from prison in 2018 after serving three decades for a wrongful conviction.
Henning and Ricky Birch were convicted of the 1985 murder of 65-year-old Everett Carr.
Carr was found dead in his New Milford home in a pool of blood. He had been stabbed more than 20 times.
Police at the time believed the murder was a burglary gone wrong.
Henning and Birch were quickly named as suspects after admitting they had been burglarizing homes in the New Milford area, but they were adamant they didn’t kill Carr.
At the time of Carr’s death, Henning was 17 years old. Birch was 18 years old.
“I was a 17-year-old who was told, ‘If you didn't do anything, don't worry about it.’ And they hand me a form to sign away my Miranda rights. No lawyer, no grandmother, no mother, no father, no guardian of any kind,” said Henning.
Despite a very bloody crime scene, Carr’s blood was not found on the teens or the in the car they were living in, but prosecutors argued Birch and Henning used a bathroom towel to clean up after the crime.
After spending 30 years in prison, Henning and Birch’s charges were overturned in 2019, and the case was dismissed in 2020 because the state said evidence used to convict the men would not hold up in court today, specifically that towel.
Famed forensic scientist Dr. Henry Lee testified it had blood on it.
“This guy has been God in the courtroom, and everyone has accepted him as that,” said Henning.
Decades later, a judge ruled that the towel had never been tested for blood in the state crime lab, and new testing did not find blood either.
Lee insists he performed a presumptive test on the towel for blood despite the State Supreme Court’s ruling that he gave incorrect testimony at Henning and Birch’s trials.
Lee said his lab reports and testimony, which show no forensic evidence linking Henning and Birch to the crime, helped exonerate the men.
The two men disagree.
“They let the real murderer or murderers go free to do whatever they want to do again in society,” said Henning.
Another questionable piece of evidence used to convict Henning is particularly personal to him: his grandmother's testimony.
But her testimony did not match the facts of the case, according to court documents.
She said Henning called her from jail and described being at a burglary where a man and a dog were killed.
No dog was killed at Carr’s home.
Henning and his lawyers believe she was confused and deceived by investigators.
“They told her there was a mountain of evidence in this case and she’d save my life from the death penalty if she testified against me in my trial. That’s what these detectives in Connecticut flew to Illinois and told my family,” he said.
Under oath decades later, a now-retired state police detective Andrew Ocif said he told Henning’s grandmother if she testified that Henning was at the scene but didn't kill Carr, it would help her grandson.
Ocif recently told NBC Connecticut that he remains adamant that Henning confessed to his grandmother.
“We all now know, and we all now see there is not a mountain of evidence [against me]. My grandmother died with that,” Henning said with tears in his eyes.
After Henning and Birch were released from prison, both men sued the state of Connecticut, the town of New Milford, and detectives from state and local police, including Ocif, for violating their rights to get a fair trial.
Henning settled for a combined $15.1 million.
The lawsuit against Ocif was dismissed when the state settled with Birch and Henning.
“These people have taken a lot from me,” Henning said. “I get really upset when I think I’m not a father.”
"It wasn't just the forensics that failed these two young men, it was police misconduct in my opinion, it was the public defender’s office not going after significant exculpatory evidence that they should have,” State Rep. Craig Fishbein (R-Wallingford) said after the legislature approved the state settlement payment in 2024.
State Rep. Steve Stafstrom (D-Bridgeport), a chair of the judiciary committee said, "We have a situation where an 18-year-old and 19-year-old were charged with and convicted of a crime that they clearly didn't commit, and their entire lives have been spent behind bars as a result of that."
Watch Traces of doubt: The forensics of Dr. Henry Lee (Full Documentary)
Birch’s case against the town and two former detectives went to trial, and a jury found one of the officers, former New Milford detective David Shortt, liable for common law negligence.
A jury believed Shortt should have known a jailhouse informant was lying. The informant gave information that was used to convict Birch and Henning.
Shortt died in 2019.
Henning testified in Birch’s civil trial.
He said our criminal justice system needs to change.
He’s dedicating his time outside prison walls to help free others wrongfully convicted.
NBC CT Investigates reporter Caitlin Burchill asked, “Has any justice been done?”
“I don’t believe in the word justice. I believe that’s a [expletive] mythological word. How do you get back the birthdays or the Christmases or the summers or the rock festivals or the whatever that I watched go by while I sat in that cement tomb? There’s no compensation for that,” he said.
