Walking down the street in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., on an otherwise nondescript summer day in 1977, 18-year-old Dewey Bozella was about to be robbed. What was taken from him was far greater than the value of the personal effects he was carrying.
Bozella was robbed of his freedom, of his chance to have a family, of the opportunity to fulfill a dream. He would be robbed of his life as he knew it.
He was, in his own words ?no angel? 34 years ago, but he blanched when he heard the words the police officers who arrested him spoke. Bozella was charged with the murder of 92-year-old Emma Crapser, beginning a decades-long ordeal that resulted in him spending 26 years imprisoned for a crime he did not commit.
?I was not,? he said firmly, ?a goodie goodie. No way. I?ll admit that. I had my issues. I was no angel. I got high, did some things on the street I?m not proud of today. But I was no murderer. Murder? No. No way. That made me sick just to hear it.?
As sick as it made him, however, Bozella steadfastly refused to speak the one word that could have gotten him released from prison and allowed him to resume his life: Guilty.
Now 52, Bozella is about to embark on a professional boxing career, fighting a four-round cruiserweight bout against Larry Hopkins on Saturday at Staples Center in Los Angeles on the undercard of the HBO Pay-Per-View show featuring a light heavyweight title fight between Bernard Hopkins and Chad Dawson.
