If things continue to go right for Illinois inmate Mario Casciaro, he’ll be a free man soon, now that a 5-time felon’s testimony has been recanted and a panel of judges overturned his wrongful conviction.
Casciaro, 32, was sentenced to 26 years for purportedly killing missing teen Brian Carrick (shown below) whose body has never been found.
In December 2002, when Carrick mysteriously vanished without a trace, the two were stock boys at a Johnsburg IL grocery store co-owned by Casciaro’s father.
Mario Casciaro was tried and convicted for the youth’s assumed death in 2013, in a case against him that was so flimsy it couldn’t even be considered circumstantial by American criminal justice standards.
“The evidence against defendant was so lacking and so improbable that it is simply unreasonable to sustain the finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” the appellate court stated Thursday in its reversal.
The exonerated inmate is required to file for his release now, while prosecutors weigh their own legal options -- although the chances of the state prevailing on appeal are slim to none, noted one of Casciaro’s defense attorneys:
“The court said the mystery of Brian Carrick’s disappearance has not been solved, but there was not a shred of evidence against this defendant,” she said. “It’s over.”
