The Innocents (1964)
by Edward D. Radin

Excerpt on

Julius Krause
 

Krause was a youth of eighteen when in 1931 he was convicted with another man for the stick-up murder of an Ohio grocer. Four years later the man convicted with him made a deathbed statement in which he named his actual partner in the crime. Nothing was done. In 1940 Krause, then a trusty, escaped from prison; his purpose: to find the real criminal and get him to confess. He did, and the second man, Curtis Kuermerle, was sentenced to serve a ten to twenty-five-year sentence. Krause voluntarily returned to custody, secure in the belief that he had cleared his name and now would be released.
Did his finding the real culprit help him? Not at all. Krause had escaped, and so he stayed in prison although the state of Ohio now had convicted the two actual culprits. And an innocent man continued to remain in prison for eleven more years. In May, 1951, Krause was released – on parole. Officially he was not cleared of the crime.