Nick Yarris

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Nicholas James Yarris (born 1961) is an American who spent 22 years on death row after being wrongfully convicted of murder.

Yarris has stated he was the victim of sexual abuse as a child, which is disputed by his family, which led to addiction to alcohol, drugs and petty crime in his teens.^[1] One day Yarris and a friend stole a car. Yarris was blasting music while driving under the influence when he was stopped by police in his native state of Pennsylvania.^[1] The officer and Yarris got into a physical confrontation, and a shot was fired. Yarris was then charged with the kidnapping and attempted murder of a police officer.

While in jail, Yarris, facing life in prison, spotted a newspaper article about the murder and rape of Linda Mae Craig.

To try and get out of jail time, he claimed a man was involved in the rape and murder of Linda Mae Craig. When the man turned up with no involvement in Craig's murder, Yarris became the number-one suspect.^[2]

In 1981, Yarris was charged with the abduction, rape and murder of Craig.^[1] At the time, Yarris was a 20-year-old drug addict who had been thrown out on the streets by his family.^[1] Yarris was found guilty of murdering Craig. In 1982 Yarris, 21 at the time, was sentenced to death and sent to death row.^[3] In 2003, DNA evidence proved that he had not committed the crime,^[4] and in 2004 he was released. After his release, Yarris moved to the UK where he married his second wife, who divorced him due to adultery, and had a daughter, from whom he is estranged. He then married his third wife, also from the UK,^[5] who divorced him partly due to his drug use. He then married his fourth wife (from the UK),^[6] who as of 2021 was in the process of divorcing him due to his adultery. He pled guilty in 2021 to criminal mistreatment and theft, leading to a month in jail and a sentence of two years' probation in Curry County, Oregon.

He sued the Delaware County District Attorney's Office for malicious prosecution and the case eventually settled for $4 million in 2008.^[7] Having failed to make provision from the settlement for his long term support, as of 2021 Yarris was unemployed and living in a trailer in Oregon.

Yarris is the author of the death row memoir Seven Days to Live (2008) (later reissued as The Fear of 13).^[8][9] He has also published books called The Kindness Approach (2017),^[10] My Journey Through Her Eyes (2017) and Monsters and Madmen (2018) (experiences on death row at the since-decommissioned SCI Pittsburgh).^[11]

Yarris is one of the exonerees profiled in the award-winning documentary, After Innocence (2005).^[12] He is the subject of David Sington's documentary The Fear of 13 released in 2015.^[1] Yarris appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience on September 11, 2018, talking at length about his experiences.^[13] The Yarris case was explored in a two-part interview for the December 11, 2019 episode (Season 9) of the podcast,Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom,^[14] and was the subject of the June 17, 2019 episode of CNN's Death Row Stories, "A Prison of His Own" (Season 4, Episode 3).^[15]

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