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This video provides a good overview of David Milgaard's case, detailing the events leading to his wrongful conviction and eventual exoneration. It brings attention to the flaws in the justice system that led to his wrongful imprisonment.

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A Moment in Crime episode 9: The wrongful conviction of David Milgaard

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In this interview, David Milgaard himself shares his experiences of being wrongfully convicted and his journey to freedom. Hearing directly from Milgaard adds a personal perspective to the case and highlights the human impact of wrongful convictions.

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David Milgaard wrongful murder conviction: Who Killed Gail Miller? (1990) - The Fifth Estate

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The Wrongful Conviction of David Milgaard

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The Wrongful Conviction of David Milgaard

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This video goes into the investigative process of David Milgaard's case, going through the evidence that led to his conviction and eventual exoneration. It offers good insights into the factors contributing to wrongful convictions in Canada.

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The Wrongful Conviction of David Milgaard Part 2

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This case summary gives a detailed summary of David Milgaard's case, outlining the key events and legal proceedings. It also discusses the systematic issues within the Canadian justice system that led to Milgaard's wrongful conviction.

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On January 31, 1969 at approximately 6:45 a.m., certified nursing assistant Gail Miller left her house in Saskatoon to catch a bus to work. This was the last time that she was seen alive. Hours later, Miller's body was discovered one block south of her residence; she had been sexually assaulted and stabbed.

That same morning, sixteen-year-old David Milgaard and two other young people, Ron Wilson and Nichol John, were on a road trip from Regina to Vancouver. Along the way, they planned to pick up David's friend Albert Cadrain in Saskatoon. Upon arriving in the city, however, the youths got lost for several hours. Finally, at around 9:00 a.m., they arrived at Cadrain's house, which was located only a short distance from where Miller's body was found. Later that day, Cadrain joined Milgaard, Wilson, and Nichol as they continued their road trip, heading to Calgary.

On March 2, 1969, some weeks after Milgaard and his friends had returned from the trip, Cadrain contacted Saskatoon police. He reported that he had seen blood on Milgaard's clothing on the morning that Miller was killed. Cadrain suggested to police that Milgaard might have been the perpetrator.

As a result, police brought Milgaard in for questioning; Wilson and John were later brought in as well. At first, Wilson and John told police that Milgaard had been with them at the time of the murder. Not satisfied with this rendition of events, police brought them back to be questioned on two further occasions. When subjected to a polygraph, Wilson changed his story and implicated Milgaard in the murder. John also changed her story before she could be subjected to a polygraph, stating that she had witnessed Milgaard stab Gail Miller.

On May 30, 1969, Milgaard was arrested and charged with non-capital murder. At his trial, Nichol John did not adopt her earlier, incriminating statement; instead, she denied having seen Milgaard stab Miller. Nonetheless, the Crown read out her previous "eyewitness" statement to the jury. Milgaard was convicted on January 31, 1970 and sentenced to life in prison.

The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal dismissed Milgaard's appeal of his conviction. The Court ruled that the trial judge had not erred in permitting the Crown to read out John's police statement, despite her subsequent recantation.

In prison, Milgaard was physically abused and sexually assaulted. On several occasions, he tried to end his life. In 1980, he escaped for over two months, but was shot and recaptured by RCMP officers. But as the years unfolded, Milgaard and his mother, Joyce, refused to "give up the fight" for justice. Joyce Milgaard conducted her own investigations and ultimately uncovered that convicted rapist and attempted murderer Larry Fisher had been living in Cadrain's basement at the time that Miller was killed. With this new information, David and Joyce Milgaard filed an application to the Minister of Justice in 1991, requesting a review of his conviction. Kim Campbell (who was then the Minister of Justice) denied his request; however, a second application was granted after Joyce Milgaard spoke directly to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. Milgaard's case was referred to the Supreme Court of Canada for determination of whether his conviction was a miscarriage of justice.

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the new evidence placed before it "could reasonably be expected to have affected the verdict of the jury" at Milgaard's trial. The Court concluded that his conviction should be set aside and a new trial take place. In April 1992, after 23 years in prison, Milgaard was finally freed.

Rather than prosecute Milgaard again - or formally recognize his innocence - the Province of Saskatchewan chose to stay the proceedings against him. Subsequently, Milgaard sued the Crown and police officers involved in his wrongful conviction. In a letter to the Saskatchewan Minister of Justice, he enclosed his statement of claim, requesting that the Minister order a public inquiry and consider compensating him for his wrongful conviction. Ultimately, the Government of Saskatchewan agreed to pay $10 million in compensation.

In 1997, DNA testing was performed on semen samples that had been found on Miller's clothing. The DNA matched that of Larry Fisher, not David Milgaard. That same year, the Government of Saskatchewan apologized to Milgaard for his wrongful conviction, and on September 9, 2004, it "acknowledged that he was factually innocent of the charge that he murdered Gail Miller."

A Commission of Inquiry, led by the Honourable Mr. Justice Edward MacCallum, was commenced in 2004 to investigate the causes of Milgaard's wrongful conviction. The Inquiry found that Albert Cadrain, who had tipped off police to Milgaard's purportedly suspicious behaviour, was a paid police informant: he had received a $2,000 reward for his claim that Milgaard arrived at his house "in a nervous state" on the morning of the murder, "with blood on his trousers and shirt, which he changed for other garments."

Cadrain, who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, later stated that he was pressured by law enforcement into incriminating Milgaard, to the extent that he recalled his dealings with police as "mental hell and torture." He described this experience as taking a "significant toll" on him particularly since the police had treated Cadrain, too, as a suspect in connection with the Miller homicide. The Inquiry did not find that Cadrain was in fact subject to police coercion, nor did it accept that he had shown signs of mental illness at the time that he gave his statement. This said, the Inquiry received evidence that Cadrain's stated reason for contacting police was that he had had hallucinations of the Virgin Mary stepping on a snake with Milgaard's face.

The Inquiry further found that had it not been for the police interrogation of Ron Wilson and Nichol John, Milgaard would not have been convicted, nor indeed even charged. The youths had initially stated that Milgaard had an alibi, since they were in his presence at the time of the murder; however, they had each changed their stories dramatically over the course of interrogation, culminating in John's statement that she had seen Milgaard stab Miller. The Inquiry found that the detective who interrogated John had pressured her into telling him what he believed to be the truth. While the Inquiry was unsympathetic to Wilson's claims of police coercion, there was evidence before it that he was experiencing drug withdrawal after a two-day interrogation, and finally told police what they wanted to hear so as to put an end to this ordeal. The Inquiry expressed skepticism of Wilson's account, but acknowledged the possibility that he had been detained for a lengthy period.

Finally, the Inquiry found that in 1980, Larry Fisher's ex-wife Linda had gone to the police station to report her suspicions that Fisher had killed Gail Miller. She told police that a paring knife had gone missing from their kitchen on the date of the homicide. The Inquiry found that police should have acted on this information, but failed to do so because Linda Fisher had made these statements at 4:00 a.m. after she had been drinking and had given a description of the missing knife that seemed not to match the murder weapon. Had police followed up on her report, they might have identified the true perpetrator of the Miller homicide well over a decade earlier.

Milgaard died in May 2022, having spent decades advocating for prison reform and on behalf of other wrongfully convicted persons. He always credited his mother for succeeding in clearing his name.

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On January 31, 1969 at approximately 6:45 a.m., certified nursing assistant Gail Miller left her house in Saskatoon to catch a bus to work. This was the last time that she was seen alive. Hours later, Miller's body was discovered one block south of her residence; she had been sexually assaulted and stabbed.

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The criminal justice system failed David Milgaard

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The criminal justice system failed David Milgaard

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This article from CBC News covers the long legal battle fought by David Milgaard and his supporters to overturn his conviction. It highlights how the criminal justice system in Canada failed him, as well as the challenges faced by wrongfully convicted individuals in seeking justice and compensation.

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David Milgaard, who spent 23 years behind bars for a murder he didn't commit, might have been released from jail years sooner if police had followed up on a lead they received in 1980, according to a Saskatchewan inquiry into the case.

Milgaard was 16 at the time that Gail Miller was killed in Saskatoon in 1969 and he was convicted in the case a year later. He wasn't released from prison until 1992, when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled he should get a new trial. DNA evidence eventually cleared Milgaard and helped convict another man, Larry Fisher.

A commission of inquiry's report into the case, released Friday in Saskatoon, concludes police in that city received a tip from a woman that "might have led to Fisher as a serious suspect in 1980 had it been followed up."

The report on the woman's visit to police was "received, filed, referred and possibly evaluated on a cursory basis within the Saskatoon police, but it went no further. It should have," says the report.

The conviction of Fisher, a convicted serial rapist in Saskatoon, and the ultimate exoneration of Milgaard was based upon critical DNA evidence that arose in 1997. Although Milgaard was released in 1992, the Miller case was not reopened until the new DNA evidence was available.

"The criminal justice system failed David Milgaard," concludes Justice Edward MacCallum, the Alberta judge who headed the inquiry.

Police slammed for 'critical failure' in questioning witnesses

Milgaard, who was originally from Winnipeg and now lives in Calgary, eventually received a $10-million compensation package from the Saskatchewan government. The government also called the inquiry, which wrapped up two years before the release of the report.

The 815-page report, released in two volumes, provides a comprehensive review of all elements of the Milgaard case, from the circumstances surrounding Miller's death to Milgaard's conviction and what MacCallum calls the "epic struggle" led by Milgaard's mother, Joyce, who always believed in her son's innocence.

"There is no simple explanation as to why David Milgaard was wrongfully convicted and why it took so long to reopen his case," MacCallum writes.

However, he singles out the Saskatoon police for what he described as a "critical failure" in the questioning of two key witnesses, Nichol John and Ron Wilson, friends of Milgaard who were on a road trip with him when the murder took place.

They were interviewed by Art Roberts, a police polygraph expert brought in from Calgary by Saskatoon investigators, and that evidence was key to Milgaard becoming a suspect and being found guilty, the inquiry found.

"But for the questioning of John and Wilson by polygrapher Roberts, David Milgaard would not have been charged and tried for the crime of murder," MacCallum said.

"John said that she saw Milgaard stab a woman ... that cannot be true" given that Milgaard was later cleared, MacCallum writes in the report.

"How then did she come to say it? I do not find that she deliberately lied, and I do not find that Roberts induced her to lie, although both must be acknowledged as possibilities. I ... must conclude that [Roberts] somehow pressured John into telling him what he thought to be the truth."

Police acted 'in good faith,' inquiry finds

Despite that finding, the inquiry did not find any malfeasance on the part of police. MacCallum says the investigation was done in accordance with the standards of the day and "in good faith."

"Tunnel vision, negligence and misconduct have been alleged, but not shown," the commissioner writes.

MacCallum said the trial itself was conducted "fairly" by both the Crown prosecutor and Milgaard's defence lawyer.

However, the inquiry was critical of how the judge oversaw the case.

Milgaard's defence was "prejudiced" by a judicial error in applying the rules of evidence, MacCallum says.

He says the defence case was also prejudiced by "excessive intervention by the trial judge when witnesses were testifying."

"Displays of impatience can have profound consequences," writes MacCallum, a trial judge himself in Alberta.

Joyce Milgaard's tactics sometimes hindered her case

Despite the fact that Joyce Milgaard was ultimately successful in winning her son's release from prison and in his eventual exoneration in the murder, the commissioner questioned whether her methods sometimes hindered the cause.

Joyce Milgaard and a team of investigators, lawyers and other supporters often provided information to the media that turned out to be untrue, the inquiry found.

That undermined her credibility with authorities in Saskatchewan and Ottawa, he says.

"The 'media-circus' ... was, I find, counterproductive to the reopening effort in the long-term, although it can be credited with getting Milgaard out of prison and with the quashing of his conviction."

MacCallum also dealt extensively with allegations of a coverup and negligence directed at public officials connected with the case.

"[T]he media campaign weakened confidence in the administration of justice and unfairly hurt the reputation of many individuals involved in the investigation, trial and review of Milgaard's conviction," the report says.

Create independent body on wrongful convictions, inquiry urges

The commission calls for the federal government to create a new independent body in Canada to review allegations of wrongful convictions.

"Had such an agency been in place in 1980, the investigation into the death of Gail Miller would probably have been reopened," MacCallum writes.

He said that commissions of inquiry like his, which cost $10 million, could be avoided if such an agency was in place. MacCallum acknowledged it was a very "expensive exercise."

"If significant public expenditure can be avoided by the establishment of a truly independent, transparent and effective investigative agency, it should be done."

The commission made 13 recommendations in total, including a call for more facilities to support complex autopsies for sudden death cases.

Milgaard 'very pleased' with report

At a news conference after the release of the report, Joyce Milgaard supported the call for an independent body to review allegations of wrongful convictions.

When asked about commission criticism directed at her for how she pursued the matter, she replied: "I did what I felt was necessary."

David Milgaard - who was not in Saskatoon for the report's release - is "very pleased" with the inquiry's findings, Hersh Wolch, a longtime lawyer for the Milgaards, told reporters.

Police methods improved: Saskatoon chief

Clive Weighill, chief of the Saskatoon Police Service, said he has reviewed the report and accepts the findings.

"I respect and agree with the findings of the commissioner in regard to the Saskatoon Police Service and the many other agencies involved," he said in a news release.

He said investigative practices have changed since Milgaard's conviction.

"The Saskatoon Police Service and policing in general have adopted new methodologies and technologies to substantively reduce the likelihood that someone would be wrongfully accused."

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'The criminal justice system failed David Milgaard': inquiry's report | CBC News

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David Milgaard, who spent 23 years behind bars for a murder he didn't commit, might have been released from jail years sooner if police had followed up on a lead they received in 1980, according to a Saskatchewan inquiry into the case.

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‘This can happen to you.’ - David Milgaard

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‘This can happen to you.’ - David Milgaard

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The Globe and Mail's in-depth article talks about the effect of David Milgaard's wrongful conviction, detailing the impact on his life and the lives of his loved ones. It emphasizes the urgent need for change to prevent similar misuses of justice in the future.

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David Milgaard's garden sits on the edge of a sweeping valley. It's not much, but enough for what he needs. Tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries for the kids. Some parsnips and wild flowers grown from seed.

His yard is small but boundless, a thin patch of grass that turns quickly wild, then dips into a valley and stretches out to the horizon beyond. It's the expanse that made him want to live there. Vast and open. Endless. You can see the Bow River snaking by, and at intervals, trains clatter and squeal on the tracks alongside. He hasn't always liked trains, they remind him more of captivity than freedom, bringing to mind for him the dark purposes they've served in history, how they carried people away to captivity and worse.

"I try not to think about that," he says. "I'm getting used to them."

David Milgaard is 67 years old. His name, like his face, is deeply familiar, a part of our history and our culture. His story is one of Canada's most egregious wrongful convictions, and it is never out of the news for long, even now. On the day I arrive at his townhouse outside Calgary, it is almost 50 years to the day since he was arrested and charged for a murder he didn't commit.

"Is it really 50 years?" he says, when I mention the anniversary to him, and he pauses for a moment to do the math. Then his voice grows soft.

It is difficult for him to talk about even now. But he knows he cannot stay silent.

"I just feel sad, you know, that the situation has been in my life the way that it has for so long," he says. "And I wish it wasn't that."

Saskatoon police issued a warrant for Mr. Milgaard on Friday, May 26, 1969, and he turned himself in four days later in Prince George. The story of his arrest ran on the front page of the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix alongside pictures of the Earth taken during Apollo 10, the "dress rehearsal" for the first moon landing, then still to come. He was 16 years old.

It was a tumultuous time. In California, a group of young people were attempting to seize control of a town and set up "the first hippie government in the United States," and in a Montreal hotel, John Lennon and Yoko Ono were holding a "bed-in" for peace.

In Saskatoon, the police department investigating the murder of young nursing assistant Gail Miller was already battling allegations of police brutality and "irresponsible conduct." Amid that scrutiny, the arrest of Mr. Milgaard was a win, a huge step forward in a case that had profoundly disturbed and upset the Prairie city for months: A young woman sexually assaulted and murdered on her way to work, her body discarded in a snowbank in the cold.

Mr. Milgaard had been travelling through the city with friends, a free spirit and an outsider, a long-haired hippie of the kind that had been questioning the establishment and authority everywhere. "The type of young man who gave police officers the shivers," his mother would later say, "especially if they had daughters."

There had been tremendous pressure on police to solve the case. By the first weeks of 1970, Mr. Milgaard was standing alone in the prisoner's box of a Saskatoon courtroom, watching as the jury's decision was passed to the judge. He heard his father groan, something deep and guttural, and saw the big man collapsing before his eyes.

"I don't remember much after that," David Milgaard says now. "Everything just seemed to fog up and I was lost."

He was found guilty, and sentenced to life in prison. But Mr. Milgaard steadfastly declared his innocence, and his mother, Joyce, believed him. For the next 23 years, she fought tirelessly to see him released, and then worked seven years more for him to be exonerated and compensated.

There were investigations and documentaries, books and movies, even the hit song, Wheat Kings, by the Tragically Hip. An inquiry that lasted almost two years and cost more than the $10-million Mr. Milgaard finally received in compensation.

The real killer, Larry Fisher, was arrested for Ms. Miller's murder in 1997, after evidence sent by Mr. Milgaard's defence team to England for DNA analysis linked Mr. Fisher conclusively to the crime. Mr. Fisher died in prison in 2015.

Mr. Milgaard is waiting at the door when I arrive at his home in Cochrane, Alta., half an hour outside Calgary. His townhouse is modest, but he loves the view and it is what he can afford. His settlement money is long gone. The bulk split between the lawyers' payments and a gift to his mother, who for decades gave everything she had to fight for him. The rest spent, given away, invested in things that didn't work out.

He gives me a tour: Living room and small kitchen downstairs, a bathroom and three bedrooms on the floor above, for him and his two children. The house is dotted with their clothes and toys, with notes that record their goals and rules and accomplishments, and Mr. Milgaard's as well.

His son is 13. His daughter, 11. He and his wife have lived apart for the past four years, and while their custody arrangement is flexible, Mr. Milgaard has the children with him most weeks. He and his wife met in Romania, and though he was married to another woman then, they fell in love. They married in her hometown, then came to Canada for the birth of their son. Mr. Milgaard says they tried hard to make it work, and have been doing better as co-parents.

As we sit down on the couch, he asks me what my name means.

"Gift from God," I say.

"My name, David, means most loved by God," he tells me. "But I doubt that. I really do."

The thing David Milgaard wants you to know is that it could have been you. That it could be you. He wants you to know that this story isn't just about what he's been through - 23 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit, then 27 more dealing with the consequences - but that it could just as easily be your story. It could be the story of your friend or your brother or your wife or your son, charged and tried and convicted and sentenced for something they did not do.

He wants you to know that there are people in prison right now who are facing the same thing he faced, innocent people kept in cages while the true perpetrators are out there, free. And, most important, he wants you to care enough about the wrongfully convicted that measures will be taken to protect them, in ways that he himself was not protected.

"I would have been freed 15 years earlier, maybe even more. I was 17 when they had information on Larry Fisher," he says, his voice growing tight. Then he stops. "I'm upset now."

The anger is always there, waiting in pockets of his memory. By now, he knows to watch for it, to tamp it back down when it comes. It is guaranteed in certain situations. In a room full of the wrongfully convicted, it comes out quickly. The anger is part of their shared reality, the almost unimaginable experience of being held responsible for something you did not do.

There is anger and frustration at those who allowed it to happen, at those who participated or obstructed or were complicit in your conviction; at those who allowed it to stand while you suffered. There is anger at those who knew the truth. At the real perpetrator, who let you pay for their crime. At those who didn't believe you. At those who would not listen.

There is anger over what it was like for those you loved, how they were treated and how they suffered, and over what was lost. The days and years, the moments, the relationships that can never be regained. All that beauty and life that happened while you were in a cell.

There are many torments, too many to list even if you wanted to. But Mr. Milgaard says the worst thing was having people think he had done it. Knowing people believed he could be capable of doing something so horrible, and what that meant for him and his family.

Mr. Milgaard says he would never admit to doing something he didn't do, and he maintained his innocence even though it meant he would be denied parole. At one point, he was believed to be the country's longest-serving inmate, serving far longer as an innocent man than he would have if he accepted responsibility for the crime.

Mr. Milgaard was 39 when he walked out of Stony Mountain Institution on April 16, 1992, carrying everything he owned in two duffel bags and four cardboard boxes, and telling reporters: "It feels good to be out forever."

But the reality proved more complicated. He'd grown up inside prison, been there most of his life by then, and he says getting out felt like landing on the moon.

Everywhere he went, Mr. Milgaard felt like people were looking at him. At that point, he'd not yet been exonerated, with the Supreme Court saying only that he should have a new trial. Police and justice officials in Saskatchewan either maintained he was guilty of the murder, or said the matter should simply be put to rest.

"There's nothing more to be done with it," Robert (Bob) Mitchell, then Saskatchewan's attorney-general, said at the time. "It is something I think we should all just try to put behind us and carry on with life."

Instead of finally being free, Mr. Milgaard came to feel as though he would always be a prisoner.

He had run-ins with the law and struggled with his mental health, at one point falling into a depression so severe he was hospitalized. He drank too much for a time, until he woke up in a hotel in Kelowna, B.C., one day and realized alcohol was a poison and he had to stop. His first wife helped him dry out, get on track, find steadier footing in the outside world.

For a while, he tried to distance himself from the issue of wrongful conviction, unable to navigate the tightrope between leaving the emotions of his past behind, and his desire - really his need, his calling - to help other wrongfully convicted people.

He says the first time he got involved trying to help a wrongfully convicted person, it was like he was back inside prison fighting for himself, and it became so intense he had to stop. It is a cruel irony that the way he feels most compelled to help is the way that hurts him most.

He travelled - Turkey, Argentina, India, Spain. From a life so constrained, he went to 35 countries, collecting stories about the special moments in people's lives. He studied astronomy, worked as a community support worker in Calgary, then as a companion. But at some point, he knew he had to go back to the issue that defined his own life, and fight for the wrongfully convicted.

"You can't do nothing, when you can do something," he says. His mother taught him that.

This spring, Mr. Milgaard took the stage inside the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg. He was joined by David Asper, one of the lawyers who worked to free him and overturn the conviction, and two journalists, Cecil Rosner and Carl Karp, who wrote a book about the case. I had been asked to moderate the panel.

"It's time for me to wake you all up," Mr. Milgaard told the crowd, in a speech at the beginning of the event. "This can happen to you. Either you or your children."

He stressed, as he always does, the need for an independent board of review, which has been recommended in previous inquiries into wrongful convictions, including his own.

The current system, in which government lawyers assess cases and make recommendations to the federal Justice Minister, was established in 1993 in part because of Mr. Milgaard's wrongful conviction, but the process has been criticized for extremely long delays, and Mr. Milgaard says it's not working. (In the emerging wrongful conviction case of Glen Assoun, who was released after 17 years in prison, a recommendation for a new trial has been reported to have sat without action for 18 months, and a report as early as 2014 showed there had likely been a miscarriage of justice.)

Mr. Milgaard feels passionately about the creation of an independent board to review cases, and it's something he repeats over and over, believing it could have made a difference of years - even decades - in his own life.

But while wrongful conviction stories have proved popular fodder for true-crime podcasts and documentaries, organizations that advocate for the wrongfully convicted, such as Innocence Canada, struggle for funding, and the formation of an independent board of review seems to Mr. Milgaard to find little traction or political will.

"It's more than frustrating," Mr. Milgaard says. "I am so upset inside my heart, that these people, the senior administrators of justice in this country, are unable to see the truth in this situation."

Speaking events, such as the one in Winnipeg, can be difficult. Sometimes people ask very personal questions, such as his feelings about Mr. Fisher, and one of those pockets of anger and pain opens up for a moment, deep and black. Sometimes, there are families of other wrongfully convicted people present, and it hurts to know he can't fix everything for them. Whether they expect him to help, he wishes he could. He knows how much they are suffering.

"It's tough on me. It's tough on how I feel, even though I've done it so many times," he says. "You would say that maybe it's not something you would be feeling so much, but, it's really hard to not feel the emotions. Feeling how bad, how horrible, it was to be inside prison."

But the money Mr. Milgaard gets from honorariums is necessary to support himself and his family, so he couldn't give it up even if he wanted to. And there are parts of the talks he enjoys: It feels good to connect with people sometimes, to think that maybe speaking to them could help raise awareness of wrongful conviction or make change. Even give someone else hope, no matter what their own challenges might be.

After the panel at the human-rights museum, Mr. Milgaard greeted the crowd waiting to speak with him. There were old friends and family; others who have been touched and moved by Mr. Milgaard and his story. There was Brian Anderson and his family, who are still fighting to prove Mr. Anderson was wrongfully convicted of murder 45 years ago. Mr. Milgaard signed copies of The Rabbit's Paw, a book of poetry he wrote inside prison. People waited in a long line to shake his hand, hug him, pose for a picture, talk

Later, Mr. Milgaard went and stared at his own picture on display in the Canadian Journeys gallery. He stopped to gaze for a moment at his much younger self, thinking about the man he was then, so long ago.

Sometimes, in dreams, he's back there. It's always mixed up, with time and people and places all muddled together, but always he is back inside a prison cell, fighting to get out. He doesn't like to call them nightmares, and he tries to focus not on the dreams but on how good it feels to wake up.

The past is always with him in ways large and small, as deeply present as the ammunition that remains lodged in his lower back. He had been out on a pass with family in the summer of 1980 when he went on the run, spending 77 days at large before being shot by the RCMP while being recaptured in Toronto that fall. A doctor told him he would barely walk and never run, but he proved that wrong. When the injury starts to hurt, he tries not to think about it.

Instead, he pushes himself always to look forward, trying to chart a positive direction for himself and his family. He plans to start painting again, and he has an easel and canvas already set up in his bedroom. He wants to exercise more and he's trying to trim down on a diet he learned in prison. (No bread, no potatoes, no dessert and just a few fries once a week.) He wants to do more for the wrongfully convicted, to press the issue of the independent review board, to advocate for the humane treatment of all prisoners. He always feels he could be doing more.

The kids can be a challenge, and most of all, more than anything, he wants to be a good dad for them. They are his greatest happiness, the thing that brings him back when he feels adrift.

"I work hard to be a good father," he says. "I work hard for my life to be okay, to be something that I'm happy with."

This summer, he went on a road trip back to Manitoba with the kids to see his sisters and mother. She is elderly and not the way she once was, but Mr. Milgaard says she is loved and cared for. When he needs direction or help, he still looks to her.

"Joyce Milgaard fought everyone for me. Without her, I would still be in prison, rotting away," he says. "I don't know where a person gets that inspiration, that sense of direction."

It is still not easy for him, 50 years later. But David Milgaard has found that the things that saved him inside prison help him on the outside, too. There is the purpose he finds in his concern for social issues, First Nations and environmental issues; the strength he finds in his faith. There is the hope in the fact that people around the country cared so much about him, and about justice. The love that comes from knowing his story mattered to so many people, and that it matters still.

And there is the place he has found after a long and difficult path. A modest spot atop a sweeping valley, where he can raise his children and look out at the horizon, trying his best to be a steward and a gardener, planting things that will grow.

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'This can happen to you.' David Milgaard works to help free other innocent people - even though it opens the wounds of his past

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In 1969, he was arrested for a murder he didn't commit, and spent 23 years in prison as an innocent man. In his most in-depth interview in decades, David Milgaard talks to Jana G.

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This mugshot of David Milgaard serves as a reminder of the years he spent wrongfully convicted. It humanizes the person behind the case and highlights the importance of ensuring justice for all.

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The logo of Innocence Canada symbolizes the organization's commitment to exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals like David Milgaard. It represents hope and advocacy for those who have been failed by the justice system.

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This image captures the emotional moment of David Milgaard's release from prison after spending over two decades wrongfully incarcerated.

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Completed questions about David Milgaard:

1. Who are you completing your case study on?

2. Briefly summarize and explain the situation of your selected wrongly convicted person.

3. Using the list from Innocence Canada surrounding causes, identify and explain which and how the causes contributed to the wrongful conviction in your case.

4. Was the wrongly convicted person awarded compensation for their situation?  If so, how much?

5. In your opinion, should a wrongly convicted person be awarded compensation and comment on what you would determine is a satisfactory award (if any).

6. What did you learn about the topic that surprised you?

7. What are you most likely to remember from this research?