Earlier this Fall, the New York Times sent me to Hattiesburg to photograph the exoneration of Phillip Bivens, who was released from prison after thirty years when lawyers for the Innocence Project New Orleans got he and Bobby Ray Dixon exonerated based on DNA evidence that Bivens, Dixon, and Larry Ruffin, who died in prison in 2002, were innocent of the 1979 rape and murder of Eva Gail Patterson.
Campbell Robertson’s story says it better than I could, so I’ll leave the words to him.
It was extremely touching to see Mr. Bivens walk out of the courthouse freely for the first time in thirty years. What a way to spend your life.
I received an email from the Innocence Project last month letting me know that Bobby Ray Dixon, one of the two who were exonerated that day, died at his home with his family. The lead photo on the story the New York Times ran, was a photo of him.
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