Alton Logan was sentenced to life in prison for the 1982 murder of a security guard in a McDonald’s restaurant in Illinois. The state had originally sought the death penalty. New information in the form of a confession has now come forward from an attorney in another case indicating that Logan may not be guilty of the crime. Soon after the restaurant murder, two Chicago police officers were shot to death, and a man named Andrew Wilson was charged with their murder. Wilson was asked by his defense lawyers, Dale Coventry and Jamie Kunz, if he – not Logan - was also involved in the McDonald’s murder. He grinned and said, “That was me.”

At the time, Coventry and Kunz were bound by attorney-client privilege and could not intervene on Logan’s behalf. Wilson told his attorneys that they could reveal this information after his death. Coventry and Kunz drew up an affidavit detailing what Wilson said, then had it notarized and sealed in a metal box. Wilson died last November and the box and its contents were finally released to the courts and public.

The two defense attorneys told the Chicago Tribune how the evidence of Logan’s innocence, and their inability to legally disclose it until Wilson died, had haunted them over the years. Kunz, now 70, said, “It was a relief. Oh my God, I have been wanting this. I have considered this to be the truth. I have been wanting this to come out for years. I don’t know anything about Alton Logan. It hurts to know somebody is in prison all these years and is innocent.” Alton Logan’s co-defendant also had said that Logan was not involved in the restaurant murder.
(“Inmate’s freedom may hinge on secret kept for 26 years,” by Maurice Possley, Chicago Tribune, January 19, 2008). See Innocence.