Bloodsworth: The True Story of the First Death Row Inmate Exonerated by DNA Evidence

Written by Tim Junkin

Narrated by Jack Garrett

Charged with the rape and murder of a nine-year-old girl in 1984, Kirk Bloodsworth was tried, convicted, and sentenced to die in Maryland's gas chamber. Maintaining his innocence, he read everything on criminal law available in the prison library and persuaded a new lawyer to petition for the then-innovative DNA testing. After nine years in one of the harshest prisons in America, Kirk Bloodsworth became the first death row inmate exonerated by DNA evidence. He was pardoned by the governor of Maryland and has gone on to become a tireless spokesman against capital punishment. Bloodsworth's story speaks for 159 others who were wrongly convicted and have since been released, and for the thousands still in prison waiting for DNA testing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9781980005537

Reviews for Bloodsworth

[squeakychu · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I became interested in reading this book when it passed through my hands as a donation to my Little Free Library. I saw that it had been a One Book Maryland choice, and I liked that since I live in Maryland. I saw that the author also lives in Maryland so I thought I’d like to read a local author at this time. I began to read the story and familiar words came up: Cambridge, Baltimore, Choptank
River, and, oddly enough, PCR, a laboratory test for genetic material which I only became aware of since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was this test which proved that the incarcerated man on death row, Kirk Bloodsworth, was not the person who brutally murdered and raped a nine-year-old girl, making him innocent of the charges which put him behind bars in the Maryland Penitentiary. This is the story of how an innocent man was finally freed from being wrongfully imprisoned. It is a moving and troublesome story.

This story is upsetting on so many levels, among them the ease with which an innocent person can be imprisoned for a crime, the lack of careful and correct handling of forensic evidence, and the powerlessness of the wrongly imprisoned.

One “wow” moment of this book occurred before the jury’s verdict in this case. Kirk Bloodsworth had been in a cell with another prisoner who told him that he would be all right. There never had been another prisoner in that cell. Had that man been an angel?

If this book did anything, the gruesome description of the execution process in the Maryland Penitentiary not only firmed up my belief against the death penalty, but for sure that death by gassing should not even exist. In this book I learned that in my state of Maryland death by gas was later changed to death by lethal injection. Following my read of this book which had been published in 2004, I learned that
capital punishment was abolished via the legislative process on May 2, 2013, in Maryland. For that I am grateful.

I cannot begin to imagine what it feels like to be imprisoned, but what it must have felt like to Kirk Bloodsworth, an innocent man to be sentenced to death, is beyond what I can imagine. Such a grim story. Such unfairness. So hard to read. However, it did happen. This is a fascinating read, but horrible nonetheless.

[reluctanttechie · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A riveting account of the criminal justice system gone wrong amidst the powerful drive to solve an horrific crime. And it's a compelling story of an innocent man who never gives up trying to clear his name and push for the true perpetrator to be caught. It shows human nature at it best and worst. This is the 2018 One Maryland One Book selection by Maryland Humanities- a worthy read.