Man cleared of deadly arson after 24 years in prison ‘overexcited, overjoyed’
BY RUMMANA HUSSAIN Criminal Courts Reporter rhussain@suntimes.com May 31, 2012 12:02PM
James Kluppelberg / photo from Illinois Dept. of Corrections
Updated: July 6, 2012 9:47AM
While he was awaiting sentencing for a deadly arson, James Kluppelberg managed to escape Cook County Jail with the help of a crooked sheriff’s officer. On Thursday — more than two decades later — Kluppelberg walked out from behind bars again. “The difference now is that it’s over, said Kluppelberg, who was released from the Downstate Menard Correctional Center a day after Cook County prosecutors dropped the charges against him, citing new forensic evidence. Back “then I was still fighting. I didn’t know how to deal with being wrongfully convicted. I panicked,” the 46-year-old said Thursday. He added that he was “elated” to clear his name and finally be freed for good. “I’m overexcited, overjoyed, apprehensive and a little nervous. I’m still trying to process my freedom,” Kluppelberg said while traveling to an airport in St. Louis with his lawyers.
Kluppelberg’s wife divorced him while he was in prison; he lost touch with his siblings and except for one daughter who lives in Virginia, he doesn’t know much about his other two children and three grandchildren. “I’m sorry for what they had to go through,” he said of his family. “They didn’t choose this.”
During Kluppelberg’s trial, Francis Burns, a former Chicago Fire Department official, theorized that the blaze in the 4400 block of South Hermitage was ignited by someone setting a pile of newspapers and rags on fire and concluded that the burn patterns showed the fire was an arson. But advances in science prove that Burns’ theory is impossible, according to members of the University of Chicago Law School Exoneration Project.
