Audio excerpt
Alfred describes the help he kept seeking—and the compassion he found for the children pressured to testify.
Read excerpt →Audio interview · Episode 23
Alfred Chestnut and the Harlem Park Three: 36 Years to Exoneration
Alfred Chestnut speaks with Matt Rhine about 36 years wrongfully imprisoned, the path to exoneration, and the work of rebuilding a life.
Audio interview
Alfred Chestnut
Member of the Harlem Park Three, in conversation with host Matt Rhine.
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The Harlem Park Three · Exonerated in 2019
Alfred ChestnutMember of the Harlem Park Three
Inside the Interview
- Alfred remembers the Baltimore childhood and family life that came before his arrest at sixteen.
- He recounts the first questioning and the long effort to have the case reconsidered.
- How he understood the witnesses, who were also children when the case began.
- The importance of being treated with dignity, even through years of imprisonment.
- Small acts of care, family, and the work of rebuilding after exoneration.
Meet the Guest
Alfred Chestnut
Alfred Chestnut was sixteen when he, Andrew Stewart, and Ransom Watkins were arrested after the 1983 killing of their friend, fourteen-year-old DeWitt Duckett, at Baltimore’s Harlem Park Junior High School. The three teenagers maintained their innocence. Convicted in 1984, each spent 36 years in prison. Their experience became known as the case of the Harlem Park Three.
More about Alfred Chestnut
A joint reinvestigation by the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit and innocence advocates established that the three men did not commit the crime. Four witnesses recanted their testimony, saying they had been pressured to change their accounts. On November 25, 2019, their convictions were vacated and all charges dismissed.
In this conversation with Matt Rhine, Alfred describes his childhood in Baltimore, the earliest questioning, and the persistence it took to keep seeking legal help. He speaks about the witnesses as children who were also caught in the case, about being treated without dignity in prison, and about ordinary ways he tried to help others.
Exoneration did not give back those decades or erase their effects. Alfred talks about returning home, the unexpected ways trauma can surface, and the family and young daughter he was building a future for at the time of this conversation. His story is not only about what was taken from him; it is also about his agency, his care for others, and the life he was beginning to rebuild.
Case history: Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project case history ↗
- 36 yearsWrongfully imprisoned
- Nov. 25, 2019Exonerated
- Harlem Park ThreeWith Andrew Stewart and Ransom Watkins
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