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CULPEPER, Va. — Michael Wayne Hash walked out of the courthouse a free man Monday morning, 12 years after being wrongly convicted of murder.
Commonwealth’s Attorney Raymond Morrogh, who was appointed special prosecutor in the case, asked the judge to dismiss all charges against Hash and said the investigation into the murder of Thelma B. Scroggins would continue.
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Hash was 15 when Scroggins, an elderly church organist who lived in his neighborhood near Culpeper, was shot four times in the head in 1996. He was 19 when he and two friends were accused of killing Scroggins. Hash was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Earlier this year, a federal judge ruled that Hash was being wrongly held, citing extensive police and prosecutorial misconduct, such as coaching witnesses, failing to disclose a plea deal with a key witness and moving Hash to another county’s jail for two nights to expose him to a known snitch. He said Hash had made a convincing show of actual innocence.
Hash was released from prison to hisparents’ home in Virginia. But the judge gave the commonwealth six months to decide whether to try Hash again.
So Hash, who is now 31, has been waiting for this day.
Even as he enjoyed the simplest of everyday freedoms — being able to close a door, eat with a fork, walk in the woods — he has been haunted by some of the same sense of unreality, of disbelief, that he felt throughout the past 12 years.
He kept thinking, all through his arrest and trials and imprisonment, “This is a nightmare I’m going to wake up from.” Now that he’s home, he said, he keeps thinking, “Maybe this is a good dream — maybe I will wake up and I’m still in prison.”
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