My name is Maggie Freeling.

A majoringist and producer and this is unjust and unsolved.

A podcast about people who I believe are wrongfully incarcerated for crimes that are actually unsolved.

You've surely heard stories like these on the news, but the thing is, the ones you've heard about barely scratch the surface.

The Innocence Project gives a conservative estimate that about 20,000 innocent people are currently locked away in US prisons.

After reading some of these stories, I felt compelled to do something.

So I sent 20 letters to people who are locked up despite evidence pointing away from them.

Some responded through mail, some emailed, and some called me on contraband cell phones.

But all wanted their stories to be heard.

So I left my public radio job and decided to do just that.

In each episode, I speak with those people, their loved ones, supporters, and lawyers, to shed light on how they wound up incarcerated for decades, despite the evidence, and how that means the crimes they were convicted of are still unsolved.

This week, I'm telling the story of Sherry Hayden.

On February 23rd, 2008, 63-year-old Patricia Landry was walking to her car when a man tried to snatch her purse.

A struggle ensued and the man jumped into a red pickup truck driven by someone else, speeding away the truck hit and ran over Miss Landry, killing her.

Witnesses described the driver of the pickup as a young blonde woman in her 20s, and they said she was with two men.

Police identified one of the men as Michael Coe, and based on his identification, police honed in on a friend of his, a blonde woman named Sherry Hayden.

But Sherry was older, with deep facial wrinkles, very clearly not in her 20s.

However, that didn't bother police, and they made a line up, and Sherry was identified, and eventually arrested, tried, and convicted for killing Miss Landry.

Ten years later, the Innocence Project, New Orleans, found that police never did a proper investigation into the crime.

During their investigation, the Innocence Project, New Orleans, found multiple people who said the real killer confessed to them.

She was the girlfriend of one of the men in the vehicle, and she was blonde and in her 20s.

So why is Sherry still in prison? And who was driving the truck that killed Miss Landry?

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