OVERDUE

Texas Man Held in Jail for 18 Years Without Trial

Edric Wilson was being held in Harris County Jail on murder charges in the death of the great-aunt of Lakewood Church Pastor Joel Osteen.

A Houston man has been released from jail after being locked up for 18 years without a trial, according to a bombshell report. Edric Wilson was being held in Harris County Jail on murder charges in the death of the great-aunt of Lakewood Church Pastor Joel Osteen, in 2006, the Houston Chronicle reported. The 47-year-old also faced aggravated assault charges in a separate case involving a different victim from the same year. However, over nearly two decades, both cases went through six district attorney’s administrations, three judges, and six court-appointed defense lawyers, eventually losing steam. Then last year, Harris County prosecutors revisited the murder case. After concluding that a key piece of DNA evidence linking the woman to Wilson was weaker than initially thought, the prosecutors dismissed the murder charges against him. He pleaded guilty to the separate aggravated assault charge and was finally released on parole last month. “I think there were failures at every level,” Sean Teare, who became the Harris County District Attorney a few months after Wilson’s charges were resolved, told the Houston Chronicle. “It’s a tragic case, and the thing that it spells out is, people can fall through the cracks.” Still, Wilson is not alone in his predicament. In fact, he is one of the 230 people whom county staffers identified had been in jail for over 1000 days.