The Case of Eric Blackmon

📻 Episode #292
🎙️ Hosted by Guest Host Patrick Pursley
📅 Sep 19, 2022

✓ EXONERATED

About This Episode

On July 4, 2002, two men shot and killed 36-year-old Tony Cox outside a restaurant in Chicago, IL. Suspecting the murder was gang-related, police arrested Eric Blackmon. After claiming Blackmon was selected from a lineup by eyewitnesses, he was convicted of murder and sentenced to 60 years in prison.

Case status as carried in this site's original 2026 profiles. Independent record verification is rolling out episode by episode — statuses are being re-checked against court and registry sources and date-stamped as verified.

The Case

Guest Host Patrick Pursley was wrongfully convicted for a 1993 murder in Rockford, IL, for which he spent nearly 24 years in prison. Remarkably, he ended up writing the law that set him free.

Patrick and Eric spent over a decade together in Stateville Correctional Center in Cook County, Illinois. They both learned the law and represented themselves before being granted their freedom.

https://www.law.northwestern.edu/legalclinic/wrongfulconvictions/exonerations/eric-blackmon.html

https://www.macarthurjustice.org/team_member/eric-blackmon/

https://www.thejri.org/bod

In Their Own Words — transcript excerpts

Short excerpts from the episode's official published transcript, with timestamps — listen from these moments, or read the full transcript via the podcast's own platforms.

00:04:18
“Speaker 3: In our neighborhood. They came up with this what they Speaker 3: called what was later called the Black Site, which is Speaker 3: a home and square police station. There was this station Speaker 3: where people would be disappeared, where you would go and Speaker 3: you would hear the stories of people riding past, hearing”

00:17:26
“Speaker 3: Present, well we started trial about two years, later and Speaker 3: the state's whole case in chief was the identifications Of Speaker 3: miss McDowell And Miss. Reese and that was the only Speaker 3: Thing i'll never forget. It miss French On rees testified Speaker 3: to seeing the offender's face for probably four to five.”

00:30:06
“Speaker 2: It's like it becomes our, life, right and it becomes Speaker 2: almost like which we're defined, by like you were actually Speaker 2: become a success story just like you start WORKING. Cwc, Speaker 2: right what is? That like where's the sweet part like Speaker 2: in your? Work and you know WHAT i, Mean.”

Listen to the Episode

🎧 Listen on Omny / the podcast's platforms

Resources & links from the episode:

🔊 How You Can Help

Share this case, follow the organisations working on it, and support the podcast's fight for the innocent at lavaforgood.com.

← #291 Clarence Harrison #293 Robert McClendon →

Also on the podcast: #174 False Confessions - Eric Weakley and Michael Hash · #224 Eric Riddick · #364 False Confessions - Eric Weakley and Michael Hash