DETROIT (AP) — A man who served nearly 21 years in prison for killing two Michigan hunters has agreed to a $5.25 million settlement after accusing police of failing to present evidence that might have helped him at trial, an attorney said Monday.
Jeff Titus was released from prison in 2023 and had his murder conviction vacated at the request of prosecutors. The Innocence Clinic at the University of Michigan Law School and two investigators led authorities to admit that an Ohio serial killer may have been the killer of a hunter in 1990.
Titus had long since declared his innocence.
“It’s been a long road for Jeff,” attorney Wolf Mueller said. “He’s 74 years old and he’s lost twenty years of his life. This money doesn’t make up for those decades, but it allows him to put that part of his life behind him.”
An email seeking comment from an attorney defending a retired homicide detective in a lawsuit was not immediately returned.
In 1990, Doug Estes and Jim Bennett were shot and killed near Titus’ property in Kalamazoo County. Titus was initially cleared, but murder charges were brought against him 12 years later. Prosecutors described Titus as a hot-tempered man who disliked intruders.
When students and staff at the University of Michigan Law School attempted to get him a new trial, the county sheriff’s office discovered a 30-page original investigative document. It was a sensational article: It named another suspect, Thomas Dillon of Magnolia, Ohio.
Jacinda Davis and Susan Simpson of the television network “Investigation Discovery” raised doubts about Titus’ guilt and raised questions about Dillon’s possible role via the podcast “Undisclosed.”
Dillon died in prison in 2011. He was arrested in 1993 and eventually admitted to killing five people while they were hunting, fishing or jogging in Ohio.
The lawsuit settled Monday did not name Dillon as an alternate suspect. Instead, Mueller said, police are accused of violating Titus’ rights by not sharing information that could cast doubt on a key witness’s trial testimony.