CONWAY, SC (AP) – A Conway man who was cleared in a child’s death after spending nearly four years in prison is suing Horry County and the investigator who handled his case.
A newspaper in the Myrtle Beach area reports 38-year-old Robert Palmer filed the lawsuit last week, saying the ordeal cost him his job, kept him away from his family and left him with nightmares about what he endured in prison.
“I had nothing to do with this. You are going to take away my life for something I had nothing to do with.”
The lawsuit accuses the county, the state and police investigator David Weaver of malicious prosecution, false arrest and negligence.
A county spokeswoman declined to comment.
In 2011, Palmer and his then-girlfriend Julia Shawnette Gorman were each given a 35-year sentence for homicide by child abuse after the 2008 death of Gorman’s 17-month-old grandson, Aydian Grimes.
The South Carolina Supreme Court reversed Palmer’s conviction in July, citing a lack of evidence.
