Man imprisoned two decades in mother’s death out on parole
By JIM SALTER
Associated Press
Michael Politte walked out of prison, paroled after nearly two decades behind bars for a crime he says he didn’t commit — the killing of his mother. Politte was released Friday from the Jefferson City Correctional Center, two months after he was granted parole. Now 38, he was just 14 when Rita Politte died in a fire at the family home in the eastern Missouri town of Hopewell in 1998. The Midwest Innocence Project and the MacArthur Justice Center, which both work to overturn wrongful convictions, have sought to exonerate Politte, saying he was convicted based on debunked science and a biased investigation.
