Last weekend, Patriot-News reporter Pete Shellem died unexpectedly. During his 23 years at Patriot-News, Shellem investigated several questionable convictions which led to the freedom of several innocent people. Former Pennsylvania Attorney General Ernie Preate once called him “a one-man Innocence Project,” because that’s what he is. Among those he helped are:

Patty Carbone: She was released from prison in 1998, 11 years after her conviction for killing a man she said abducted and tried to rape her. Stories by Shellem questioning the evidence and pointing out that the victim, Jerome Lint, had tried to assault another woman helped secure her release.

Steven Crawford: He spent 28 years in prison after a jury found him guilty of killing a childhood friend. In 2002, Dauphin County prosecutors dropped charges against Crawford and set him free based on a series of stories by Shellem about new evidence in his case, and problems with earlier work by the state police crime lab.

Barry Laughman: Laughman, who is mentally retarded, claimed he was coerced into a confession. Shellem tracked down DNA in Germany that proved Laughman did not kill an 85-year-old distant relative known as Aunt Edna. In 2004, Laughman was released from a life sentence after 16 years in prison.

David Gladden: Shellem wrote a series of stories exposing gaping holes in the case against Gladden, including the fact that a key informant had reasons to lie and that serial killer Andrew Dillon lived next door to the victim. The stories caused a man to come forth and counter Dillon’s alibi. Prosecutors decided to release Gladden in 2007.

Ernie Preate: Preate, then the state’s attorney general and a candidate for governor, was convicted of campaign-related mail fraud in 1995, after a series of stories by Shellem and former Patriot-News reporter Pete Shelley. Preate now works on behalf of prison-reform groups.

Jay Smith: Smith was sentenced to death in 1986 for the murders of teacher Susan Reinert and her two children. He was freed six years later by the state Supreme Court, which ruled there had been prosecutorial misconduct.

Althought he is gone, his memory lives on in all the great things he’s accomplished.

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