Irons and Moore, pictured after his release from prison in July this year As Jonathan Irons emerged from prison, Maya Moore fell to her knees. It took a moment for her strength to return. Then she got up and embraced him, a free man for the first time in over 23 years. Irons' first steps outside that building were also the last on a path the two had been walking together for more than a decade. Once she had regained composure, Moore turned to the phone filming the momentous occasion and said: "OK guys. It's done. It's over." This is the story of their extraordinary journey. Short
presentational grey line The 2020 WNBA season started on 25 July. The Minnesota Lynx are aiming for a fifth title but for the second season in a row they are doing it without one of their star players. Back in 2011, Moore was a first-round draft pick for the Lynx. Since then, she has helped them win four championships and was named MVP in the 2014 season. The 31-year-old also has two Olympic and two World Championship gold medals. Some would argue she is the best the WNBA has seen. But in early 2019 she shocked the sport by giving it all up because of a man she had met 12 years before. A man who had become like a brother to her.
Watch the moment Jonathan Irons emerged from prison Although he was just 16 when the crime took place, Irons was tried as an adult. On 14 January 1997, someone entered the home of Stanley Stotler, situated in a white working-class suburb of St Louis, Missouri. When Stotler returned, the burglar shot him in the head. Stotler survived and was initially unable to identify the perpetrator in a line-up of six photos. According to the New York Times, a police officer asked him to make his best guess and he pointed at a picture of Irons and another one of a different African-American man. Later, at a preliminary hearing, Stotler identified Irons as the assailant. But there were no fingerprints connecting the teenager to the crime. No DNA or blood evidence. No corroborating witnesses. A public defender would not allow Irons to take the stand to proclaim his innocence, saying he was too young and uneducated. Prosecutors said Irons had admitted the offence, something he and his lawyers denied. The officer who questioned Irons was alone and did not record the interview. At the time of the trial, in October 1998, American politicians were running on tough-on-crime platforms. There were particularly harsh sentences for young offenders handed out. A prosecutor is quoted as saying about Irons: "Don't be soft on him because he is young. He is as dangerous as somebody five times that age. "We need to send a message to some of these younger people that if you are going to act like somebody old, you are going to be treated like somebody old." In December 1998, aged 18, Irons was convicted of assault and burglary by an all-white jury and sent to prison for 50 years. Short presentational grey line In 2007, nine years into that sentence, an 18-year-old Moore travelled to Missouri to visit family and met Irons through the prison ministry they were involved with. Over the years that followed, she continued to return to Jefferson City - her hometown - to visit Irons. She sent him books by her favourite writers and spoke to him on the phone before big games.
Maya Moore A four-time WNBA champion with Minnesota Lynx, Moore (pictured here in 2011) starred in the college game with the University of Connecticut Eventually, she decided to press pause on her basketball career. Why? Because she always believed Irons was telling the truth. "There's something about truth that makes you believe it's going to happen," Moore says. "He just had to keep believing that if we could get the truth in front of the right people, who want to do the right thing, they'll do it." So in early 2019, when she was supposed to be preparing for the new WNBA season, Moore got to work with Irons and his lawyers to request a retrial. She dedicated herself to t
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