From our media partners at WOOD TV:
IONIA, Mich. (WOOD) — An Ionia man who was wrongfully convicted in the deaths of his wife and two young daughters will get more than $1.3 million from the state.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced Thursday she approved the wrongful imprisonment compensation for 61-year-old David Gavitt.
Gavitt had been in prison since 1986 after a jury convicted him of three counts of felony murder and one count of arson for the March 1985 fire at his home that killed his wife and two daughters.
Gavitt was serving a life prison sentence without the possibility of parole when the University of Michigan Innocence Clinic took on his case.
In 2011, the Innocence Clinic called for Gavitt’s exoneration after finding the arson investigation science prosecutors relied on during his trial had been discredited after Gavitt’s conviction, and analysis proved there was no evidence the fire in the case was intentionally set.
The prosecutor’s office reviewed the case and agreed. Gavitt was freed in 2012, and his first stop was the cemetery to visit the gravesites of his wife and daughters, which he had never seen.
“I cried a lot,” Gavitt told Target 8 about that day. “I talked to my wife and my daughters. It still hurts, probably always will.”
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