Man who died in prison granted executive clemency in Krajcir attack

MOUNT VERNON, Ill. -- The Illinois Innocence Project at the University of Illinois-Springfield announced Monday that Grover Thompson, who was wrongfully convicted in 1981 of stabbing a Mount Vernon woman, and died in prison in 1996, has received executive clemency based on actual innocence by outgoing Gov. Bruce Rauner. Rauner granted the request Friday, a few days before he completed his term.

He was convicted of murder to which Timothy Krajcir confessed. Krajcir, a confessed serial killer, is notoriously known in Cape Girardeau, where he was given 13 life sentences for five murders, seven sexual assaults and a robbery from the years 1977 through 1982.

This is the first posthumous exoneration to occur in Illinois and only the 21st such exoneration nationwide, as documented by the National Registry of Exonerations.

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