Man convicted of murder released from prison after 26 years when prosecutors admit he did not commit the crime
After spending more than a quarter-century behind bars for a murder he says he didn’t commit, Brian Pippitt will be walking out of prison a free man.
Pippitt, who was sentenced to life in prison for the 1998 murder of convenience store clerk Evelyn Malin, is expected to be released on Wednesday from a prison in Faribault, Minnesota, after the Minnesota Board of Pardons commuted his sentence.
The decision follows a stunning finding by the Minnesota Attorney General’s Conviction Review Unit that Pippitt, now 63, should be fully exonerated, KARE11 reported.
Pippitt was arrested in 1999 and convicted in 2001 of the killing of Malin, an elderly store clerk who was found beaten and strangled in the apartment attached to her store on February 24, 1998. Prosecutors alleged that Pippitt and four other men broke into the store for beer and cigarettes and killed Malin during the burglary.
While Pippitt consistently maintained his innocence, he lost appeal after appeal. For years, he remained behind bars at Rush City Correctional Facility, where he helped start a dog training program for inmates. But he continued to fight his legal battle.
“I couldn’t believe that I was sitting there in prison,” he told KARE11. “The legal system is supposed to be just and protect the innocent and it didn’t do any of that.”
Then, in 2024, the Attorney General’s Conviction Review Unit released a bombshell report concluding Pippitt did not commit the murder and should be exonerated.
Since the unit was created in 2021, it has reviewed 1,151 applications – and so far, only three have resulted in recommendations for exoneration. The Attorney General’s Office said Pippitt’s case marks the first time the unit has recommended full exoneration for someone still incarcerated.
“The fact that I’m innocent of this crime and the fact that the truth would surface has kept me going through the years,” Pippitt said when his sentence was commuted in September.
The Conviction Review Unit identified numerous flaws in the original prosecution. Investigators found the case relied heavily on “unreliable testimony” from key witnesses, including co-defendants who received favorable plea deals and sentencing recommendations in exchange for their cooperation. Two of those witnesses have since recanted.
The prosecution also leaned on testimony from a jailhouse informant who claimed Pippitt confessed to killing Malin, but investigators found that account conflicted with other evidence. No fingerprints, hair, or DNA recovered from the crime scene matched Pippitt, the report found.
An outside expert reviewed a Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension re-enactment video and concluded it was “implausible” that Pippitt could have committed the crime as prosecutors described. The theory that five men could have smashed a basement window, entered the apartment, and left without blood, fibers, or disturbance to boxes below the window did not hold up, investigators said.
The Conviction Review Unit concluded Pippitt’s trial attorney failed to meaningfully challenge the prosecution’s case or present an adequate defense and the Board of Pardons voted to commute his sentence.
While Pippitt is being released on parole, his conviction has not been overturned. That fight continues in Aitkin County Court. But even after he’s released, clearing his name will still be his mission, Pippitt says.
“That’s one thing I never gave up on,” he told KARE11. “The truth is a powerful thing. It can keep you going in hard times.”
When asked what he’s most looking forward to, Pippitt said, “simple things, taking walks, looking up at the sky and looking at the Milky Way.” While many of his relatives and friends have passed away, he said he hopes to get a dog and spend time with his sister and father.
