Michigan Man Spends 21 Years Behind Bars for Wrongful Conviction, Then Wins $5.25 Million Settlement

A Michigan man spent more than two decades in prison for a crime he did not commit. After being exonerated, he is set to receive $5.25 million from the insurance company of a detective who incriminated him.

Jeff Titus, now 74, was convicted of the murders of two deer hunters, Jim Bennett and Doug Estes. The killings took place in 1990 near Titus’s home in the Fulton State Game Area in Kalamazoo County. As the investigation began, Titus told authorities he was on a hunting trip 27 miles from the crime scene on the day of the killings.

He was cleared as a suspect, and the police could not determine who actually shot the hunters dead. The case eventually went cold but was reopened in 2000. This time, cold-case detectives Mike Werkema and Mike Brown named Titus as the suspect. He was portrayed as a hothead who would get furious whenever anyone trespassed on his property.

After a trial, he was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder in 2002 and sentenced to life in prison. Ten years later, Roy Ballett and Bruce Wiersema, the Kalamazoo County sheriff’s deputies who investigated the case in 1990, came forward to say that the wrong man was in prison for the crime.

The two contacted the Innocence Clinic at the University of Michigan Law School, and the group began working to secure Titus's exoneration. People familiar with the case pointed out that Thomas Dillon, a serial killer, had confessed that he was in the Fulton State Game Area at the time of Bennett and Estes’s deaths.

Dillon was charged with killing five other people in 1993. He died while serving his sentence in 2011. In February 2023, a court determined that evidence favorable to Titus had been withheld from the defense during his trial. Hence, he was vindicated and released from prison.

Titus then filed a $100 million wrongful conviction lawsuit against Werkema and Brown. He alleged that the two detectives were responsible for hiding information about Dillon from the prosecution and the defense, which could have led to his acquittal. On May 18, his lawyer announced that he had reached a settlement and would be getting $5.25 million.

“It's been a long road for Jeff. He's 74. He lost two decades of his life. The money doesn’t make up for the loss of decades, but it allows him to put this part of his life behind him,” the lawyer, Wolf Mueller, said in an official statement.

“We are happy to bring the case to a successful conclusion,” Mueller said in another statement to NewsNation, adding, “While it cannot make up for two lost decades, Mr. Titus will be able to move forward and be comfortable for the rest of his life.”

In addition to the settlement amount, Titus has also received $1 million from the Michigan Wrongful Imprisonment Compensation Fund. His wrongful conviction has been the subject of several shows, including the 2020 documentary Killer in Question and Susan Simpson’s podcast Undisclosed.