PORT HURON, Mich. (AP) — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has turned down a request to release a man who insists he was wrongly convicted of murder in a college parking lot in Port Huron in 1986.
Whitmer’s staff notified Temujin Kensu’s lawyer last week.
Kensu, also known as Fred Freeman, has been serving a life sentence since 1987.
Kensu insists he was 400 miles away in the Upper Peninsula when Scott Macklem was killed.
Alibi witnesses backed him up.
But the prosecutor summoned a pilot to suggest Kensu could have committed the murder and then dashed back to Escanaba by private plane.
Separately, Kensu’s case is being reviewed by the attorney general’s office.
