ABC7: Murder convictions vacated for 2 men after spending decades behind bars
By Darla Miles
July 10, 2025
LOWER MANHATTAN (WABC) -- Two men who spent decades behind bars for a murder they didn't commit will finally have their names cleared.
On Thursday, the Manhattan district attorney moved to vacate the convictions of Charles Collins and Brian Boles for a 1994 murder in Harlem.
Collins, 49, and Boles 48, left court in Lower Manhattan on Thursday no longer convicted felons.
"I'm feeling fine, I'm feeling well, I'm glad justice was preserved," Boles said.
They were both cleared of second degree murder, but sadly for both men, it was 30 years too late.
"We have two men who went to jail for decades for a conviction we no longer have confidence in, we also have an unsolved homicide," said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
The Manhattan DA's office and attorneys from the Innocence Project moved to vacate the convictions for the two men who were cleared by advancements in DNA testing.
In February of 1994, 85-year-old James Reid was found dead and strangled by a telephone cord inside of his Harlem apartment on West 138th Street.
Boles and Collins, 17 years old at the time, and suspects in an unrelated robbery, were coerced by NYPD detectives into falsely accusing each other and falsely confessing to Reid's murder after feeling pressured and scared.
"The lesson from this and from much of our work, is the systems, the systems that were in place decades ago that we have worked on and continue to work on to improve the ways in which interviews are conducted, other practices," Bragg said.
Boles wiped his eyes after serving 30 years and being released on parole in 2024.
Collins served 22 years before he was paroled in 2017.
"It makes a huge difference to have the court recognize they were wrongly convicted and to have a court and a prosecutor's office recognize they were made to falsely confess as children, that never should have happened," said a representative with the Innocence Project.
