Anthony Marshall Released on Parole After More than 43 Years of Wrongful Incarceration
The Work Continues to Fully Vindicate Anthony
On Tuesday August 26, 2025, Innocence Project of Florida client Anthony Marshall walked out of Everglades Correctional Institution in Miami, Florida after wrongfully spending more than 43 years in prison for the Osceola County murder of a tourist that he did not commit. Anthony is the 36th person released with the help of the Innocence Project of Florida. In total, these 36 individuals have spent more than 838 years in prison for crimes they did not commit. His release came after the Florida Commission on Offender Review granted him parole on August 13, 2025, based on his positive institutional record and support from the victims’ daughter, who believes that Anthony was wrongfully convicted. He will remain under parole supervision until either his parole is terminated, or his conviction is overturned. Parole Specialist David Mack and IPF Legal Director Brandon Scheck represented Anthony in his parole proceedings.
On the night of February 25, 1982, two elderly tourists were unloading their car at a Howard Johson motel in Osceola County, Florida when two men approached. One fired two shots, striking the female victim in the chest before fleeing. The second man briefly reached into the car before also running away. While her husband survived this incident, the female victim tragically died from her gunshot wounds. Anthony was wrongfully implicated by a tipster who heard about a reward offer on the radio and provided unreliable information to authorities in exchange for the monetary award. At trial the State presented this tipster and an unreliable jailhouse informant, who testified that Anthony confessed to the crime but later recanted, stating that he fabricated the confession in order to obtain a lighter sentence on his own pending charges. Despite two perpetrators committing this crime, the State never identified the second perpetrator. Most notably, the victim’s husband, who himself was the sole surviving witness to the crime, did not believe Anthony was one of the perpetrators and yet he was not presented as a witness at trial.
We are thrilled that Anthony is no longer behind the walls of Florida’s prison system and has been reunited with his family. IPF is concerned, however, that Anthony remains wrongfully convicted despite the only two pieces of evidence used to convict Anthony Marshall having been discredited and the one witness to the crime, who himself was a victim, believed Anthony was innocent. He will still spend his first year out in a halfway house and be burdened, for possibly many years, by onerous conditions of parole where one minor misstep could send him right back to his wrongful incarceration. In short, while physically not in custody, Anthony is not truly free. The fight for his freedom must continue.
Anthony’s supporters, including family, friends, IPF staff and students, outside Everglades Correctional Institution on Tuesday, August 26th
The scant evidence used to convict Anthony Marshall more than four decades ago is no longer reliable. The surviving victim believed in Anthony’s innocence and his remaining living family member has been a dedicated advocate for Anthony’s innocence. It’s time to right this wrong. IPF will continue to advocate for rectifying this miscarriage of justice and we will not stop fighting until Anthony fully achieves freedom. You can help by investing in our legal efforts to overturn Anthony’s wrongful conviction and those of other wrongfully incarcerated clients. With you by our side, we can vindicate Anthony and so many of our deserving clients who have been victimized by wrongful conviction.