Tragic story of young man who was about to sign a baseball deal when he was jailed for a murder he didn't commit - and was imprisoned for 27 YEARS before being exonerated

William 'Billy' Dillon looked set to be signed by the Detroit Tigers in 1981



But he was framed for the gruesome murder of a gay man on a Florida beach

It was not until 2008 that he was freed after DNA tests proved his innocence



In 1981 William Dillon was a happy-go-lucky 21-year-old man who had everything to live for.

A supremely talented high school baseball player, he had just been selected for a final trial with the Detroit Tigers who appeared desperate to have him sign a contract.

And William, known to his friends as Billy, could well have become as star - a powerful 6ft 4ins, he could throw 90mph with ease. Curveballs, sliders even the new and tricky split-finger fastball, he could do it all.



Free: William Dillon who served 27 years in prison after being framed for the gruesome murder of man in 1981

But in a shocking miscarriage of justice, the only ball William would get to play for the next 27 years would be behind prison walls, as detailed in a n sbnation.com feature .

On December 4, 1981, a jury found William Dillon guilty of the murder of 40-year-old James Dvorak, an openly gay construction supervisor, who was found beaten to death in Canova Beach Park, Florida.

Dvorak was found at a place known locally as 'Queer Pier', a popular pick-up spot for gay men. His face had been smashed in and his lips ripped off.

To the jury who sent him down, the evidence against William would have been more than compelling.

There was the testimony of a 56-year-old gay man called John Parker who claimed to have been in the Canova Beach Park car lot when a blood-splattered William emerged from the woods.

Parker said he had paid William $20 for oral sex and that the next day he had found Wiliam's bloody t-shirt in the back of his pick-up truck with the words 'surf -it' on the front.

William's then girlfriend Dona Parish testified she had found William on the night of the murder standing next to the dead body, bloody and shirtless.

And then there was dog-handler John Preston, whose amazing sniffer dog had managed to trace William's scent all the way from the courthouse to the scene of the crime.

In addition, a man who William had shared a cell with while awaiting trial in jail claimed William had confessed to the murder and had even demonstrated how he had killed Dvorak.

For the young William sitting in the dock it must have been a living nightmare.



If truth be told he was no angel. He was known to be openly homophobic, although in 1981 as a young straight man it would be more unusual if he wasn't.

Dillon, performed an emotional rendition of the National Anthem before a match at the Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla. last year



He liked a drink and smoked marijuana, and by some accounts used to crash parties to steal booze and drugs.

As he heard the evidence against him he mouthed off in court on more than one occasion and had to be repeatedly told to quieten down by the judge.

Knowing he was innocent, William had never arranged for a lawyer to be present at the initial interviews and right up until the last moment he felt sure justice would prevail.



In fact all the evidence against him was a sham.

Just 12 days after the trial, the girlfriend Donna Parish retracted her entire story and admitted she had been having sex with a police Sergeant investigating the case.

She said a member of the Brevard County Sheriff's Office had told her she would 'rot in jail' if she didn't testify against William.

Despite this the judge refused to hold a retrial saying there was still enough evidence to convict William without her testimony.

But John Preston, whose amazing sniffer dog had seemingly manged to track William's scent so spectacularly was later exposed as a conman.

When his dogs were subjected to independent tests they failed and his tracking dog trainer's certificate was found to be a forgery.



He had apparently been fed information by the Sheriff's Department so he could repeatedly pick out William as the offender.

And John Parker - who had identified William as the man he had given a lift to after emerging blood-splattered from the woods - had originally given a description that bore no resemblance at all to William.

While Parker told police the man had a short curly hair and a thin mustache, William was clean shaven with long shaggy hair.

John Chapman, the man who claimed William had confessed to him while awaiting trial, later admitted he'd lied to avoid charges being brought against him and that a sheriff's agent had told him exactly what to say.

But in December 1981 William was sent to Florida State Prison, home to some of the country's most violent offenders.

On his first night he was attacked by five men who took turns in raping him. After that he was raped on a regular basis.

Governor Rick Scott signs a bill for Dillon's wrongful conviction as the 52-year-old, left, looks on

He was put on laundry duty with Ted Bundy, the serial rapist and murderer.

It would have been a terrible experience for any man, but for someone who knew he was innocent, it must have been unbearable.

His only release was learning the guitar and playing prison softball, at which he excelled.

As the years passed he continued to play, even after his knees gave way and he had to drag himself from base to base.

In many U.S. prisons, if you don't play softball, chances you bet on it and as William gained a reputation for fielding winning teams it meant he earned protection from the prison's big men.

In 1996 Wilton Dedge, a man who had been convicted of raping a woman at knifepoint applied for evidence in his case to undergo the then brand new DNA testing.

In 2001 the tests proved he had not committed the crime and in 2004 he was finally released.

The following year William, who had by then spent 24 years behind bars, applied for DNA testing in his own trial.

The incriminating yellow T-shirt discovered in the back of John Parker's pick-up truck was found to have none of William's DNA on it. The traces of blood were from the victim James Dvorak and another man.

Billy Dillon spent 27 years behind bars until DNA evidence proved his innocence

Despite this the state still rejected calls for a new trial based on DNA evidence and instead scheduled a evidentiary hearing for 2009.

But William was released, albeit on a $100,000 bond, and on November 18 2008 he took his first steps of freedom in well over a quarter of a century.

In a detailed and fascinating interview with writer Brandon Sneed, William recalled: 'The feeling is something you only reach a few times in your life.

'It's a man in the desert who finally finds water.'

Just a few weeks after the evidentiary hearing the state filed a nole prosequi meaning they had decided to dismiss all charges.

A few years later in 2012 William was granted a full pardon by Florida Governor Rick Scott.

After he was cleared the Brevard County Sheriff's Office reopened the Dvorak case. Eventually a man named Phil Huff, who was 17 at the time came forward.

He said that for years he had been desperate to confess and that on the night of Dvorak's death he had been hanging out on the beach, drinking and smoking marijuana with three other men Daryl Novak, Eric Novak and James Johnstone.

According to Huff, Dvorak had approached the group and they had started chatting. He had a beer and a few drags on one of the joints being passed around.

Dvorak and Johnstone then wandered off. After a while the other members of the group went looking for them.

When they were discovered the couple having sex in the woods, Johnstone pretended he was being attacked and started punching Dvorak.

The Novak brothers joined in the attack. At one point Dvorak managed to get up and run away but the according to Huff, the Novaks chased him down the beach and continued the beating until Dvorak was still.