ELKHART, Ind. — A mentally disabled man wrongfully convicted of killing a 94-year-old woman has reached an $11.7 million settlement with a northern Indiana city and former police officers, his attorneys said Friday.
The settlement for Andrew Royer, who served 16 years in prison after confessing to the murder of Helen Sailor, is the largest known settlement reached in Indiana in a wrongful conviction case, said Elliot Slosar, one of Royer's attorneys.
“It is no coincidence that Andy received the largest wrongful conviction settlement in Indiana history,” Slosar said in a statement. “Andy was among the most vulnerable in our society when he was coerced into a false confession and accused of a crime he did not commit.”
A jury convicted Royer of murder in 2005 and he was sentenced to 55 years in prison for the November 2002 murder of Sailor, who was found strangled in her Elkhart apartment.
Royer's attorneys argued on appeal that his confession to Sailor's murder was coerced during an interrogation that stretched over two days and that an Elkhart police detective exploited their client's intellectual disability.
Royer was released in 2020 after a special judge granted his request for a new trial. The judge ruled that Royer's confession was “unreliable” and “involuntary” and said investigators fabricated evidence, coerced a witness to give false testimony and withheld exculpatory evidence from his attorneys.
After prosecutors tried to overturn the judge's decision, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled that Royer's rights had been violated and that the detective committed perjury when he testified at trial that Royer knew details that only the killer would have known.
In 2021, prosecutors decided not to retry Royer, and the case against him was dismissed.
Royer's attorneys sued the city of Elkhart, its police department and others in 2022. The settlement announced Friday resolves the allegations against the city and the police department.
Royer's claims against Elkhart County officials, including the district attorney, are still pending.
Messages seeking comment on the settlement were left Friday by The Associated Press with the Elkhart mayor's office and the city's legal department.
Royer, who lives in Goshen, told The Indianapolis Star that the settlement money “will change my life.”
“I am now financially prepared for the rest of my life. I hope to help my family as best I can,” he said.
The Royer settlement is the latest example in which the city of Elkhart has agreed to pay a large sum to settle allegations of troubling police misconduct.
Last year, the city agreed to pay a Chicago man $7.5 million to settle his wrongful conviction lawsuit. Keith Cooper was pardoned after serving more than seven years in prison for an armed robbery he did not commit.