On March 22, 1987, 33-year-old white man, a married father of three, was working at his office in the warehouse district of Dallas. It was late on a Sunday night, when (police say) two Black men grabbed him walking to his BMW, robbed him, hit him over the head with a blunt object, cracking his skull in five places, and stuffed him in the trunk of his car. They drove to the poor Black neighborhood of West Dallas, where they left him on the street. The victim died, and four days later, after an astonishingly skimpy investigation, police made an arrest.

Ben Spencer was 22 years old, newly married with a baby on the way. No physical evidence connected him to the crime. He had no history of violence. An alibi witness placed him miles away from the assault. Months later, a jury sent Spencer to life in prison based on the paper-thin evidence.

Bringing Ben Home tells a personal story within a larger legal catastrophe: why it’s so easy to convict an innocent person and nearly impossible to undo the mistake. Ben Spencer spent 34 years in a maximum-security prison. During that time, a minister who founded the nation’s first innocence organization reinvestigated Ben’s case. A trial judge ruled he was actually innocent. The Texas high court disagreed, confirming he would die in prison.

In 2017, I reported a story for The Atlantic and NPR, and uncovered further evidence of his innocence. Ben’s case haunted me. I continued researching. I moved to Dallas for a few months, and, often accompanied by a private investigator with a gun, interviewed dozens of people, tracking down old witnesses and finding new ones. I combed police files and court records. I found evidence in the unlikeliest places: critical documents in a rusty abandoned clothes dryer, and possible DNA evidence in a mismarked box in Dallas’ crime laboratory. None of this mattered – until serendipity struck. (To find out what happened, you’ll have to read, or listen to, the book.)

On March 12, 2021, Ben Spencer walked out of prison, and he was exonerated – fully cleared – on August 29, 2024. It is a bittersweet ending to a tragic mistake. And yet, the system is reforming. This book is full of heroes, and hope. It changed my life. I hope you enjoy it. 

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