Man locked up for Detroit carjacking freed after another person confesses to crime

DETROIT (FOX 2) - More than a decade after he was sent to prison for a Detroit carjacking he maintained he did not commit, a man is free.

Kenneth Bullock, 44, was sentenced to up to 70 years in prison for a 2011 carjacking. That conviction and sentence were overturned when another person came forward and took credit for the crime.

The backstory:

According to the National Register of Exonerations, a woman named Yulanda Russell had her 2012 Dodge Charger stolen by a man outside of her home on Heyden Street on Oct. 20, 2011.

In January 2013, police received a tip that the stolen Charger was being sold on Craigslist as a 2011 model, not a 2012. Undercover police officers visited a man who called himself Mike to see the car. The undercover police noted that the vehicle identification number on the windshield was covered, but located an uncovered VIN. Using that VIN, they determined the vehicle was the 2012 Charger that had been carjacked years prior.

As police arrested Mike, Bullock drove up in a rental vehicle, said the Charger was his vehicle, and showed police a car title matching the fraudulent vehicle identification. He was also arrested.

Two days after Bullock's arrest, Russell picked him out of a police lineup as the person who carjacked her. Despite concerns about the makeup of the lineup and Bullock's description not fully matching the one Russell initially provided police, the case went to trial and Bullock was convicted of carjacking and armed robbery.

At Bullock's sentencing, it was revealed that the owner of an auto collision business, who had not been called on to testify, said that he bought the car after it was damaged in a crash in 2012 and then sold it to Bullock. The judge questioned his credibility, though, saying that he did not report profit from the sale to the IRS and did not register the car with the Secretary of State before selling it. 

Bullock told the judge he was innocent before learning his sentence.

"I know I have made some mistakes in my past," said Bullock, who had a criminal record from a decade before he was arrested for the carjacking. "I never once seen this victim. I did not carjack this lady. I swear to God. I don’t know nothing about no carjacking."

Dig deeper:

Bullock was handed down a 30-70-year prison sentence for the carjacking and armed robbery convictions, along with a 2-year sentence for felony firearms. 

He spent years in prison before a convicted murderer and gang member admitted to carjacking Russell. According to the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office vacating Bullock's conviction, Jamare Rucker confessed to carjacking a Charger that was then used in the carjacking of Russell later that same day.

Other evidence later revealed that another man who was involved in the murder Rucker was convicted of had used a fake title to obtain a clear title for the car in Illinois. After several people had the car, including a person who crashed it, it eventually made it to Bullock's mother.

"There is no apparent connection between Mr. Bullock and the parties who orchestrated the fraudulent title transfers," the prosecutor's office wrote in its ruling. 

Bullock's case was dismissed on May 28, and he was released from prison. 

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