Elsie Oscarson is free!
After 21 years in prison, Elsie Oscarson was finally released on September 2, 2019. She was granted a new trial, but because it would be rolling the dice one more time, she took an Alford plea, which allows her to maintain her innocence, but she must still remain on a sex offender registry, cannot be in the same room or in a park or school with anyone under seventeen years of age without another adult present, and has to abide by other restrictions. She also cannot initiate contact with her children, though they may contact her through the courts.
Despite these restrictions. Elsie is ecstatic to be free, determined to abide by all regulations, and is living with her sister in a home in northern Vermont. She looks forward to gardening, cooking, taking walks, and drinking eggnog, and eating whatever she wants. (She has already had a big steak.)
As a volunteer and former board member with the National Center for Reason and Justice, I was instrumental in investigating her case, determining her likely innocence, and helping to get her case taken on by Seth Lipschutz, her lawyer (who retired just as she was freed) for the Vermont Prisoner’s Rights division of the Defender General’s office. The NCRJ has sponsored her case for many years and is delighted that she is finally free after being imprisoned for over two decades for offenses she almost certainly did not commit. –Mark Pendergrast