A Georgia man has filed a lawsuit against the county and investigators after receiving a false conviction for killing his friend during a game of Russian Roulette in 1996.
Josh Storey argues in his 50-page federal lawsuit filed last week that he was pushed into telling detectives that he had inadvertently shot and killed 15-year-old Brian Bowling.
“[Investigators] made the illusory promise that if [Storey] just admitted that he accidentally shot his friend, the case would be closed…Immediately after telling the detectives what they wanted to hear, the promise that the case would be closed disappeared, and [Storey] was arrested for involuntary manslaughter,” the lawsuit read.
Later, the 17-year-old’s accusations escalated to murder, leading to his eventual conviction. Before their release in 2022, he and fellow defendant Lee Clark spent 25 years in prison.
The complaint names Floyd County, Police Chief Mark Wallace, former county coroner Craig Burnes, and former county police officer David Stewart as defendants.
“The only reasonable conclusion that any trained detective could have arrived at was that the shooting was a tragic accident and no more,” the lawsuit reads.
According to the Georgia Innocence Project, Georgia is now one of 12 states without a provision that pays falsely convicted individuals following their release. They claim the process of receiving governmental compensation is time-consuming and necessitates the involvement of a legislator.
Cain Storey Lawsuit, by Jennifer Smith on Scribd.