Chicago man regains freedom after 24 years

A man who argued he was wrongfully convicted of setting a Chicago fire that killed a mother and her five children walked free from an Illinois prison Thursday after nearly a quarter-century behind bars, taking with him just $14.17 and a cloudy picture about how to begin anew.

James Kluppelberg, who had faced the death penalty but got life without parole instead, was released from the Menard Correctional Center in southern Illinois’ Chester, a day after Cook County prosecutors dropped their case against the 46-year-old man who unflinchingly professed his innocence all along.

“I have no idea what I’m going to do,” he told The Associated Press in a phone interview as he headed to St. Loius to catch a flight to Chicago. “I’ve got nothing.”

He said he was still in shock that he was released.

“I’m a very blessed man today,” he said.

Kluppelberg said his wife divorced him while he was behind bars, and that he lost contact with his siblings and hasn’t met his three grandchildren. Kluppelberg, who while serving time became an ordained minister, lost his mom to cancer eight years ago and emerged from prison with the less than $15 that remained from his inmate account.

Kluppelberg served 22 years of the sentence on murder and arson convictions in the 1984 blaze that killed Elva Lupercio, 28, and her five children, ages 3 to 10.

Kluppelberg’s attorneys say his exoneration came after a key witness against him admitted lying. They say other evidence has come under question, too.

Prosecutors abandoned the charges Wednesday after what they called a comprehensive re-investigation left them convinced they didn’t have enough to prove he did the crime. The re-investigation involved an expert’s evaluation of evidence and scientific analysis.

Santos Lupercio — the dead mother’s husband and the children’s father — was the fire’s lone survivor, fracturing his skull in his jump from a second-floor window. He has an unlisted home telephone number and could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Kluppelberg, who has been behind bars since his 1988 arrest, was working for a company that boarded up burned-out and abandoned buildings when the deadly fire broke out. Prosecutors argued he passed out business cards to survivors of the blaze as firefighters fought to control the flames.

Police initially ruled that the fire began accidentally. But a former Chicago Fire Department investigator, Francis Burns, theorized the blaze began with the ignition of a pile of newspapers or rags, with the alleged burn patterns suggesting the fire was intentionally set.

Prosecutors had insisted Kluppelberg, when questioned by police about two vehicle arson fires on Christmas Eve 1987, confessed to starting the deadly fire, but the confession ultimately was ruled inadmissable at trial.

A judge found Kluppelberg guilty in July 1989 of six first-degree murder counts and three arson counts largely on the testimony of three-time convicted burglar Duane Glassco, who at the time of the fire was Kluppelberg’s housemate.

Glassco insisted he saw from an attic window Kluppelberg enter the family’s home twice the night of the fire, the last time just minutes before the blaze.

But Kluppelberg’s attorney, Karl Leonard, said Thursday that advances in fire science since Kluppelberg’s conviction — specifically how fires behave — changed, making Burns’ theory impossible. And Leonard said Glassco’s testimony implicating Kluppelberg has been debunked, noting that aerial photographs later showed Glassco’s vantage point from the attic window the night of the fire was blocked by another building.

On appeal, Kluppelberg argued that his defense attorney ignored his wishes to have a jury trial and to testify to confront his accusers. Kluppelberg also said his trial counsel failed to submit into evidence police reports classifying the fire as accidental.

Just a few hours out of prison, he was already surprised at how much the world had change during his time on the inside.

“When I got locked up, cellphones were carried on shoulders in bags,” Kluppelberg said. “Computer screens were in black and green.”