A California man who spent 38 years in prison for crimes he did not commit has reached a $25 million settlement with Inglewood and Los Angeles County, which his attorneys say is the largest wrongful conviction settlement in the state’s history.
Maurice Hastings, now 72, was convicted in 1988 of the carjacking, rape, and murder of 30-year-old Roberta Wydermyer and the attempted murders of her husband and his friend. Wydermyer was abducted in June 1983 after leaving home to buy medicine and cigarettes, forced into the trunk of her Cadillac, and shot in the head. The next day, her husband, Billy Wydermyer, and family friend George Pinson saw a man driving her car. When they tried to follow him, the driver opened fire, striking Billy in the head. He survived after emergency surgery.
Although there was no physical or forensic evidence against Hastings, investigators pursued him while overlooking another suspect, Kenneth Packnett. Packnett was arrested weeks later with a revolver matching the type used in the killing and jewelry resembling items taken from Wydermyer, but he was never investigated in connection with her death. Hastings’s first trial in 1986 ended in a hung jury. At a retrial in 1988, he was convicted of capital murder, robbery, attempted murder, and assault with a firearm. Prosecutors sought the death penalty, but the jury sentenced him to life without parole.
Hastings maintained his innocence and repeatedly sought DNA testing of biological evidence collected during the autopsy. His requests were denied until 2021, when he submitted a claim to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit, with the support of the Los Angeles Innocence Project. Testing revealed that the DNA found on the victim did not belong to Hastings but matched Packnett, a convicted sex offender whose criminal history included kidnappings and sexual assaults involving victims confined in car trunks. Packnett was never investigated for the murder and went on to commit additional violent crimes before he died in prison in 2020.
In October 2022, prosecutors and the Innocence Project jointly moved to vacate the conviction, and Hastings was released at age 69. In March 2023, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge declared him “factually innocent,” conclusively clearing his name.
Hastings filed a federal civil rights complaint against two Inglewood Police Department detectives and a district attorney’s investigator in November 2023. The lawsuit alleged that police and prosecutors deprived him of a fair trial, conspired to pursue a wrongful conviction, and failed to intervene when misconduct occurred.
According to the filing, officers ignored evidence implicating Packnett, created false reports to suggest Hastings possessed a revolver or a gold tooth matching witness descriptions, and manipulated eyewitnesses who initially did not identify him. The complaint also accused police of withholding forensic findings from the autopsy, including hair evidence excluding Hastings as a suspect.
In a statement released through his attorneys, Hastings said: “No amount of money could ever restore the 38 years of my life that were stolen from me. But this settlement is a welcome end to a very long road, and I look forward to moving on with my life.”
