TORONTO — An Ontario man convicted of killing his wife in 1970 has won his 45-year battle to clear his name.
The province's top court today acquitted 75-year-old John Salmon of manslaughter in the death of his wife Maxine Ditchfield.
The prosecution also apologized to Salmon for a miscarriage of justice that sent him to prison for four years.
Salmon's trial in the 1970s heard that Ditchfield had died from a severe beating.
He maintained her injuries came from a series of falls at their home in Woodstock, Ont.
The Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted hired three pathologists to re-examine the evidence and concluded that Ditchfield had indeed fallen multiple times after suffering a stroke.
The new evidence allowed Salmon to have his case re-opened after all these years.
"Charged with killing the woman I loved and spending four years in prison for it was an awful experience," Salmon said in a statement before the hearing.
"The years since have been difficult, too. I have always carried the shame of a crime I did not commit."
Salmon, who called Monday a "very important day," said he has spent his life with the feeling that people shun him.
