A woman has married the man who was previously convicted of fatally shooting her brother in 1989, as he awaits a new trial over the alleged murder.
News 5 Cleveland reports that John Tiedjen and Crystal Straus - both from Cleveland, Ohio - tied the knot over the weekend, with the defendant's attorney, Kimberly Corral, officiating the nuptials.
Tiedjen proposed to Straus over the phone on New Year's in 2020, before the pair even knew he would be released from prison, the Washington Post reports.
Per Boston 25 News, on July 22, 57-year-old Tiedjen was released on bond after spending 32 years behind bars for allegedly taking the life of then 18-year-old Brian McGary.
Tiedjen was 25 when McGary's lifeless body was found in the apartment they shared. He had a stab wound and a fatal gunshot wound to the head.
After an intense three days of interrogation, Tiedjen gave investigators a signed statement confessing to killing McGary in self-defense.
Straus and Tiedjen's romance began after she wrote the inmate a letter saying she forgave him for killing her brother.
"And I wrote her a letter back and I said I didn’t do it, take a look at this stuff," Tiedjen told News 5 Cleveland. "I believe in God too, and I know things about it, but I didn’t do it."
"I had no powder burns, no gunshot residue, no blood, no cuts, no scrapes, nothing on my person or me or my clothing," he added.
Tiedjen believes McGary must have died by suicide and Straus soon came to believe in his innocence.
"I love him obviously, if I didn’t love him I would not be sitting here with him," Straus told the above outlet."I spent the whole time through Covid analyzing and learning about this case. We’ll get through this, it's going to be challenging, there’s no doubt about it."
Tiedjen was released from prison after photographic evidence and police reports not used in the original trial were submitted in the case.
During the initial interrogation, a Cleveland detective reportedly deceived Tiedjen about how substantial the case against him was. The same detective also allegedly told him he would get a better deal if he confessed to shooting McGary in self-defense.
