After 27 years wrongfully locked up for murder, Bryan Hooper embraces exoneration, freedom

In his first moment as a free man after nearly three decades, Bryan Hooper raised both fists over his head in exultation on the stairs of the Stillwater prison.

The 54-year-old walked out of the prison at 10:49 a.m. on Thursday, released from a life sentence for first-degree murder in the 1998 killing of 77-year-old Ann Prazniak in her Minneapolis apartment.

“I will continue to live my life the best way I can,” Hooper said amid tears and hugs from his children and supporters about his plans moving forward. “Hopefully good things happen from here. That’s what I’m looking for.”

The key witness in the murder case, Chalaka Lewis, recanted her testimony implicating Hooper and confessed to the murder earlier this year. Following the confession, the Great North Innocence Project filed a petition to free Hooper, which the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office supported, calling the conviction a failure of justice.

Hennepin County District Judge Marta Chou found the conviction “was tainted by false evidence and that without this false testimony, the jury might have reached a different conclusion.”

Lewis is serving time for a conviction of aggravated assault in Georgia. No charges have been filed against her following her confession.

Prazniak was found dead inside her bedroom closet. Beige packaging tape was wrapped several times over her mouth and she died of asphyxiation before being shoved inside a box. In the weeks before Prazniak’s body was found, neighbors said numerous people were coming in and out of the apartment at 1818 Park Av. to use drugs and have sex.

Hooper has claimed from the beginning that Lewis, the state’s main witness in the trial, had committed the killing. DNA evidence showed Lewis’ fingerprint on the packaging tape that was used to tie up and suffocate Prazniak. No DNA evidence linked Hooper to the killing.

Officials said they have not been able to identify any remaining next of kin for Prazniak.

Hooper’s daughter Bri’ana Hooper and son Bryan Hooper Jr., shared long embraces with their father as he left the prison. Hooper Jr. helped his father put on earrings before the trio drove away.

The first stop, Hooper said, was wherever his kids wanted to go. For his daughter, Bri’ana Hooper, that was her grandmother’s house.

“He probably wants to see his mom,” Bri’ana said. “She’s been waiting a long time for this. I’m happy to bring her son home to her.”

Jeff Dean, Hooper’s appellate lawyer, has stayed with the case and filed several appeals ending at the Minnesota Supreme Court in 2013, when it ruled that a post-conviction board was correct in determining the new evidence was not enough to grant Hooper a new trial.

As the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office Conviction Integrity Unit [CIU] was carrying out its review of the case, Minneapolis police Sgt. Mark Suchta interviewed Lewis, where she recanted her testimony and confessed to killing Prazniak.

Dean, who called the start of Hooper’s new life a “great day,” said he initially took the case because he believed so strongly in Hooper’s innocence.

“The police had tunnel vision,” he said. “They made the decision that they thought it was Bryan Hooper that committed this crime and then they followed that and they couldn’t let it go. ... I believe that the police mishandled this case completely.”

Hooper thanked Dean and the Great North Innocence Project for their work to overturn his conviction. He also thanked Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty for having “the courage to see justice be done.”

Hooper joins other exonerated murderers like Marvin Haynes, freed in 2023, and Edgar Barrientos-Quintana, freed last year, after similar investigations found that their convictions were flawed.

Hooper said he hopes jailhouse informants like Lewis are “eradicated from the justice system.” Other witnesses have recanted their testimonies as well, including jailhouse informants, throughout the years since the trial.

“I should have been out a long time ago,” Hooper said when asked about Lewis’ confession. “But apparently it ain’t enough when they tell the truth. But it’s enough when they lie.”