Gov. Bullock grants Barry Beach freedom

November 20: Beach is freed from prison after Gov. Steve Bullock grants his clemency request.

Barry Beach walked out of the Montana State Prison a free man a little after noon MST today, in what will likely be the final chapter in his decades-long quest for freedom.

“It’s nearly over”, said Stella Ziegler, a longtime Beach supporter in Billings.

“I think he’s going to have a good thanksgiving, a very good Thanksgiving”, Menicucci said. I never dreamed it was going to take this long’. “You have to hope, you have to pray and now those prayers are behind heard”.

Beach maintained he was coerced to confess after hours of intense interrogation.

At the age of 17, Beach was sentenced to 100 years in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder of Nees. He had been 17 when the crime was committed.

In 2011, a state District Court judge granted Beach a new trial, finding that there was potential new evidence in the case.

The cousin of a Montana woman who was killed in 1979 says the state’s governor should be ashamed for granting a clemency request to a man who spent three decades in prison for the crime. While speaking with another Indy reporter back in 2006, his 23rd year in prison, Beach imagined the travails that would lie ahead should he ever go free.

Beach’s request didn’t seek exoneration; instead, he asked to shorten his sentence so he could be released or paroled.

Under the clemency order, Bullock commuted Beach’s sentence to time served with an additional 10 years suspended, during which Beach will be on probation and supervised by the state Department of Corrections.

‘Mr. Beach has demonstrated an extended period of good behavior both in and out of prison, and the reasons for maintaining his 100-year-without-parole sentence at taxpayer expense diminish with each passing year’. Over the years as Beach worked for his freedom, his case gained notoriety, through a report on NBC’s Dateline as well as efforts by a Christian group that Beach reached out to.

“The overwhelming support from the Legislature was remarkable”, Camiel said. “That’s unprecedented, as far as I know”.

Barry Beach in 2011, during his earlier, brief release from prison.

Members of Kimberly Nees’ family said Friday that releasing Beach with so many questions unanswered was a mistake.

“I’ve yet to actually read the governor’s order, so I don’t know what the terminology is, but it’s my understanding it is a few type of a time served, so no, the chances of coming back this time which was probably my worst experience in life to be honest with you was having to come turn myself in and come back to this place”. “For the last time, because they can’t bring me back”.