A Pennsylvania man who spent more than four decades behind bars for a murder he did not commit is now facing possible deportation to India.
Subramanyam “Subu” Vedam, 64, was exonerated earlier this month after the Centre County District Attorney dismissed the murder charges against him.
Vedam, Pennsylvania’s longest-incarcerated person to be cleared of a crime, had been convicted in 1983 for the murder of 19-year-old college student Tom Kinser, whose body was found nine months after he disappeared in 1980.
It is reported by USA Today that Kinser and Vedam were former classmates and briefly lived together as roommates. Vedam asked Kinser for a ride on the day the student vanished. Despite the absence of evidence linking him to the crime, Vedam was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. He also received an additional sentence for a drug offence, served concurrently. Throughout his imprisonment, Vedam maintained his innocence and pursued appeals.
New evidence in the case emerged in 2022, leading to his exoneration. The district attorney confirmed there would be no new trial.
However, just days after his release, Vedam was taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The agency cited a 1988 deportation order linked to his prior murder conviction and drug offence. ICE described him as “a career criminal with a rap sheet dating back to 1980,” despite his recent exoneration.
Vedam’s family and legal team are fighting to keep him in the United States, the only home he has ever known. “All we want is for him to be home with us and to be able to move forward in life,” his niece Zoë Miller-Vedam told USA Today.
Miller-Vedam also noted that Vedam has little connection to India. “He doesn’t speak Hindi,” she said.
“We tease him that he has more of a Philadelphia accent than anything else, because that’s the only way he’s ever spoken. Any memories he has of India are in a distant past and an India that doesn’t exist anymore.”
His lawyer, Ava Benach, emphasised to USA Today that Vedam arrived in the U.S. as an infant and was a lawful permanent resident at the time of his arrest. “He forfeited four decades of his life to a prison sentence for a murder he didn’t commit,” Benach said.
“He should have the opportunity to rebuild his life here.”
Vedam is currently being held at the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania, as a motion to reopen his immigration case is reviewed by the Board of Immigration Appeals. His family hopes his decades of wrongful imprisonment and contributions to prison education and rehabilitation will persuade authorities to allow him to remain in the U.S.
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