Man who claims he was torture victim of Jon Burge’s ‘midnight crew’ released after nearly 30 years behind bars

A man who alleges detectives working under former Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge tortured him into falsely confessing to murder was released from custody last week after prosecutors dropped charges against him.

Keith Walker, 52, spent 29 years behind bars.

“I’m trying to get my life in order,” Walker, who’s staying with relatives in a Chicago suburb said during a phone interview Wednesday. He plans to reunite with his four children, take business classes and “keep myself busy one day at a time.”

“I was saddened, hurt, away from family, being incarcerated for something I never did, it was hurtful. I can’t never make up for that time it’s impossible,” he said.

The first thing he did with his freedom: eat.

“I ate a marvelous meal. I had grilled salmon, mixed vegetables, a sweet potato with cinnamon and some fried macaroni and cheese with some kind of sauce, and some lemonade. It was a blessing and an honor,” he said.

Walker claims he was forced to sign a false murder confession to the fatal 1991 South Side shooting of a teenager from Arlington Heights after police beat him with a phone book and shocked his genitals. In 1994, he was sentenced to life for the murder.

On Aug. 13, Walker was released from an Illinois Department of Corrections mental health treatment center in Joliet, according to his attorney Sean Starr, who works with the University of Chicago’s Exoneration Project.

The release came hours after the Illinois attorney general’s office agreed to drop the case against Walker.

“After determining that we are unable to sustain our burden of proof, we ... took steps to end the case against Keith Walker, and we have been in touch with the family of the victim of the underlying crime to inform them of our decision,” the attorney general’s office said in a statement. “The Attorney General is committed to continuing to prosecute violent crimes when cases are referred to our office, to supporting the victims of crime and their families, and to working toward police reform that will restore public trust and avoid undermining prosecutions.”

Beginning in 2003, the attorney general’s office was appointed as the special prosecutor handling a number of cases involving individuals who were convicted of crimes investigated by Burge and officers under his command.

“Justice didn’t exist for Keith for three decades, he finally got a small portion of justice,” Starr said.

“He was yet another victim of a systemic regime of racism, torture and oppression by the Chicago Police Department.”

Walker believes Burge was present when he was being tortured, although Burge’s name didn’t appear on any police documents in the case, Starr said.

Burge, who died in 2018, was a commander at Area 2 on the South Side.

He headed a “midnight crew” of officers accused of systemic abuse of more than 100 African American suspects. The cases stretched from the 1970s to 1991.