'I don't hold anything against Saskatoon,' David Milgaard says of wrongful conviction
Spent 23 years in prison for 1969 murder of Saskatoon nurse Gail Miller
David Milgaard says he has mixed feelings about coming back to Saskatoon.
He was wrongfully convicted for the 1969 murder of Saskatoon nurse Gail Miller. He was a teenager at the time.
After spending 23 years in prison, he was released in 1992 when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled he should get a new trial. DNA evidence eventually cleared Milgaard and helped convict Larry Fisher.
"I don't hold anything against Saskatoon itself or the city but somewhere inside me there's that sense of, you know, it was a bad place ... and as a result of a set of circumstances [here] I ended up wrongfully convicted," Millgaard told Saskatoon Morning host Leisha Grebinski.
I think it might be ironic that a result of this whole experience I've become the person that I've become and I like that person.- David Milgaard
Milgaard joined a panel discussion Wednesday at the University of Saskatchewan on the subject of wrongful convictions. Since his release from prison, Milgaard has advocated for the wrongfully convicted.
"I speak publicly because it's important for people to be aware that, as we speak, there are wrongfully convicted people inside prison," said Milgaard. "The process by which they are able to get out of prison is flawed terribly and isn't working."
After over two decades of freedom, Milgaard said sometimes he still feels angry about his experience in the justice system especially when he speaks with others who have also been wrongfully convicted.
"But I hope that in my presentations and the way that I try to bring a picture to people that listen to me talk, that it's done [with] ... generosity caring and concern."
Milgaard now lives in Calgary with his two children. He works as a community support worker there.
"I think it might be ironic that a result of this whole experience I've become the person that I've become and I like that person."