DALLAS — On the evening of July 23, 1993, just outside Tyler, Texas, the body of Elnora Griffin was found on the living room floor of her home.
She had been fatally stabbed.
One month later, authorities were confident they had their man -- Edward Ates.
The younger years
Ates and his younger brother, Kelvin, grew up as country kids. He loved the outdoors and playing sports, particularly basketball.
"My dad used to tell us, come home, take our school clothes off before we go play," Kelvin says. "My brother would get off two bus stops, get off and go play basketball. I'm like, 'Edward, all you gotta do is come home and take your clothes off, man. Keep both of us from getting our butt tore up.'"
Ed, like most kids with a love of the game, suited up for his high school team. It's a fun conversation even today, according to Ed's wife.
"Any time we talk about basketball, he was the star," Kim Ates says. "He was the beast, he was the best there was."
His former coaches have a lot to say, too.
"You know he was a lot bigger than he was good, but he played hard and he wanted to be good," says former Chapel Hill High School head basketball coach Wally Dawkins.
"A lot of kids play the game to be able to say they played," says Alan Johnston, another former Chapel Hill basketball coach. "There is that certain group that has a passion for the game, and I would Edward in that category."
But sometimes life can turn as fast as a flip of a coin. And it did for Ed.
Accused of murder
Ed's aspirations of playing college basketball fell short because of some off-the-court issues. And it only got worse for him from there.
Ed became the prime suspect in the murder of his former neighbor, Elnora Griffin. He was her handyman, and neighbors told police he was at her home the night of the crime.
There were some inconsistencies in his alibi, and within a month of the slaying, Ates would be arrested and charged in Griffin's murder.
"There never was strong evidence against Ed to begin with, and the jury just could not come to a unanimous decision," says Bob Ruff, of the "Truth & Justice" podcast. "Ultimately, in July of 1996, Ed's case ended up in a hung jury."
Ed took this as his golden opportunity to put his nightmare behind him. He met and married his wife, Kim, and had two children with her.
However, five months into Kim's pregnancy with their second child, the unthinkable happened.
Ed was arrested a second time -- once again for the murder of Elnora Griffin.
"This time, for starters, they had an all-white jury," Ruff says. "They also brought in a new forensic expert that testified about some forensic evidence that now tied Ed to the crime scene. And then the state introduced the testimony of another jailhouse inmate, who ironically later admitted his testimony was all a lie -- but well after the fact that Ed was found guilty and sentenced to 99 years."
Ates was found guilty and sent to prison in August 1998.
Prison and basketball
Ed and Kim resigned themselves to the fact that, if ever released from prison, Ates would either have spent the majority of his life behind bars or die there.
"Devastation," Kim says. "My whole world just came crumbling down. In the very beginning, time was moving so slow. In 27 years, he would be eligible for parole. There was no way in the world we could reach 27 years."
For Ates, "time" was a curse -- a precious gift that was taken away.
But, incredible as it may sound, the one thing that freed Ed from the walls that confined him was the one thing that not even a prison could deny him: basketball.
"That’s what basketball or sport does, it gives people a peace," says Ates' former coach, Johnston. "It gives people a release. It gives people a chance to go into that arena, where they forget everything else around them."
Says Kim: "The love of basketball gave him the outlet that he needed to be free mentally."
"You never know what type of dark place a person is in," Kelvin adds. "And you never know what gives them the light. Basketball was his light."
One of the darkest memories of Ates' imprisonment was the loss of both his mother and grandmother, and his inability to grieve alongside his family.
The light, however, eventually found Ed.
Freedom
"I didn't know what I was going to do, and then about two months later, the phone rang," Kelvin remembers. "It was my brother. He said, 'Man, you know I'm getting out?' I'm like, 'What?!'"
This time, the flip of a coin was in Ates' favor. The "Truth & Justice" podcast that decided to look into his murder conviction proved to be the spark that caught the attention of the Innocence Project of Texas. Their efforts then led to his eventual parole from prison.
"I came out, and I was choked up," Ates says. "I could barely breathe. I had tears in my eyes. I saw my son and he came to me and he hugged me. It was the best feeling in the world."
"Zach had never seen his father outside of those prison walls," Kim says. "For him to yearn for his father, that presence was overwhelming. That day, we will never forget."
Adds Kelvin: "God took my mom and then gave my brother his angel wings and sent him to me -- and now we're back together again."
In 2018, after serving 20 years in confinement for a murder he refuses to claim, Ates was a free man.
"I felt kind of like a small sense of relief, that I'm finally going home today," Ates says. "I'm finally going home. I mean they took 20 years from me that I'll never see again. They took my life."
So, what led to his freedom?
"At the end of the day, the thing that really helped Ed get paroled was biological proof that what the state thought proved that he did it, proved actually that he didn't," says Allison Clayton, deputy director of the Innocence Project."
That forensic evidence was a specimen lifted from Ed's shoe that allegedly tied him to the murder scene.
It later proved to be false and not credible.
Spreading a message
Frederick Douglass was once quoted as saying, "It's easier to build strong children than to repair broken men."
Following his parole, Ates couldn't wait to do just that. These days, he spends time visiting high school students to share his story, and to help spread a message of appreciating life while you can.
Recently, he gave one such presentation to the Lancaster High School boys basketball team.
"My name is Edward Ates," he told the team. "I was incarcerated for 20 years, wrongly convicted of a murder case. By the grace of God, I'm a free man today. [Basketball] was my getaway in prison. Seven days a week, this is what I did. I was having some kind of problem, I would go play basketball."
He continued: "But it's hard, you gotta fight everyday, try to redeem your name. You just don't want to go down that road. You just don't want to make the wrong choice in life."
There wasn't a set of wandering eyes on that gym floor. Ed's message was well received.
To lighten the moment, Lancaster head coach Ferrin Douglas surprised Ates with an invitation to show off his skills in a quick one-on-one match against one of the players.
"Don't do me too bad, man," Ates joked to the player Douglas selected. "Come on."
What's next?
Despite his parole, being reunited with his family and even enjoying the role that sports continue to play in his journey, Ates' wait for his complete freedom is far from over.
"I want a full exoneration," he says.
Unfortunately for Ates, his parole isn't a legal validation of his innocence or his guilt as it comes to his murder conviction. But his legal team is now pursuing that full exoneration.
Until that time, if ever, Ates will remain a convicted felon.
"I want to be able to say that I'm fully free," he says. "I want to be able to talk to people without them saying, 'You're that guy that was incarcerated for kill that lady.' I just want my name back."