For a man who spent 19 years locked up for a murder he says he didn't commit, DeWayne McKinney emerged from prison a man at peace.
He wasn't angry or bitter. On weekends, he spoke at churches about the faith that carried him through those lost years. He appeared at anti-death penalty conferences and told his story.
And when some money came his way from a legal settlement, he turned it into a multimillion-dollar business in the Hawaiian Islands, where he lived in an oceanfront home and could fall asleep listening to the crashing surf. Movie studio executives were interested in turning his life story into a feature film.
But McKinney's remarkable story came to an end early Tuesday.
The 47-year-old McKinney crashed the scooter he was riding into a wooden light pole in Honolulu about 12:30 a.m. and was thrown onto the pavement, said Caroline Sluyter, a spokeswoman for the Honolulu Police Department.
McKinney, who was not wearing a helmet, died at a local hospital.
"He had a really beautiful soul. He really did," said Denise Gragg, an assistant public defender who successfully obtained McKinney's release from prison. "The most amazing thing about him was the lack of anger he had when he came out. . . . He really was one of the best people I've ever known."
McKinney made national news in 2000 after then-Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas obtained his release from prison, saying he had been wrongly convicted of a 1980 robbery-murder at a Burger King in Orange.
Prosecutors originally had sought the death penalty for McKinney, but he was sentenced to life in prison without parole after jurors deadlocked in the penalty portion of his trial.
McKinney, who was a member of a Los Angeles street gang, was arrested in December 1980 and charged with the killing of Walter Horace Bell, 19, during a holdup at the fast-food restaurant.
Restaurant employees had picked out his mug shot and said he looked like the killer. Nearly two decades later, however, another suspect emerged and Rackauckas agreed to help secure McKinney's release, even though the other suspect was never charged.
When McKinney was freed in January 2000, he was forced to start his life from scratch. He didn't have a driver's license, Social Security number, savings account or a place to live.
Initially, he settled in Orange County, working at UC Irvine as an audio-visual technician and living for free in an apartment funded by a local businesswoman.
