Michael Harper

Michael Harper, a local business owner in Woodlawn with no criminal history, has served over 35 years in prison for arson resulting in two deaths. He has a clemency petition that has sat on the Governor's desk for over three years. Currently he resides at Western Illinois Correctional Center, located in Mount Sterling, IL.

Early Saturday morning May 28th, 1988, a fire started at the Magic Video store in Woodlawn. The fire spread down 63rd Street through a barbershop, sandwich shop, and eventually the King Chef restaurant. The owner of King Chef and an acquaintance had chosen to spend the night in the store, and were found deceased that morning from the fire.

A firefighter who walked through the video store once the fire went out, said the place stank of gasoline. Someone searching through trash behind the store later found a 2-gallon can of gasoline buried under some clothes.

According to police, a Citgo employee, Cecil Hingston, said earlier that morning he saw two men in a Ford Bronco fill up a gas can, later identifying Harper's uncle and cousin, Albert Harper and Geronia Ford. Years later Hingston renounced this testimony, stating police pressured him to lie about what he saw. Hingston has since passed and can no longer testify to whether the police leaned on him to provide this testimony or not. Police did not audit the Citgo receipts or gas pump information to corroborate this.The eventual suspects’ clothes were allegedly not checked for signs of gasoline.

A bystander, Sid Malone, told a detective he saw a vehicle with license plate GAS 403 stop near the store, with two men jumping out - one with a gas can in hand - and go into the video store. Harper's lawyers claim Malone was illiterate and would not have been able to read the license plate. Malone has since passed and this was never tested in court.

At the scene, Michael Harper identified himself as the co-owner of Magic Video and told the police he would go to the station to assist the investigation. He told the police that he did drive a Ford Bronco with a GAS 403 license plate and had the only keys to the store.

Arthur Brown was a local handyman who was at the store earlier that morning at Harper's request to, according to Harper, come fix a door to the building. Harper claims the police threatened to arrest his mother over the case, which led him to eventually give a confession. In that confession Harper says he told Brown to set the store on

fire, so that Harper could collect insurance money. No evidence of an insurance policy was ever produced. Harper and the building landlord claimed to not have a fire insurance policy for the building. The statement also implicated Michael Harper's family members, his uncle Albert Harper and cousin Geronia Ford.

Michael Harper was charged under the “felony murder’ rule, meaning a defendant can be charged with murder for certain categories of felonies resulting in death, even if the defendant does not intend or foresee the death. James Othello Bell, has been in prison since 1992 and claimed in 1997 to have started the fire at Magic Video. In a sworn affidavit he states ‘I got angry and burnt the store down using a gas can... I was a drug addict at the time and did not care about anything. I am now a changed man.”

Four individuals were charged with crimes in this case, Michael Harper, Albert Harper, Geronia Ford, and Arthur Brown. Albert Harper was the only one who did not sign a confession, and was acquitted in a bench trial. Ford was convicted of assisting with arson and was released after a couple years in prison. After many years of legal battles, Brown was exonerated in 2017 and given an unopposed Certificate of Innocence. Additionally Brown received $14.5M in a wrongful conviction case settlement in June 2023. Michael Harper is the only one of these four still serving time for this case. 

Michael Harper filed his clemency petition with the Illinois Governor Jay Pritzker’s office on October 4th, 2021. The Governor’s office has not responded to this petition. Harper has a Change.org petition to urge the Governor to review the petition for clemency request.