Man wrongly imprisoned for 1989 murder speaks out
by LEANNA FAULK, NBC 10 NEWS
Todd Barry, the man who confessed to the brutal 1989 murder of Victoria Cushman was released on Wednesday.
NBC 10 spoke exclusively with Scott Hornoff, who was wrongfully imprisoned for the same murder.
Hornoff, a former cop, spent six years at the ACI facility in Cranston for a crime he did not commit.
Twenty-two years after his release, he said the memories still haunt him.
“I don’t really think about it when I’m awake. I still have nightmares almost every night,” he said. “Of being in prison, or being told that I have to go to prison, or escaping or being chased.”
On Aug. 11, 1989, 29-year-old Victoria Cushman wasbrutally murdered in her Warwick home.
Hornoff, a married police officer and Cushman’s lover, was arrested, tried and convicted of the crime.
“I was sentenced to life, and I would have done life because I never would have confessed to something I didn’t do,” he said.
Hornoff spent six years behind bars before Barry came forward.
Hornoff said he wrote to him, hoping to make sense of the evidence and what drove him to let an innocent man take the fall.
People are expected to rally to bring attention to suicides at the Adult Correctional Institutions. (WJAR)
Barry’s release Wednesday ends his 30-year imprisonment, but for Hornoff, his wounds are far from healed
“I still have some anger, because I know that my mom would have lived a lot longer if this hadn’t happened,” he said.
Hornoff said he hasn’t heard from Barry in years, and has no plans of reaching out.
However, if given the opportunity, he said he would be open to meeting with him.