An Elkhart judge on Wednesday dismissed all charges against a woman who spent 19 years in prison after she was wrongfully convicted in a 2000 homicide. Her advocates are now calling for an independent investigation into other convictions built by the disgraced detective who led her case.
Iris Seabolt was convicted of the 2000 murder of A.J. Williams, who owned a restaurant in Elkhart at the time. A jury found that she and two co-defendants robbed and beat Williams to death.
After Seabolt was released from prison on parole in 2022, she filed for post-conviction relief with the help of Notre Dame’s Exoneration Justice Clinic. Their lawyers and researchers ultimately proved that Elkhart detectives, led by Steven Rezutko, coerced and bribed false confessions out of witnesses who testified at Seabolt’s trial. Court records show they did it to deflect attention away from a different female suspect that Rezutko had been paying for sex.
Rezutko so far has been involved in four proven wrongful convictions in Elkhart. He died by suicide in 2019. In a statement, Exoneration Justice Clinic founder James J. Gurule called for an independent counsel to investigate all post-conviction relief cases involving Rezutko’s work.
According to the National Registry of Exonerations, Seabolt’s exoneration marks the eighth exoneration in Elkhart County since 1989. There are now more proven wrongful convictions in Elkhart County than any other county in Indiana, including Marion County, the state’s largest.
