Charles Goldblum, Pittsburgh Man Convicted Of 1976 Killing In Downtown Parking Garage, To Be Freed
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- After serving more than 40 years of a life sentence for murder, a man from Pittsburgh is about to be freed.
Charles Goldblum was one of two men convicted in the 1976 stabbing death of George Wilhelm inside a car parked at a downtown garage.
As he lay dying, Wilhelm told a police officer, "Clarence Miller did this to me." Police arrested Miller, but then Miller pointed the finger at Goldblum.
There was a backstory tying the men together and suggesting each might have had reason to want Wilhelm silenced. Jurors ended up finding both men guilty, and both were sent to prison for life.
Miller has since died in prison, but Goldblum — now almost 72 years old — has argued that the pattern of blood spatters in the car pointed to Miller as the sole killer.
Appeal after appeal failed, but Goldblum eventually gained the surprising support of two people: The judge who presided over his trial and the assistant district attorney who prosecuted the case. Each expressed misgivings about aspects of Goldblum's conviction and the prosecutor went so far as to call it a "miscarriage of justice."
Even so, for years nothing changed. But in the fall of 2019, a newly-active state pardons board voted unanimously to commute Goldblum's sentence. It's taken nearly a year and a half for Governor Tom Wolf to sign off on it, but Lt. Governor John Fetterman confirmed to KDKA on Thursday that Goldblum will soon be freed.
