Kenneth Thomas Richey (born August 3, 1964, in Zeist) is a British-US dual citizen, born to a Scottish mother and American father, who was raised in Scotland but moved to Ohio, United States to join his father in late 1982.<br /><br />He was on death row for 21 years in Ohio after being convicted in January 1987 of murdering two-year-old Cynthia Collins by arson in 1986. In December 2007, he accepted a plea bargain, which led to his release from death row and return to Scotland on January 9, 2008.<br /><br />Richey's plea bargain involved pleading 'no contest' to manslaughter, child endangering and breaking and entering. He was sentenced to time served, with the murder and arson charges dropped. A 'no contest' plea is not an admission of guilt. The accused, by entering a no contest plea, neither disputes or admits to the charges.<br /><br />During his 20-year incarceration, doubts arose about the entirely circumstantial evidence that led to a conviction, particularly the forensic evidence. This led to a campaign to re-examine the evidence. Described by Amnesty International as, "…one of the most compelling cases of apparent innocence that human rights campaigners have ever seen,"<br /><br />Richey was granted British citizenship in 2003, becoming the first to benefit from a change in British nationality law regarding the status of children of British mothers and non-British fathers born outside the United Kingdom.
