Jay C. Smith

Age: 80

Summary: former Pennsylvania high school principal who spent six years on death row for conspiring with a teacher William Bradfield (died in prison in 1998) to kill another teacher and her two children, but who was later freed when his 1986 conviction was overturned after the state Supreme Court determined the government hid evidence that would have helped him, where he consistently maintained his innocence, in which the 1987 book Echoes in the Darkness about the case by true crime author Joseph Wambaugh became a best-seller and the basis for a network TV miniseries starring Peter Coyle, Robert Loggia (as Smith), and Stockard Channing.

Cause of Death: Heart condition

Born: June 5, 1928

Died: May 12, 2009

Location: Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania