Just days after the Orange County District Attorney filed murder charges against Felix Abreu, the Santa Ana man who allegedly smashed his car into Arthur Carmona earlier this year, a man wrongfully charged and convicted of burglary a decade ago, another wrongfully convicted inmate from Orange County has died.
According to L.A. Times reporter Stuart Pfeiffer, DeWayne MicKinnney, who was released from prison eight years ago after spending nearly two decades behind bars for a 1980 murder/armed robbery at a Buena Park* Burger King, died in a late-night scooter accident in Honolulu. McKinney had taken his million-dollar settlement with the DA's office and invested in ATM machines in Hawaii, which turned a handsome profit. He became a multi-millionaire and lived quietly in a beach compound on Oahu.
Now he's gone, like Carmona, a victim of traffic fatality. He reportedly hit a light pole and was thrown from the scooter to the pavement. He wasn't wearing a helmet and died at the hospital. Carmona was killed by Abreu's speeding vehicle after fleeing a late-night party at a trailer park. Abreu faces 11 years if convicted.
*Actually, it's Orange. Thanks, Paul.
Award-winning investigative journalist Nick Schou is Editor of OC Weekly. He is the author of Kill the Messenger: How the CIA’s Crack Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb (Nation Books 2006), which provided the basis for the 2014 Focus Features release starring Jeremy Renner and the L.A. Times-bestseller Orange Sunshine: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love’s Quest to bring Peace, Love and Acid to the World, (Thomas Dunne 2009). He is also the author of The Weed Runners (2013) and Spooked: How the CIA Manipulates the Media and Hoodwinks Hollywood (2016).