'Norfolk 4': Rape pardon brings relief, but pain lingers

If he could have remembered where he really was that day, he wouldn't have spent 7 ½ years in prison and more than a decade as a registered sex offender for something Gov. Terry McAuliffe declared he didn't do, Wilson says.

"If I had had some kind of hard proof that proved I wasn't there, this never would've happened," Wilson, now 40, told The Associated Press as he drove from work to the home he shares with his wife and two children near San Antonio, Texas.

Pardons for the "Norfolk Four" closed a lengthy case that gained national attention after their innocence claims were backed by dozens of former FBI agents, ex-prosecutors and crime novelist John Grisham.

Danial Williams, who lived in the same building, was quickly identified as a suspect because a neighbor told police he had a crush on the victim.

Williams admitted to her rape and murder — the first of a series of confessions that the men, then-sailors at the Naval base in Norfolk, say were forced by police.

The other men have said they cracked after they were threatened with the death penalty and repeatedly called liars.

Wilson said he's been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and feels anxious in crowds, always looking over his shoulder.

Once his name is removed from the sex offender registry, Wilson said, he plans to adopt his stepson, get a passport, and maybe take his wife on a proper honeymoon.