Louisville man who apologized to victim's widow released after 6 years in prison

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- John Benton confessed to taking part in the murder of a young father and husband, and then he asked for a jailhouse meeting to apologize to the widow.

Benton was the last man brought to justice in the case in 2011, and he is the first to be released from prison. On Friday morning, he walked free after serving more than six years.

Benton has spent the last six years doing hard time at the Green River Correctional Complex in Central City.

"When you come in those doors, you're the enemy," he said. "That is a treacherous place. It's bad."

Benton said prison life was full of the same temptations and problems he faced on the outside.

"There were more drugs involved on the yard, more stabbings, more fights," he said.

It was a hard six years, but Benton said he stayed clean and out of trouble.

"I told myself that I didn't want to be around anybody that wasn't doing anything positive, because I understand that's how I got there," he said.

He got there because of his part in the 2008 robbery and murder of Sudanese business owner Mohamad Abdelrahman.

"I am not in the place to point fingers, because I am responsible for what I've done," Benton said.

Police said Alexander Ruff pulled the trigger, and Kendrick Robinson was the getaway driver, but Benton has always taken ownership for his part in the crime.

"I don't care who did what else," he said. "If I never chose to participate, then I wouldn't be sitting in front of you now."

Before Benton's case ever saw the inside of a courtroom, he wrote a letter to Abdelrahman's family and met with his widow inside Metro Corrections.

"All my thoughts, prayers have been for you and those kids," Benton said he told the family in 2011.

During the meeting, Benton also revealed a personal and painful connection, that his own father was murdered years ago.

"When I think of his wife, I think about my mother, and I think about what she went through trying to raise three boys," Benton said in 2011.

Despite the meeting and apology, both prosecutors and the victim's family wanted the death penalty for all three men.

In court, the prosecutor told jurors, "This is a killing gun, ladies and gentlemen!" And outside the courthouse, Abdelrahman's brother said, "They commit this crime -- three of them together. So no matter what, if somebody shoot him inside the store or somebody drive the car, all of them are linked to this case."

The men avoided the death penalty, but all three were convicted. Sumaya Harun, Abdelrahman's wife, said she forgives Benton.

"She initially reached out to me before I left and wished me well," Benton said of Harun. "And the offer was on the table for me to respond to her at any time."

Benton said it was a handwritten letter that still motivates him several years later.

"She said that she would be praying for me and that she hoped I did well and that she no longer saw me as the same person that she saw me as before," Benton said.

But years later, he still has not responded.

"I didn't want to burden her with anything, so I just left the situation as it was," Benton said.

Benton is headed to Virginia, where he'll start a new job on Monday and hopes to eventually become a community activist.