Woman exonerated after spending over 15 years in prison worried God wasn’t with her

November 7, 2024

An Ohio woman who was exonerated after spending more than 15 years in prison after she was wrongfully charged with and convicted of abusing children, says she sometimes felt God wasn’t with her.

The Christian Post reports that 66 year old Nancy Smith was sentenced in 1994 to spend 30 to 90 years in prison for a crime she didn’t commit.

The Lorain, Ohio woman was a bus driver for Head Start when she was accused of physically and sexually abusing children. Smith told WYSO that she had nearly given up hope of going home had it not been for her faith.

Smith related how she suffered through her incarceration, saying, “You know, there was a time when I thought I would never go home. I’m doing 30 to 90 years. I’m never going to go home. But I never gave up my faith because I knew that …this was man’s time. This was not God’s time. And there were times when I thought He was not with me. … Where are you? You’re not with me. Why are you letting me go through this?”

According to the Christian Post, in February 2022, Smith and another defendant named Joseph Allen who was also wrongfully convicted, were granted new trials and Lorain County Prosecutor J.D. Tomlinson dismissed the charges against them.

Earlier this year, Smith filed a wrongful conviction lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Cleveland against the city of Lorain, Margaret Grondin, former Assistant Lorain County prosecutor Jonathan Rosenbaum and several Lorain police officers.

It was Grondin who initiated the charges against Smith in 1993 when she claimed that her four year old daughter had been abused.

Smith’s lawsuit alleges that Grondin’s claims were part of a “sinister insurance scam.”

Photo: top, Credit: YouTube/Cincinnati Law