MIKE VONALLMEN
13 Years Lost
Reason for Wrongful Conviction
Witness Misidentification, Government Misconduct
Original Sentence
35 years
More About the Case
On October 10, 1981, a 22-year-old woman was abducted at gunpoint outside a tavern in Louisville and taken to a nearby park, where she was subsequently beaten, raped, and robbed. After reporting the crime, she helped the police make a composite drawing of her assailant. The victim said her attacker had blue eyes (not brown eyes, like Mike has).
Mike VonAllmen happened to walk into the same bar the very next day and tipsters turned in his license plate number. Police picked up Mike and put him in a photo pack line up and the victim identified him as her assailant. Mike had three witnesses who all testified at trial that he was at a party the night of the assault and that he drove one of them home. Nevertheless, Mike was convicted in 1983, he served eleven years in prison.
While incarcerated, Mike took two polygraph tests to help establish his innocence, and passed both of them. He was paroled in 1994, and the Kentucky Innocence Project took his case – eventually turning up evidence that a man who looked almost exactly like Mike had a history of sexual assaults against women. Ronald Tackett had been charged with abducting a 16-year-old girl in the same neighborhood and taking her to the same park where she was raped, beaten, and robbed. Tackett was allowed to plead to a much lower offense - misdemeanor assault - in this case because the young victim declined to testify. Tackett died in 1983 after a high speed police chase ended in a fatal automobile accident.
To listen to a Wrongful Conviction podcast by Lava for Good about Mike's case:
https://lavaforgood.com/podcast/315-jason-flom-with-michael-vonallmen/
To listen to Mike talk on the Moth Radio Hour about his experience:
https://themoth.org/stories/bucket-list
To learn more about Mike’s story go to his page at the National Registry of Exonerations:
https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=3711
Composite Drawings and Photos of Mike VonAllmen and Ronald Tackett
Above is photo of Mike when he was arrested
Above is a photo of the actual assailant, Ronald Tackett, when arrested for a different crime.
Above is the composite drawing made by the police from the victim’s description.