Settlement approved with wrongfully convicted Kansas man’s family

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) – A state panel has approved a settlement with the family of a man who died shortly after being released from prison for a crime he didn’t commit.

The State Finance Council on Thursday agreed to an $826,301 payment to the family of Olin “Pete” Coones.

Coones was charged in the 2008 Kansas City, Kansas, deaths of Kathleen Schroll and her husband, Carl, but he was convicted of killing Schroll.

He was exonerated in November 2020 after prosecutors said the deaths were a murder-suicide planned by Schroll.

Coones died in February of cancer, 108 days after he was released from prison.