BUFFALO, N.Y. - After 27-years behind bars, Valentino Dixon is walking in a park for the first time with his daughter Valentina. She was just four-months-old when he was incarcerated for a murder that he was exonerated of on Wednesday.
"This is peace, a peace that I'm not used to," said Dixon while walking with his daughter just one day after he was released from prison.
He was exonerated of murder, attempted murder and assault. The criminal possession of a weapon charge remains on his record.
Life is different for the 48-year-old man who last walked the streets of Buffalo as a free man in 1991. What does he think about what he sees now? "Neighborhoods was bad when I left, but they seem like they are thousand times worse, and I wanted to cry."
Technology took him by surprise, "the cell phone is the most foreign thing you could deal with," he said as he now learns to text and email.
"I was riding with my lawyer from the courthouse to Red Lobster and he put in the GPS and it was actually talking to him and telling him go up a block and I was like really!"
He has been receiving calls from old friends since his release. He is used to drawing up to 10 hours a day on a 16x20 board, now he will have more space and a larger easel.
His colored pencil drawings of golf courses already attracted international attention.
Cooking is something he enjoys and his mother made it clear her macaroni and cheese would be better.
Family time is what Dixon will cherish the most. His daughter Valentina said "I never thought this day would come that we'd be standing in a park together and enjoying nature, it's always been standing at the vacation trailer home" at a prison. Dixon spent time in Attica and Wende.
Dixon was convicted of second degree murder for the death of Torriano "Torry" Jackson in 1991.
Lamarr Scott confessed to the crime at least ten times according to prosecutors. He is now charged with manslaughter.
The family of Torriano Jackson told Channel 2, they have no comment on the case at this time.