Innocent until proven guilty.

But what if you’re wrongly convicted?

That is John Button’s story. At the age of 19, he was wrongly convicted of murdering his girlfriend and sentenced to 10 years of hard labor at Fremantle Prison in Western Australia.

Even though another prisoner—a convicted serial killer—confessed to murdering John’s girlfriend minutes before he was hanged, the confession was not enough to clear John’s name.

After five years, because of good behavior, John walked free from the prison. Yet, he still had an unwarranted stain on his record.

Now, over 50 years later, he happened to be in the same tourist group walking the prison grounds.

That is where our paths crossed.

In between his comments about the lesser-known details of day-to-day life in the prison—for example, prisoners ate all meals alone except on Christmas—I asked him how he eventually proved his innocence.

He said quickly, “I have to say, it was because of God.”

He went on to tell me about how a journalist, Estelle Black, came across his story and his efforts to reclaim his innocence. She summarized her findings, which aligned with John’s campaign, and presented her published book to the authorities. Only then was John’s name cleared.

Today, he works closely with the Western Australian Innocence Project, motivated to help others who have been wrongfully convicted find justice and freedom. He’s also written a book titled Why Me, Lord! about his struggle with understanding how God could permit such an injustice to occur.