Hennepin County Attorney Backs Effort to Overturn Bryan Hooper’s 1998 Murder Conviction
- Rebecca Gilbuena
- 6 days ago
- 2 min read
After nearly three decades behind bars for a crime he has long insisted he did not commit, Bryan Hooper Sr. may soon walk free. Today, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty announced her office will join the Great North Innocence Project in petitioning to vacate Hooper’s 1998 conviction for the murder of 77-year-old Ann Prazniak.
The state’s key trial witness has come forward to not only recant her testimony, but to confess to committing the murder herself. She has admitted to binding and concealing Prazniak’s body — a crime for which Hooper was sentenced to life in prison.
“This is not a time for celebration,” said Jim Mayer, Legal Director of the Great North Innocence Project, who now represents Bryan. “The fact is that Bryan Hooper is still locked up in Stillwater prison, and the Hooper family will never get back the decades they have lost. What this should be is a moment of reckoning — an opportunity to reflect on how we collectively failed the Hooper family over the past 27 years.”
Jim said the case underscores systemic flaws that allow wrongful convictions to endure for decades despite mounting evidence of innocence. Bryan Hooper’s conviction, upheld through multiple appeals, rested heavily on incentivized witness testimony, including jailhouse informants — most of whom have since recanted. The newly confessed killer’s fingerprints were found on the tape used to bind Prazniak, not Bryan's, but she was never charged at the time.
For Bryan's daughter, Bri’ana Hooper, today's announcement was both vindication and a painful reminder of what her family has lost.
“What we’ve all known for 27 years is now being said publicly — my father, Bryan Hooper Sr., is an innocent man,” she told reporters, her voice breaking. “Twenty-seven years of missed birthdays, milestones, holidays… time we can’t get back. But today, we have an opportunity to bring justice to my father and to shed light on others who are sitting behind bars for crimes they did not commit.”
Mary Moriarty credited the Minneapolis Police Department and her office’s Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) with swiftly acting after the confession surfaced on July 29. The woman, currently incarcerated in Georgia on an unrelated charge, told investigators she expects to face murder charges and was motivated by a renewed religious conviction and support she has received in prison.
While Moriarty expressed regret that the justice system failed Bryan Hooper, she stopped short of alleging misconduct by the original prosecutors, citing the public pressure and the evidence as it appeared at the time.
Both the county attorney’s office and the Great North Innocence Project have urged the court to schedule an expedited hearing. A judge has 90 days from assignment to decide whether to vacate the conviction.
For Bri’ana Hooper, who was just 5 years old when her dad was sent to prison, that decision cannot come soon enough. “My father deserves to come home. He deserves for his name to be cleared and justice to be restored,” she said.