The man granted clemency walked past the chain-link fence and razor wire and into the shining sunlight.
His name is Thomas Clardy. He pushed a cart of his things as he walked to a woman in a lime green shirt, his fiancee Keondra Cooper, and a smile spread across his face. They wrapped their arms around each other. Then she handed him the baby girl on her hip, a 10-month old with a pink bow in her hair named Ennocence.
Holding Ennocence, Clardy shook the warden's hand and walked away, this time for good, he says.
In those first moments of freedom, Clardy said he felt his heart smiling.
He spent nearly two decades behind bars for a 2005 Nashville murder that he, a majority of the Tennessee Board of Parole, the Davidson County district attorney’s office,
his attorneys at the Tennessee Innocence Project and many others now say he did not commit. During that time, he was let out, briefly lived free, then was ordered to return due to an appellate court ruling.
On Aug. 27, Gov. Bill Lee commuted Clardy's life sentence to parole. While Lee's decision fell short of the board of parole's recommendation that Clardy be exonerated and his name be cleared, it allowed Clardy to walk free on Sept. 15.
Clardy said he would do it all again, because he sees his journey as serving a bigger purpose. It was something God wanted him to go through, he said.
"I thank him for this journey, because without him, there's no way that I'd be standing right here today," Clardy said.
About a quarter-mile down the road from Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, more than 50 of Clardy's family, friends and supporters were waiting for him. When he stepped out of Cooper's silver Chevrolet Suburban, his children covered him with hugs. They had given him something to keep fighting for.
And then he saw the man who many say led the fight for Clardy's release: his old Pearl-Cohn High School football coach Maurice Fitzgerald. Clardy, who was raised without a dad, said Fitzgerald was like a father to him. The coach, whose beard is now long and white, brought Clardy in. For nearly 15 seconds, Fitzgerald did not let him go.
"I was just overcome with emotion," Fitzgerald told The Tennessean. "(I) just simply said, 'I love you,' and he said he loved me."
Then Clardy spent about 45 minutes talking and hugging his supporters, sweat from the heat mixing with happy tears.
"You have no idea how much your support meant to me," he told them. "Every prayer, every letter, every call, every encouraging word reminded me that I was not forgotten."
There was someone else Clardy needed to see.
'This is where we come together'
The week before he was released, Clardy called his barber every single day. He'd been missing a good haircut. Taught by his grandmother to go to the barber once a week, in prison he'd been getting his cuts with beard trimmers that tugged on his hair. He had to make sure his chair wouldn't be filled once he got outside.
His barber Tristran Pleasant, who goes by T Plez the Barber professionally, said the barbershop is where people come together. His shop, Headquarters Barber and Beauty, is the first place Clardy went the afternoon of his release.
"It's the barbershop," Pleasant said. "This is where we come together, right here, and we build relationships and we grow together as a community."
A semitruck honked when it drove by the barbershop a few minutes later. Pleasant said he knew the truck driver, and "that's who we are in the community," he said.
Pleasant said that Clardy was well-known in Madison and East Nashville, and that he brings character and heart to the community. Clardy was always willing to help people, at times even going to the supply store to get Pleasant things he needed for the barbershop, Pleasant said.
He had become a regular of Pleasant's when he was free a few years before. In June 2023, a federal judge had vacated Clardy's conviction for the 2005 killing of Kirk Clouatre because of the "exceedingly weak and paltry” evidence against him and the inadequate representation by his attorney at trial. That decision was reversed at the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court declined to hear Clardy's case.
When Clardy went back to prison in August 2025, his community was in pain.
"It was silent here for about a week or two," Pleasant said.
So when he saw Clardy again, it was emotional.
"My nose is sweating," Pleasant said, laughing. "We've been waiting on this moment."
When Clardy got up to leave, the next man getting a haircut recognized him. "Thomas!" said the man, a pastor. He smiled and gave Clardy a hug.
'He sat at my table'
Over the sounds of old country tunes, about a dozen supporters joined Clardy, Cooper and his attorneys at Loveless Café for Clardy’s first supper since his release. A lot of them met Clardy or heard his story when he was first let out in 2023, working for a moving company.
After downing some country fried steak, mashed potatoes and mac 'n' cheese, Clardy talked about his time in prison. The group, including accounting firm partners and a state official, didn't miss a word while Clardy explained how to make pizza from prison commissary food. Then Clardy told them about the one prison guard who always shined his flashlight right in his eyes, and how he had to fight the urge to get angry.
Kim Wood, one of the supporters at the dinner, looked around the table. One of Clardy's gifts, she said, was uniting so many previously unconnected people. Through him, they heard other stories of incarcerated people who may be innocent, or people they believe deserve a second chance regardless of their guilt. They were exposed to issues they never had much reason to consider.
“If you don’t have a family member, don’t have a friend in a similar situation, … you just go through life," Wood said. "You don’t think too much about it."
A conservative estimation holds that 1% of all people in prison are innocent, with other estimates ranging as high as 5%, according to information on the Innocence Project’s website. If those figures hold true in Tennessee, hundreds of innocent people are in prison right now. Since 1989, just 41 people have been exonerated in state court in Tennessee, according to the Tennessee Innocence Project.
Clardy was a reminder that each person in prison has a unique story. Kelly Berry, another supporter, said Clardy put the justice system in a different light.
“He has a face. He has a name. He sat at my table," Berry said.
Soon, Clardy will start working for the moving company again. But he also said he is writing a book about his life. He is focused on sharing his story, which is his way of being a light to others, he said.
"I'm not going to be quiet," Clardy said. "I had to be quiet for 20 years."
Nicole Hester contributed reporting.
Have questions about the justice system? Evan Mealins is the justice reporter for The Tennessean. Contact him with questions, tips or story ideas at emealins@tennessean.com.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Released from prison, Thomas Clardy welcomed back to Nashville
