HOUSTON—Terrance Ferguson has asked himself what he did wrong for nearly a year and a half.

“It really hurt me because I lost my father, then went to jail all in the same year,” Terrance Ferguson said.

Ferguson’s father is the Hurricane Katrina evacuee who jumped in front of a bullet intended for his children.  Reginald Johnson died at their southwest Houston apartment complex. 

Just two months later, things went from bad to worse. 

Terrance was arrested for a crime that had nothing to do with his father’s death. 

“I was charged with an aggravated robbery,” Ferguson said.

Terrance claimed he wasn’t even there when it happened.

“My mother sat me down and said the best thing to do was to call the police and let them know I really didn’t do it,” he said.

But based on a photo lineup, authorities arrested Ferguson and sent him to the Harris County Jail, where he waited for his day in court.  In February, jurors deadlocked and the judge declared a mistrial.

“I was hurt, angry, frustrated,” Terrance’s mother, Dionne Ferguson, said.

She was in disbelief as her son was returned to lockup.

Despite the setbacks, Terrance says he never gave up hope that one day the truth might set him free.  And in a way his prayers were answered two weeks ago, inside the jail’s chapel.

There he happened to meet an inmate who had an interesting story to tell about the man who really committed the crime, a man that looked a lot like Terrance.

“He said that he had got shot and killed,” Ferguson said.

It gave his attorney the evidence she needed just in time for his second trial this week.

“We all hear about mistaken identity cases, and the fact is they occur,” Attorney Juanita Barner said.

Prosecutors agreed and dropped the charges. 

And Terrance, the young man who could have faced 99 years behind bars, finally got his freedom back.