Nashville man hopes for freedom: ‘Bring me a pair of sprinting shoes’

Gov. Bill Lee will decide whether to adopt the parole board’s recommendation to exonerate Thomas Clardy of first-degree murder

A Nashville man who proclaimed for years that he was not a killer finally heard the words that could change his life:

“It appears we have an innocent man in prison in the state of Tennessee, and the issue should be resolved.”

When he heard that, he wasn’t joyful. He wasn’t excited. The way he sees it, how could he be?

“How can you be excited about something that was taken from you that should have never been taken?” he said in an interview from prison on March 25.

For nearly 20 years, Thomas Clardy has been trying to prove that what he is saying is true. Every day he has been trying to show people that he did not shoot Kirk Clouatre, that he was not at the auto body shop in Madison where Clouatre was gunned down that night in 2005. For more than a third of his life, Clardy, now 47, has been confined to a prison cell, trying to convince someone with power that he did not deserve to die there.

When Tennessee Board of Parole member Tim Gobble said those words on Feb. 18, what Clardy felt was relief.

“Every day I had to prove to somebody that what I’m saying is the truth. So now the people in authority, they saying it,” Clardy said. “That was my happiness, that someone else was able to tell them this. … It felt great for somebody else to speak up for me.”

Clardy slept better that night than he had his entire life. But over 40 nights later, it’s getting harder to keep waking up in a prison cell.

At this point, Clardy has done all he can do. He and his attorneys, including a team from the Tennessee Innocence Project and Bass, Berry & Sims, convinced a majority of the parole board that he is innocent.

But Gov. Bill Lee is the one with the power. The board’s nonbinding recommendation was scheduled to go to Lee’s desk after the hearing, and Lee will then review the materials in Clardy’s file to determine if he should exonerate him. All Clardy can do is wait.

It’s not clear when Lee might make his decision. A spokesperson for Lee’s office did not return The Tennessean’s request for comment.

In his first interview since the parole board’s decision, Clardy on March 25 described what it was like to return to prison after being released from 2023-2025, what it is like to remain there after the parole board’s vote, and what he looks forward to if he is set free.

His initial freedom was short-lived

Clardy cried for the last time on Aug. 10, 2025.

It was nighttime and he was alone at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, feeling homesick.

He had walked out of that prison before. On Oct. 20, 2023, a federal judge found him innocent and set him free.

When he was free, Clardy worked as a furniture mover and went to church every week. He connected with a wide circle of people who were inspired by his story. One of those people was GEODIS Americas chief financial officer Andrew Grant, who said of Clardy, “I wish I was the man he has proven to be.”

Clardy also worried about when the other shoe would drop.

“I was joyful about being free for 22 months, but every day it was like being under the gun as well,” he said. “Every day I had to wait and pray and hope that I didn’t receive a phone call that I was going to have to return back to prison.”

The call came. The Tennessee Attorney General’s Office appealed the judge’s order that freed Clardy, and in early 2025, an appellate judge reversed the decision.

Clardy was ordered to return to prison Aug. 8, leaving behind his pregnant fiancée Keondra Cooper. People asked him why he didn’t run.

‘Have you heard anything?’

Since 1989, Tennessee state courts have exonerated — or declared legally innocent — just 40 people, according to the Tennessee Innocence Project, the state chapter of the national Innocence Project. Tennessee’s governors, who also have the power to declare a person innocent, have exonerated just two people in recent years, in 2017 and 2021, according to the Tennessee Secretary of State’s website. Both had already been released from prison when they were exonerated. At the board’s most recent exoneration hearing before Clardy’s in January 2025, a majority of the members voted to recommend exoneration for Charlie Dunn, who died in 2015. Lee has not exonerated Dunn.

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.

Many of them had given up hope, Clardy said. But the parole board’s decision to recommend Clardy’s exoneration has inspired some of the most hardened prisoners, Clardy said. Every day since Feb. 18, they’ve asked him, “Have you heard anything?”

And every day he doesn’t, it gets harder, he said. Yet he feels like he can’t let it show.

“I always want to know, I ask the Lord, when can it be my day, so when I can just cry?” he said. He said he feels a duty not to let others lose hope for their futures. “I can’t sell you a dream if I’m crying every day about what I’m going through.”

What Clardy hopes for

Clardy is from Nashville. He was born at Baptist Hospital, now Ascension Saint Thomas Hospital Midtown, went to Pearl-Cohn High School and led its football team to the 1997 state championship. Even now, the prison he is in is fewer than 10 miles from the state Capitol. Not being able to persuade those in power for so long has been painful.

“I’m in my backyard, and I’m screaming help, but the people in my front can’t even hear me,” Clardy said.

He paused. “And I don’t want to be crying, but I need help,” Clardy said, his voice cracking.

Clardy said he can’t see far enough to picture the future, but he has things he looks forward to if he is released.

Seeing his children, fiancée, friends and supporters in person

Right now, all conversations go through “a pay phone that’s going to tell me you have five minutes before the phone hangs up. You have 60 seconds, and you ain’t even been able to get everything out.”

“Just imagine your child or your spouse having a bad day and trying to help her get through it, only to be told that your time is up,” he said.

Being with someone who loves him

“It’s the hugs, it’s the good nights, and actually being able to physically sleep at night with somebody that loves you the same way you love them. That’s the things that I look forward to,” he said.

Running

“Now, I wanna run. When they give me my freedom, I wanna run, for real,” Clardy said. “That’s what I told — bring me a pair of sprinting shoes when you come pick me up. I don’t care about getting in the car. I don’t care about getting in the house. I just want to run, because I’m able to be free now.”

Seeing his new child

If Clardy walks out of prison for a second time, there will be a baby waiting for him at home. Her name is Ennocence.

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.