‘The Fear of 13’ Brings Wrongful Conviction to Broadway

“If I made up Nick’s story, no one would believe it,” playwright Lindsey Ferrentino told the Innocence Project. Exoneree Nick Yarris’ story is the subject of her play “The Fear of 13,” which celebrated its Broadway opening night on April 15. 

The production, which made its successful stage debut in London in 2024, features two-time Oscar winner Adrien Brody and Golden Globe nominee Tessa Thompson. The stars are making their Broadway debut, alongside first-time Broadway producer Kim Kardashian.

 “It is one of those stories where truth is stranger than fiction. And the truth of it is what’s so important,” Ms. Ferrentino said of Mr. Yarris’ wrongful conviction.

Mr. Yarris was just 20 when he was arrested in Pennsylvania for stealing a car and an ensuing struggle with an officer whose gun was discharged. Facing a long sentence, Mr. Yarris falsely claimed to have knowledge about the person who had committed the highly publicized 1981 rape and murder of Linda Mae Craig. He implicated someone he knew in the hopes of receiving leniency in exchange for his cooperation, but when that person was ruled out, investigators focused on Mr. Yarris as the main suspect in Ms. Craig’s death.

In 1982, at age 21, he was convicted and sentenced to death. He spent 22 years on Pennsylvania’s death row, mostly in solitary confinement, filling his time reading and becoming a powerful writer. 

But most noteworthy, Mr. Yarris was one of the first people incarcerated on Pennsylvania’s death row to demand DNA testing, seeking the use of the emerging technology as early as 1989 and doggedly pursuing it for more than a decade. However, after initial DNA tests proved inconclusive and subsequent appeals did not win him his freedom, Mr. Yarris lost hope. In 2002, he told the court that he wanted to withdraw his appeals and volunteer for execution. 

A final, court-ordered DNA test saved his life. In 2003, DNA results excluded Mr. Yarris, and pointed to two unknown men as Ms. Craig’s attackers. He became the 140th person in the U.S. — and the first sentenced to death in Pennsylvania — exonerated by post-conviction DNA testing, and the 13th from death row. Mr. Yarris recounted his experience in a 2008 memoir entitled Seven Days to Live, which was eventually reissued under a new title: “The Fear of 13.” The name traces back to his time in prison, during which he taught himself new vocabulary including “triskaidekaphobia” — the fear of the number 13.

His fascinating story, which includes a daring prison escape, was brought to life in a 2015 documentary of the same name.