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By Tom Gillespie, news reporter

Franky Carrillo was at home with his father when Donald Sarpy was killed in a drive-by shooting in Lynwood, California.

Despite the fact that he was in a different city at the time, eyewitnesses told police they had seen Mr Carrillo pull the trigger.

The 45-year-old's name was eventually cleared on 16 March 2011, but only after he had spent 20 years in prison as an innocent man.

The father-of-three, who marked the eighth anniversary of his release on Saturday, told Sky News: "I was just 16 when I was arrested.

"My life prior to that was pretty typical. I was a high school student raised by a single father in Los Angeles.

"I don't want to use the word poor but we were definitely a struggling, working family."

Mr Carrillo was living in the city of Maywood, California, when Mr Sarpy was killed on 18 January 1991.

"We now know that three hispanic men were in a car, it was around 7pm, so it was pretty dark.

"Once the car passed three houses, the front seat passenger fired a couple of shots towards a group of six African-American boys.

"It missed them and tragically killed Mr Sarpy who was in his front yard."

Officers interviewed the boys who had witnessed the shooting as they searched for the 41-year-old's killer.

Mr Carrillo continued: "The star witness turned out to be a boy called Scott Turner.

"On his first, second, third interview, he had no information.

"At at about 2am, he was interviewed by the sheriff's deputy Craig Ditsch.

"The story goes that he showed Scott Turner a set of photographs for the first time.

"He was shown them repeatedly, and the fourth time he selected my image out of the line-up."

Mr Carrillo, who is of Mexican heritage, was later arrested but was convinced his name would be cleared.

"I thought he must be mistaken.

"That maybe he thinks we all look alike or something."

Mr Carrillo believes the police officer manipulated Scott into picking out his image, but says the circumstances that led to the photo being chosen remain unclear.

It wasn't until around eight months after the shooting, in August 1991, that the other five boys were shown the images for the first time.

Each one of them picked out Mr Carrillo's photo.

"It turns out that Scott Turner went and told all the other boys - if they ever show you photographs, make sure you pick 'picture number one'."

Mr Carrillo, whose girlfriend was pregnant at the time, said that during his subsequent trial he always had faith that "adults do the right thing", and was sure that "this would work itself out".

Despite his father Francisco telling the court he had been with his son at the time of the killing, the jury returned a guilty verdict and Mr Carrillo was handed a life sentence.

One of the things I most looked forward to when I was waiting for my release was to just have the ability to use the bathroom whenever I like

He continued: "At this point I'm 18-years-old and I had all these dreams of what I was going to do when the trial was over.

"The jury's verdict felt like a stillborn death, because all that excitement washed away."

Mr Carrillo went on to serve his sentence at a youth authority, before being relocated to Corcoran State Prison and later Folsom State Prison, all in California.

"The painful part was knowing that my life was slipping away.

"The more I proclaimed my innocence the more time went by.

"It was difficult dealing with the pain of not being able to father my son because I knew the importance a father makes in someone's life.

"To attempt to remain in his life I wrote him countless letters, he would sometimes visit and there were phone calls."

Mr Carrillo was jailed with convicted murderers but said that he "didn't fear them or think less of them" because of the things they had done in the past.

Like all inmates in California, he was made to work during his time in prison.

He carried out cooking and cleaning roles, and also chose to study.

"Ultimately going to school was my escape, it was my way of staying free while I was inside."

While Mr Carrillo was serving his sentence, his father was making efforts on the outside to bring about his son's release.

He would try to find lawyers and investigators willing to take on the case, and was always "making noise" in his efforts to have the conviction overturned.

Francisco sadly died in 1999, and his son would not start to have breakthroughs in clearing his name until many years later.

Mr Carrillo continued: "My release from prison came about after 15 years of chipping way, casting messages in a bottle per say, out into the world, over the walls, looking for help.

"I was writing letters to proclaim my innocence at any chance that I could, and finally I got the attention of a lone attorney named Ellen Eggers, who got the attention of a number of other organisations as well as The Innocence Project.

"They were all fascinated that I still had faith in the system that had let me down."

The Innocence Project is a non-profit organisation that works to exonerate wrongly convicted people.

In the five years after Mr Carrillo got the attention of Ms Eggers, she worked with the other organisations to "turn over every unturned stone" in his case.

"They investigated and tracked everybody down and found the evidence that would ultimately prove my innocence.

"The attorneys tracked down the six original witnesses, and they all individually gave the story that either they were misled, that they were led to pick me, or that they lied.

"Whichever one it was, it always came back to this young boy Scott Turner and then obviously the cop."

The revelations led to another trial taking place in Los Angeles in 2011.

The original witnesses were each there, as well as Deputy Craig Ditsch.

"It was like a class reunion, a 20-year class reunion.

"Seeing the witnesses was bittersweet, I remembered them as being the people who testified against me.

"But all these years later they were defending me."

The 2011 trial also heard that it would be extremely difficult for someone to identify the passenger of a car that was 150 metres away at night.

"This light expert came in and said the light condition was so bad, that the eye was not capable of seeing what these boys had initially said they saw.

"That was compelling."

Mr Carrillo says a man has been identified as being Mr Sarpy's likely killer but he has not been convicted.

Eight years after his release from prison, he says he doesn't hold any anger towards the people whose eyewitness accounts lead to his incarceration.

"When I was inside I remember the other prisoners were always either angry at their wives, angry at their defence attorney, angry at the guy in the dining room because the food wasn't right - they were angry with everything.

"I just feel like this belief spilled over into every area of their lives, and I noticed that I was like 'oh s***', I can't do that."

Mr Carrillo says he "doesn't know how" he has done it, but he has "excused the behaviour" of those who gave false evidence.

When he celebrated his 45th birthday on 7 March this year, he invited the district attorney Mary Ann Escalante who prosecuted him in 1991.

He said that he "wholeheartedly accepted" her apology and added that it was a "birthday present he will never forget".

After his release Mr Carrillo filed a civil rights lawsuit which led to him being awarded a $10m (£7.6m) payout by Los Angeles County.

"It's obviously changed my life, but what's more important is that the settlement should send the signal that these rush-to-judgements cost a lot of money."

Mr Carrillo, who works full time as criminal justice activist, is now married and met his wife Efrat Sharoney two-and-a-half years after his release from prison.

She worked as a law professor when they first met, but now trains lawyers how to treat their clients.

"It's kind of fitting."

The couple have a five-year-old son and a two-year-old daughter.

Mr Carrillo's son from before he was convicted is now 28.

The family man marked the eight-year anniversary of his release by running a marathon before enjoying a party in the afternoon.

"The best thing about being free is having the agency to live out whatever life that can be desired.

"One of the things I most looked forward to when I was waiting for my release was to just have the ability to use the bathroom whenever I like."