Boxer Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter dies at 76

Rubin “Hurricane” Carter died today (Sunday) at his home in Toronto at the age of 76. He had suffered from prostate cancer.

Carter, a former U.S. middleweight boxer, spent 19 years in prison for three murders he didn’t commit, finally being freed in 1985. He became famous through Bob Dyan’s song Hurricane, books and a 1999 film The Hurricane starring Denzel Washington.

Carter was arrested in New Jersey in 1966 (The Globe and Mail, April 20, 2014).

The film The Hurricane focused heavily on the relationship between Carter and Lesra Martin, who drew inspiration from Carter’s autobiography The Sixteenth Round and began writing to him (Bio.com).

Martin had met a group of Canadians in a Brooklyn subway in 1979, and they took him under his wing. Martin helped win Carter’s freedom.

Martin then went on to earn a law degree from Dalhousie Law School and is now a lawyer and motivational speaker in Kamloops.