Volz out of Nicaragua, mother home in Nashville

Minutes after touching down in Nashville, the mother of Eric Volz — a 28-year-old Nashville native imprisoned for more than a year in Nicaragua for a murder he did not commit — reached her car in the airport parking lot.

Putting her bags away, she reached down and pulled up a bumper sticker. It read, “Free Eric Volz.”

“Well, I guess I won’t be needing this anymore!” said Maggie Anthony, letting out a huge laugh.

Indeed, neither Anthony, the rest of her family or even Eric Volz himself will need any more stickers, any more tears or any more prayers.

As of Friday night, Eric Volz is out of Nicaragua and is once again a free man.

Anthony would not say where her son was, but she — as well as the office of U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper — confirmed that Volz was released from prison in Nicaragua Friday and taken out of the country.

She declined to discuss the details of Volz’ departure or when he is expected to land in the United States. But she did say that the family’s long nightmare, which began when Volz was accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend, Doris Ivanez Jimenez and did not end until almost a full week after his murder conviction and 30-year sentence were thrown out, was finally over.

“It feels incredible,” Anthony told a throng of reporters assembled at the security checkpoint awaiting her arrival at Nashville International Airport on Friday night. “The past 48 hours has just been so intense.”

While the worst appears to be over and her son is on his way home, Anthony did say that Volz was still very ill.

“The physical and mental stress had really gotten to him,” she said.

Since Monday, when his conviction was overturned by an appeals court, Volz had been in a prison hospital and was suffering from kidney stones, asthma and other ailments.

For a time it seemed as though Volz might continue to be held indefinitely while Nicaraguan authorities appealed to the country’s Supreme Court the decision to release him.

Judge Ivette Toruño, who had presided over the murder trial, had held up his release for three days by refusing to sign release papers, according to Volz’s Nicaraguan attorney, Fabbrith Gomez.

The holdup prompted Anthony to fly to Nicaragua Wednesday morning in an effort to see her son.

It was unclear what influence, if any, her trip had on the ultimate decision by the Nicaraguan government to release Volz even though the prosecuting attorney had begun her appeal to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, Anthony did credit the government of Nicaragua for “doing the right thing.”

“I would love to thank all the thousands of people who supported us and who wrote letters to Eric in prison,” she said. “I would like to thank the U.S. government. And I would like to thank the Nicaraguan government for doing the right thing.”