Donning a pair of jet-black oval eyeglasses, he devours each page like a hungry man gripping a crab leg on all-you-can-eat night. He's hunched over in an isolated 6-square-foot concrete-block interview room, digging for the meat he says will put him back on his feet.

STRIKER'S POSE: Before getting convicted of murder, Fletcher beat some of boxing's best, including Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini.

"I'm not just talking," says the 50-year-old, who was convicted of murdering Vaughn Christopher in Southwest Philly. "I can prove my innocence."

But Fletcher is as depressed as the blue smock he's sporting, until he hears that a son of his former manager, a kid he used to babysit, has organized an April 19 benefit in his name. He greets the news with a mostly toothless, fleeting smile. Then, nervously, Fletcher uses his hands to help him talk, thus partially conquering a speech impediment. During a near five-hour interview, the first he has given since speaking to Ring magazine in August 2000, he waves his hands around to help re-create the crime that's haunted him for 14 years. Fletcher explains that he's been at Curran-Fromhold, 20 minutes from the tough Southwest Philly neighborhood that produced him, since a Philly judge vacated his death sentence two years ago. He balances boyish tears and bold proclamations to take quick, measured jabs at the Philadelphia district attorney's office, judges and a growing list of defense lawyers.

In his fight to clear his name and knock out those he says conspired against him, Fletcher is challenging the system as a whole. In this "enormous conspiracy," Fletcher says he was a fall guy. The police, he maintains, had it out for him because he was a big-name boxer, and a BMW-driving black guy who didn't tell lies to help them solve a South Philly homicide. Don't believe him? Well, take a look at the papers in his hands.

"The whole case was manufactured. The D.A. did a massive job, and now they're trying to keep the news media away," says Fletcher, who maintains he's been prohibited from doing other interviews. "They know my case will open the door to a scandal in this city. As long as the D.A. keeps it quiet, they think they're winning."

In his day, Fletcher was a southpaw to be reckoned with.

Boxing was in his blood. Two uncles, Nate and Dick Turner, were pros and his mother Lucille was an amateur judge. All six of Lucille's sons entered the ring, most notably Frank "The Animal" Fletcher whose brawling style made for TV-ratings-boosting bloodbaths in the early 1980s. (A USBA middleweight champ, he's currently serving a 22-year parole-violation sentence in a federal prison in Colorado.)

Anthony "Two Guns" Fletcher also made a name for himself, compiling a 159-12 amateur record and winning the National AAU 132-pound title in 1977.

He beat some of boxing's best—Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini among them—and was a handpicked sparring partner for Sugar Ray Leonard before his unanimous 1987 victory over Marvin Hagler.

As a pro, Fletcher went 24-4-1 with eight knockouts, but never had a world title fight.

Fletcher's was never an easy road. As he was cracking his division's Top 10 in 1981, Fletcher had a bout with Bell's Palsy that virtually paralyzed the left side of his face and left him with a speech impediment. He made a comeback 11 months later in which he reeled off 11 straight wins, including one over Fred Pendleton, who would later own a piece of the lightweight crown. Then, in a 1984 fight, he suffered a detached retina and the first blemish on his record: a 10-round draw.

Two years later, at 21-0-1, he'd mount yet another comeback, but would lose both fights. In 1987, Fletcher was arrested for possessing 22 bags of cocaine, creating a stigma he's never shaken. A June 1989 playground shooting at Fourth Street and Washington Avenue didn't help his image, either. Fletcher and friend Eric Hurst were attacked from behind while watching a basketball game from Fletcher's parked BMW. Hurst died; Fletcher fended off five bullets, including one to his hand, and then he reached out to grab the gun—like he says he did in the confrontation with Christopher.

He hearkens back to the playground incident as the reason why the city's law-enforcement community couldn't wait to stick it to him.

"They gave me $20, told me to go get lunch and come back and do what they said," he claims of the post-shooting interview. "I caught the subway, and never saw them again. This has all happened to me because I wouldn't help put another guy on death row."

Fletcher's transition from contender to convict started around 1 a.m., March 2, 1992.

He was outside 5936 Greenway Ave., not too far from his Southwest Philly home. There, he says he confronted Christopher to get back the forty bucks he says Christopher stole at gunpoint during a craps game a week earlier.

FIFTY FACING LIFE: "I've never taken a dive and I won't because my kids believe in their dad."

Fletcher admits he punched Christopher, who then pulled out a gun. In the struggle, Christopher was shot twice. Depending on who you believe, he either died an hour or 12 hours later at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

"My pride did this to me," he says, sucking back tears. "I should have never gotten out of my car, but I did because I can't stand when someone takes something that's mine. I always had to show people who I was."

Fletcher has never denied having a hand in Christopher's death, but he calls it an accident. A case of self-defense. At worst, a simple assault.

The D.A.'s office, however, called it homicide.

Chief eyewitness Natalie Renee Grant described a cold-blooded, execution-style murder, with shots being fired from eight to 12 feet away. She said it was over a drug debt. After a two-day trial in January 1993, and three days of deliberations, a jury agreed with prosecutors. He was shipped six hours away to Greene State Correctional Institution in Waynesburg, where he'd have to fight his way off the execution list, which is exactly what he did.

After appealing the decision multiple times, he was finally granted a hearing to challenge the conviction in 2003. At issue was whether it was prejudicial to Fletcher's self-defense claims for the D.A.'s office not to produce testimony from the medical examiner who wrote the autopsy report. Fletcher, who conducted his own 14-year investigation, claimed prosecutors used falsified hospital records and photos to gain a conviction. He also claims they instructed medical examiner Ian C. Hood (whom Fletcher calls "an expert in scientific fraud") to lie under oath. Fletcher, who claims Grant's statement was forged by police, also maintains that photographs admitted at trial weren't of Christopher, but of an unclaimed corpse someone fired bullets into.

Initially, Hood, who continues to work as a deputy medical examiner for the city, testified there wasn't evidence of a physical struggle, despite a bruise on Christopher's chest. At the 2003 hearing, Hood recanted his testimony—for the first time in his career, he said—and admitted he made a mistake interpreting medical examiner Dr. Hydow Park's report. He said he could no longer say for certain whether a struggle took place.

Then, Park, currently medical examiner in Atlantic County, N.J., reported that he was able to testify when the D.A. said he wasn't. Also, based on the path the two bullets took (one through Christopher's right flank above his hip, the other six inches above his right knee), he said neither was likely to have been inflicted from the distance to which Grant testified. Both wounds, he said, were more consistent with "a hand-to-hand struggle," especially if Christopher was right-handed and drew a gun from his right flank against a left-handed aggressor, which jives with Fletcher's account. (While Fletcher speaks about countless points he says prove his innocence, his attorneys only offered Hood's misinterpretation of the autopsy as evidence.)

Eleven years after trial, in February 2004, Common Pleas Court Judge John Milton Younge vacated Fletcher's death sentence and granted him a new trial. Younge agreed, among other things, that the D.A.'s failure to produce testimony from the medical examiner—who wrote the autopsy report but then was reportedly out of town and unavailable to testify—was prejudicial.

A spokeswoman for the D.A.'s office, which declined comment on Fletcher's claims, maintains that he's guilty of murder. While they appealed Younge's decision to the state Supreme Court, Fletcher's latest lawyers—Levant, Martin, Tauber & Levin—filed a protective cross appeal. Today, both sides await a decision for which they have no timetable.

Should it strike down Younge's call, Fletcher will head back to death row.

Fletcher says if waiting on his fate doesn't kill him, lung or throat cancer will. He's had polyps before, has symptoms again and says he isn't getting proper medical exams at Curran-Fromhold. He's missing most of the upper left side of his dentures, and says the system won't replace them. He remains legally blind in his left eye, the result of his detached retina.

He says he can't sleep. And even if he could, he wouldn't. "They want me dead," he says, "and they want me quiet."

As things stand, he predicts the D.A.'s office will want to make a deal, but he considers pleading out akin to taking a dive in the ring. (Before his trial, he was offered a third-degree murder plea and a sentence of 10 to 20 years. Stubbornly, perhaps, he refused, but doesn't regret it.)

"I've never taken a dive and I won't because my [five] kids believe in their dad," says Fletcher, who also has five grandkids.

Jokingly, he says he's a cat with nine lives, what with the Bell's Palsy, having fought with bullets in him and faced a signed death warrant before pro-bono representation from Philly's Wolf, Block, Schorr & Solis-Cohen saved him.

"I'm in the fight of my life," he says. "I'm in the 14th round and I'm rumblin. I ain't laying down."

RING PROWESS: Fletcher had a 159-12 amateur record and won 21 straight to start his pro career.

As much as he wants his freedom, it's clear Fletcher wants a pound of flesh, too. He talks about grand plans, like Steven Spielberg making a movie called Exhibit A, the name he's given his yet-to-be-used hospital file. The happy ending? "When the D.A. apologizes. They ought to be embarrassed for what they've done."

Fletcher says he doesn't want another trial. He wants the evidence he's gathered while behind bars to be unveiled at a national press conference. A press conference that'd draw the likes of 60 Minutes, he says. And from there, he wants to go home.

Fletcher's fight has begun capturing the attention of Philly's boxing community, including that of Damon Feldman, a local promoter whose father Marty once served as Fletcher's manager. Damon remembers sitting in court during Fletcher's 2003 appeal hearing.

"When he kept looking back at my dad and me and crying that day in court, it messed me up," Feldman says. "Here's the bottom line: This guy got screwed."

So next Wednesday night, Feldman will host a benefit at the Lagoon Night Club in Essington. Along with Partners in Crime Boxing Promotions, Damon Feldman Promotions will present a professional five-bout Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission card. Prior to the 8 p.m. first bell, Damon will launch the Anthony Fletcher Foundation. Feldman says it isn't so much about raising money as attracting attention from the boxing world, politicians and legal eagles alike.

"The little guy I used to babysit could be a guy that helps me get out of jail," says Fletcher.

The foundation will join Friends and Family to Free Anthony Fletcher as the incarcerated boxer's support system outside the walls. Dianne Settles, with whom Fletcher has a namesake 26-year-old son, plans to attend. "At least Anthony is not forgotten," she says. "God hasn't brought Anthony to uncover all of this in vain."

She then explains that Fletcher's nervous energy can be attributed to the fact that he's so close to his Southwest Philly home, yet so far. The slit in the wall he calls a window doesn't help matters.

"When I look out, I can see everything, but I can't touch," Fletcher says. "I want to go out that door."

But since he can't, nervously, his hands are moving again. Call it stress relief, but Fletcher keeps busy training blockmates to box. One heavyweight he calls "Whiz" is "a young Holyfield." Fletcher's his block's representative. He does everyone's laundry and cleans the common area, too. But above all, he remains his biggest advocate, a jailhouse lawyer who thinks he's sitting on the information that can have him sprung. And events like Wednesday's boxing card can only help his cause.

"My documents prove I shouldn't be in jail, and because I have them, they're scared," Fletcher insists. "As soon as I get on the news, I'm out of here."