1951. After confessing to the brutal murder of Clarence Pellet in Shelby, Montana, Frank Dryman, a mysterious hitchhiker, is sentenced to hang. Dryman's verdict attracts considerable attention and the public outcry results in Dryman's penalty being reduced to life behind bars. After serving 18 years Dryman is paroled but disappears in 1971. In 2009, discovering that Dryman is alive and still at large, victim Clarence Pellett's grandson Clem finally sees justice done.