ST. JOHN'S, N.L. -- The Newfoundland and Labrador government awarded Randy Druken $2.1 million Thursday in a bid to provide closure for a man who spent six years in jail for a murder he did not commit.

Druken was wrongfully convicted of the June 1993 stabbing of his girlfriend, Brenda Young, largely based on the testimony of a jailhouse informant who later recanted his story. After six years behind bars, Druken was granted an appeal, the conviction was overturned and the charge was eventually stayed.

"It's hard to put a dollar figure on what (I've) gone through," Druken said in an interview.

Now 41, Druken said he would like to buy a new truck and a cabin for his 72-year-old father, return to school to study psychology and counsel young offenders.

"There's too many kids today falling through the cracks, and I'd like to get something going and try to help them," the St. John's man said.

Druken's case was the subject of an exhaustive public inquiry that examined the wrongful murder convictions of three men in the province.

In June, former Supreme Court justice Antonio Lamer concluded Druken, Ronald Dalton and Gregory Parsons were the victims of overzealous prosecutors who had readily accepted police investigations plagued by "tunnel vision."

Lamer issued several dozen recommendations aimed at fixing an ailing justice system, the most notable of which was a call for a review of the Crown attorney's office.

Tom Marshall, the province's attorney general and justice minister, said the review is underway and the government has accepted all of Lamer's recommendations.

Marshall said he hoped the Druken's award would bring him a sense of closure.

"The amount is within the scope and the range for compensation that wrongfully convicted persons in Canada have received."

Parsons received $1.3 million after he was wrongfully convicted in the January 1991 stabbing death of his mother.

In 1994, a jury convicted him of second-degree murder, but he was later exonerated by DNA evidence and was formally acquitted in 1998.

Dalton has yet to receive any compensation because his lawyers are still in negotiations with the Newfoundland government.

He said the compensation awarded to Druken was too low for the nightmare he endured.

"It's, in my view, on the low end of the range," he said in an interview.

Dalton was arrested and charged the day after his wife was found dead in August 1988. He was convicted the following year of strangling her.

Although an appeal was filed within weeks, the provincial Appeal Court did not hear the case until almost nine years later.

Dalton, who had always insisted his wife choked on cereal, had his conviction overturned and he was acquitted after a retrial in June 2000.