Jamie Peterson returned Wednesday to the same courtroom where he was sentenced to life in prison 16 years ago. Now, a judge is deciding whether he will get a new trial for the rape and murder he was convicted of in 1998.
DNA from the crime now points to a new suspect. Attorney Caitlin Plummer says that helps show Peterson falsely confessed and should get a new trial.
"The new DNA of course casts even more doubt on the already problematic confessions," she says. "It was one thing for the jury to credit them at the first trial. It's quite another now."
The confessions were problematic, Plummer says, because he gave police several wrong answers about details. Then he changed his responses after they led him to the right answers.
But Peterson's confessions are what persuaded the jury to convict him in the first place, and their decision should stand, says assistant prosecutor Michael Huber.
"The issue was confessions," says Huber. "Confessions are the bricks that paved the road to conviction."
Last year, the DNA was matched to Jason Ryan, who faces a trial in December. Prosecutors maintain the two men acted together.
The judge says she hopes to rule quickly on the case.
The victim's daughter Patty Cox says it's been a long road seeking justice in her mother's murder, and she sees no end in sight.
"More waiting. It's been a long, long, long ordeal," she says. Her mother, Geraldine Montgomery, was 68 years old when she died in 1996.