Lawyers for a man who was executed in the US say someone else's DNA has been found on the murder weapon.
Ledell Lee was given a lethal injection four years ago after the state of Arkansas found him guilty for the 1993 murder of Debra Reese.
He maintained his innocence to the end.
Shortly before his death, he told the BBC: "My dying words will always be, as it has been: I am an innocent man."
Now, attorneys for his family say a different person's DNA has been found on the weapon used to kill Reese – and that there is no "absolute or conclusive" connection to Lee, as CNN reports.
The development raises fresh questions about Lee's conviction.
He was one of eight men put on a "conveyor belt" of executions by a state seeking to ensure its supply of midazolam, the sedative used in lethal injections, didn’t expire.
"I think if those results had been had before he was executed, he'd still be alive," Lee Short, who was Lee's attorney, told CNN.
Debra Reese was found to have been killed by a tyre thumper, a tool resembling a sawn-off baseball bat used by truckers to test the pressure of their wheels.
Incredibly, the handle of the bloodied club and a white shirt wrapped around the weapon had never been tested before.
Before his death, Lee had argued unsuccessfully that he should be given a chance to test blood and hair evidence that could prove he did not beat 26-year-old Reese to death during a robbery.
Lee's attorney tried to have the DNA evidence tested before the execution, including that on the murder weapon and hair found in Reese's home – but the request was denied.
Lawyers for Lee's family filed a lawsuit in January 2020 seeking to have the DNA samples released. They received the results last month, and say they showed the DNA of an unknown man.
On Friday, the Innocence Project legal group told CNN the DNA test results also did not show an "absolute or conclusive" connection to Lee.
Lee's sister, Patricia Young, told CNN: "We are glad there is new evidence in the national DNA database and remain hopeful that there will be further information uncovered in the future". She asked for privacy for the family.
Two days before his lethal injection, Lee, 51, spoke to The Mirror's Christopher Bucktin.
He said: “They are trying to kill an innocent man, just to see if they can actually get away with it.
“History has proven that instead of righting a wrong, this nation would rather cover up instead of apologising and try to make right that wrong.
“And why? Because this nation as a whole would rather live with that lie to keep from being embarrassed no matter what the cost. Even if that cost means trying to kill an innocent man.”
Nina Morrison of the Innocence Project has acknowledged the new DNA results, which come 29 years after the evidence was collected, “proved to be incomplete and partial."
But she described the discovery as significant, leaving the door open for more findings in a case with no physical evidence linking Lee to Reese’s murder.
No match has yet been found for the DNA, which now lies on a nationwide criminal database.
Despite the development, Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, who oversaw the 2017 executions, defended Lee’s killing.
“It’s my duty to carry out the law,” he said, adding: “The fact is that the jury found him guilty based upon the information that they had.”
He labelled the DNA find “inconclusive.”
Before being convicted, prosecutors painted Lee as a rapist and killer of several women aged 17 to 70. But he was not tried for any of the crimes.
