SYCAMORE, Ill. – A 76-year-old man serving a life sentence for the 1957 slaying of an Illinois schoolgirl is hoping to be set free after a prosecutor re-examined evidence and concluded the former Washington state security guard couldn't have committed the crime.
Jack McCullough was convicted in 2012 in the killing of 7-year-old Maria Ridulph, in one of the oldest unsolved cases to go to trial.
Defense lawyers will argue why McCullough should be released at a hearing Friday.
DeKalb County State's Attorney Richard Schmack agrees that McCullough should be freed. Schmack says old and new evidence proves McCullough was 35 miles away when the second-grader was abducted as she played in the snow in Sycamore, Illinois.
Maria's body was found months later.
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