A New Jersey man who was imprisoned for nearly two decades for murder has been freed after successfully challenging the bite-mark evidence used to convict him.
Gerard Richardson, 48, posted bail on October 29 in Newark, a day after a judge overturned his conviction, according to an Associate Press story. Prosecutors have not decided whether to retry him, but the charges against him still stand.
Richardson was convicted in 1995 of the murder of 19-year-old Monica Reyes, whose body was found in a ditch in Bernards Township.
The main physical evidence in the case centered around a bite mark on the woman's back that a prosecution expert said was made by Richardson. A recent court-ordered DNA test requested by the Innocence Project revealed that the mark contained material that was not Richardson's DNA.
