By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
A US man convicted of killing his neighbor was freed on Wednesday after serving 21 years in prison because prosecutors said they didn't have enough evidence to retry him.
James L. Owens, 43, and a co-defendant had been sentenced to life in prison for the 1987 stabbing and strangling death of Colleen Williar, 24. Prosecutors described the crime as a burglary gone awry.
But Owens had his murder and burglary convictions thrown out after a 2006 DNA test found that neither he nor co-defendant James Thompson raped Williar. While Owens had been accused but not convicted of rape, the new DNA evidence effectively damaged prosecutors' theory that the men committed the crime together.
Prosecutors initially wanted to retry Owens despite the DNA test, but assistant state's attorney Mark P. Cohen said Wednesday that witnesses in the case had died, and other evidence had deteriorated or been destroyed. Cohen would not say whether he thought Owens was innocent.
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