A 72-year old identified as Leonard Mack has been exonerated after new DNA testing showed he's not the perpetrator of a 1975 rape.
The 47-year span makes it the longest known wrongful conviction in US history to be overturned by DNA evidence.
The DNA tests had identified a different man as the perpetrator, who in turn confessed to the rape.
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Leonard Mack had spent over seven years in prison after being convicted in 1976 for rape.
Mack after the exoneration said:
"I never lost hope that one day that I would be proven innocent."
The story started when In May 1975, two teenage girls who were walking home from school in Greenburgh, New York were stopped by a man who held them at gun point.
The man raped one of the girls was raped twice with the other managing to escape and run for help.
The Greenburgh Police Department then issued a dispatch for officers to be on the lookout for a black male in his early 20s.
Mr Mack, who happened to be driving through the neighbourhood was stopped by the police and despite wearing different clothes than the suspect, police still arrested him.
He was subsequently convicted and sent to jail.
The Westchester County District Attorney's Conviction Review Unit, together with the Innocence Project, a nonprofit committed to exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals - conducted new DNA testing in the rape case in 2022, with the result showing that the actual perpetrator was a man who had been convicted of a burglary and rape in Queens that occurred weeks after this crime.
The man had also been convicted in 2004 for burglary and sexual assault of a woman in Westchester County.
"This exoneration confirms that wrongful convictions are not only harmful to the wrongly convicted but also make us all less safe," district attorney Miriam E Rocah said in a statement.
Ms Rocah praised Mr Mack's "unwavering strength" for fighting to clear his name for almost 50 years.
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