A Chicago man who spent nearly two decades behind bars for murder over a deadly 2003 shooting has been released years after his identical twin confessed to the crime.
An emotional Kevin Dugar broke down into tears as he was released from the Cook County jail on Tuesday night and reunited with his loved ones as a free man, his lawyer Ronald Safer told NBC News on Friday.
Dugar was convicted in 2005 and sentenced to 54 years in prison. For years, he maintained his innocence.
Still, his fate appeared to be sealed until what Safer described as a "stranger than fiction" plot twist that saw Dugar's twin brother, Karl Smith, admit to having carried out the murder in a confession that was first made in a letter to Dugar in 2013, nearly a decade after he was convicted.
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Initially, the admission had little impact on Dugar’s case, with a judge ruling in 2018 that Smith’s confession was not credible and declining to offer his twin a new trial, according to The Chicago Tribune.
After Tuesday's ruling, he will have a second chance to prove his innocence.
The Cook County state’s attorney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Read the full story here on NBCNews.com
