By then, Smith had died in an Oklahoma prison.

In 2009, the so-called Beatrice 6 sued Gage County and the sheriffs and deputies behind the investigation.

The initial trial ended in a hung jury, and Wednesday was the second day of testimony in a second trial.

Back in March 1989, Stevens testified, he already knew that White, the man they were flying to Alabama to arrest, didn't have the same blood type as the killer. He had excluded him as a suspect in 1985 and had given a report to then-Gage County Attorney Dick Smith about it.

"I just didn't understand it," Stevens said.

But he did what he was told, he said, which was to get a statement from White. "A confession would be nice," he remembers being told.

"It was like arresting somebody and then doing the investigation to me," Stevens said.

White didn't confess and never would, but others, including Taylor, lined up to say White killed Wilson and they participated.