"He kind of got as best as he could, motioned, and said, 'I have something to tell you. I have to get something off my conscience and you need to hear this,’” the guard, James Tomlinson, told the station.

“He said, 'I killed somebody. I beat her to death.’”

Goodener’s body had been found in an empty house stabbed in the neck, set on fire and bludgeoned to death with a cinder block, the station reported.

Washington had been a person of interest, but investigators were never able to pin the murder on him and the case had gone cold.

"I didn't have any trust in the system. All of a sudden, I got this phone call and they said, 'We think we found him,'" Goodener's daughter, Sonya Kimbrell, said.

Washington, who was in jail for a separate crime when he confessed, tried to take back the deathbed confession in court, but was convicted of murder late last month.

He’ll serve at least 51 years in prison, the station reported.