Leah Freeman went to prom with her boyfriend, Nick McGuffin at their high school in Collique, Oregon.

Courtesy of the Forensic Justice Project

Fifteen-year-old high school freshman Leah Freeman was found dead in Coquille, Oregon, in 2001.

Her boyfriend at the time, Nick MacGuffin, was convicted years later for her murder based on witness testimonies.

Bombshell DNA-evidence found on Freeman's shoes was resurfaced after McGuffin's trial and retested; the results found the DNA belonged to another unidentified man.

After serving nine years, McGuffin's conviction was overturned and he was freed from prison in 2019.

Now, McGuffin is on a mission to find Freeman's real killer.

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Nick McGuffin served nine years in prison for the murder of his high school sweetheart, Leah Freeman — a crime he insisted he did not commit for nearly 20 years. After his conviction, his attorney found decades-old DNA evidence not included in his criminal trial that proved his innocence. After years of maintaining his innocence, McGuffin is a free man.

"Mr. McGuffin is an innocent man who has been fighting to clear his name for the past twenty years," McGuffin's attorney Janis Puracal told Insider. "For so many years, the state police crime lab knew that there was DNA of another man on the victim's bloodstained shoes, and they never said a word about it."

In spite of the wrongful conviction, McGuffin, now 37, is determined to find justice for his high school sweetheart.

"That's the reason why I'm here...to keep Leah's name in the light," McGuffin told "20/20."

"[I want] to bring her name forward, to get somebody to come forward with the truth of what happened. To get resolution for myself, for her family," he added.

Fifteen-year-old Leah Freeman was found dead in 2000

Before Leah Freeman's body was found in 2000, one of her tennis shoes was found near a cemetery in her hometown of Coquille, Oregon, while the other was found just outside of town — with blood on it. Nearly twenty years later, her gym shoes would hold the very DNA evidence that would free McGuffin from prison.

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During her freshman year of high school, 15-year-old Leah Freeman began dating McGuffin, a high school senior, against her mother's wishes — and she wasn't the only one who had issues with the new couple.

On June 28, 2000, Freeman disappeared after having a dispute with her friend Cherie Mitchell over McGuffin. After the pair got into a fight about how much time Freeman was spending with her new boyfriend, Freeman stormed out of Mitchell's house on foot.

McGuffin came in his car up to pick Freeman from Mitchell's house later that night only to discover she had already left. After spending hours driving around their small Oregon hometown McGuffin claimed he gave up the search in the early hours of the morning after checking her home one last time.

"I saw a glare on her window, though it was her TV," McGuffin explained on "20/20." "It was 2000. It's not like she could send me a text. She couldn't call me on a cellphone. So I thought she was home, and I went home after that."

When Freeman was still nowhere to be found, her mother and McGuffin went to the police, who began the search for they believed to be a runaway teen. But Freeman's mother, Cory Courtright, told "20/20" she "knew something was wrong."

Cheryl Courtright, Leah Freeman's mother, said she "knew something was wrong" when her daughter disappeared.

Screenshot/ABC "20/20"

The night of her disappearance a mechanic picked up one of Freeman's Nike tennis shoes in a cemetery thinking it belonged to one of his daughters, the World Link reported.

The mechanic later turned the shoe in to police after news of Freeman's disappearance spread like wildfire through the small Oregon town; the other blood-spattered pair was found a week later on the side of a dirt road.

The shoes were virtually Oregon State Police's only clue in her murder case at the time. While crime lab analysts found an unidentified male DNA on both shoes, they did not report it because it was such a small amount.

On August 3, 2000, law enforcement officer's finally found Freeman's body in the woods through some back roads. McGuffin told "20/20" he was devastated by the news of her murder and willingly participated in the police investigation, in which they checked him for defensive woods for a possible motive. With few clues but Freeman's shoes, the case eventually went cold.

Freeman's murder rocked the small, quiet Oregon town with a population of about 4,000 — and some believed McGuffin was to blame.

Unable to grieve properly for her death or shake the suspicion of town residents, McGuffin said he was hospitalized after he attempted to take his own life. McGuffin eventually got his life back on track, finding happiness in cooking and his daughter, who was born in 2007, ABC reported.

A new police chief re-opens Freeman's murder case

Years later, Freeman's death still haunted the residents of Coquille, Oregon. When the town got a new police chief in 2008, residents, especially Freeman's mother, demanded answers.

"When I arrived in Coquille...everybody was talking about the Leah Freeman case. And one of the expectations as a new police chief was, 'What are you going to do about it, chief?'" Mark Dannels, the police chief, told "20/20."

Dannels soon assembled a team from across the state to re-examine her case, They combed through old evidence and collected hundreds of new witness testimonies, including some from a former friend of McGuffin who testified that he had smoked marijuana and tried to have sex with her the night Freeman disappeared, and a witness who claimed to have seen the couple after Freeman left her friend's house.

These two testimonies would become the smoking gun in the trial against McGuffin.

prison

Justing Sullivan/Getty Images

On August 23, 2010, McGuffin was arrested and charged with murder. In July 2011, the prosecutors argued the couple had gotten into a fight that got physically violent and escalated into McGuffin killing his girlfriend. McGuffin maintained his innocence, claiming that the last time he had seen his girlfriend was when he dropped her off at Mitchell's house the night she disappeared.

"My trial came down to people's words," McGuffin said. "My story has really never changed."

Ten of the 11 jurors found McGuffin guilty of manslaughter, during a time when Oregon was one of two states to allow non-unanimous criminal convictions at the time, ABC reported. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Bombshell DNA evidence was resurfaced after McGuffin's trial

After four years of being incarcerated, attorney Janis Puracal with the Forensic Justice Project took up McGuffin's case and discovered breakthrough DNA evidence that law enforcement did not know about or include in their investigation or the trial. Puracal asked to have the DNA re-tested in 2017; the results would show the DNA on the victim's shoes belonged to another man.

"Finding that exculpatory DNA on the shoes, that was a huge moment for our case," Puracal told "20/20." "We were looking for DNA that would tell us who actually committed this crime. And here, there was DNA of some other man on the victim's bloodstained shoe … and never reported. That changed everything for us."

In December 2019, a judge overturned his conviction, ruling that Oregon State Police failed to reveal DNA evidence that could have exonerated McGuffin. After nine years of maintaining his innocence, McGuffin was freed from prison and reunited with his now 12-year-old daughter and her mother.

Nick McGuffin is photographed with his attorney Janis Puracal after he is freed from prison.

Courtesy of the Forensic Justice Project

Although a judge ruled there was a "reasonable probability" that the verdict on McGuffin's case would have been different had the DNA evidence been included in the trial, the judge maintained it did not demonstrate his innocence.

Coos County District Attorney Paul Frasier chose not to seek a retrial for Freeman's murder and McGuffin will still be considered guilty in the case. Frasier told Oregon Live that Freeman's family did "not want go through the pain and stress of another trial."

Although McGuffin said he wanted accountability from law enforcement for the oversight of the bombshell DNA evidence, he said he is more concerned with finding the real culprit in Freeman's murder for her family and their small Oregon hometown. No other arrests have been made in connection with her case.

"[We] have a chance right now to clean the slate to make it right," McGuffin told "20/20."

"I'm pretty sure a lot of people would want that. I know Leah would. I know her family wants that. I want the truth for them. What more can I ask for?"

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