CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Evin King walked out of the Cuyahoga County Jail on Wednesday after spending 22 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit.

And he was ready to party.

"I'm ready to say what I have to say, and let's rock and roll," King said before he and more than a dozen friends and relatives left to eat lobster tails, steak and shrimp at Red Lobster.

The 59-year-old King, whose birthday is in two weeks, wiped away tears, hugged relatives he barely recognized and repeatedly pumped his hands in the air after Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O'Malley in a Wednesday court hearing asked Judge Brian J. Corrigan to vacate King's 1995 aggravated murder conviction in the death of his then-girlfriend.

Corrigan granted the motion, and King was officially released from the Cuyahoga County Jail on a $5,000 personal bond about 1:45 p.m.

King maintained his innocence since the day of his 1994 arrest. He kept a photograph of him and daughter, Venus King, with the words "Free at Last" written on it, tucked into a copy of the New Testament, and refused to participate in prison programs to rehabilitate violent felons because, as he said, "I'm not a killer."

"I never lost focus," he said.

His release was a burst of emotion. Relatives, from as far away as Georgia flew in to witness his first steps as a free man, and former inmates he befriended in prison came back to the Justice Center to greet him.

King thanked the Ohio Innocence Project's Jennifer Bergeron, who worked on his for the last several years, and interns working for the group, based out of the University of Cincinnati.

"You got me my life back," King told Bergeron.

King showed solidarity with inmates at the prisons where he served, reading off a list of complaints about the Ohio Parole Board and concerns about the health of the inmates in the state's prisons.

King was convicted of murdering his girlfriend, Crystal Hudson, in their Cleveland apartment in June 1994 and was sentenced to life in prison with parole eligibility after 15 years. King maintained his innocence throughout his stint in prison.

Prosecutors at his trial had no physical evidence linking him to the crime.

Hudson's body was found in her bedroom closet. She had been strangled and raped. Semen from her body did not match King's DNA, and skin cells found under her fingernails could not be tested with technology available at trial.

A forensic analyst testified at trial that the semen was discharged up to several days before Hudson was killed, and eyewitness said they saw King leaving the apartment several times around the day investigators believe she was killed.

Prosecutors at trial theorized that Hudson had cheated on King and that King became jealous and killed her.

King maintained his innocence and filed multiple appeals, each of which was denied.

In 2009, the Ohio Innocence Project tested the skin cells using new DNA technology and found that the skin cells and the semen came from the same person, who was not King.

The case dragged on until last year, when the Ohio Eighth District Court granted his motion to have a hearing on the DNA evidence.

When O'Malley took office in January, he ordered a new appellate prosecutor to review the case. When O'Malley saw the results, and learned from the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office's Regional Forensics Lab that the science used at the original trial was no longer credible, O'Malley decided to move to vacate the conviction.

While King was imprisoned, he refused to participate in rehabilitation programs or admit to the killing. He was also diagnosed with, and cured of, cancer, he said.

King also expressed sympathy for the family of Robert Godwin Sr., the man whose death at the hands of Steve Stephens was recorded on video that Stephens uploaded to Facebook. Stephens killed himself in Erie, Pennsylvania Tuesday after a 48-hour manhunt.

"You would be surprised at the inmates who felt y'all's sorrow," King said. "Don't think because they're in prison that they don't have a heart."

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