In a stunning and rare decision, a judge released a man accused of arson and murder three years after his arrest in light of a prosecutor’s admission that the case against him was weak and even the medical examiner wasn’t positive if Kathy Johnson’s death was a homicide at all.

Randal Wagoner, who was a truck driver in Bradford County before he was arrested in March 2014, has maintained his innocence ever since police first said he killed Kathy Lorraine Johnson and burned down the building she lived in.

He was scheduled to go to trial next week, but instead he was released without bond as prosecutors continue their investigation, citing the many holes that defense attorneys successfully poked at expert testimony. For the time being, he still faces the murder and arson charges.

He walked out of jail Wednesday with a bible and a devotional in hand and breathed. "Three years. Three years. Man."

"How many days?" one of his attorneys asked.

"Too many," he said, and his voice wavered. The answer: 1,140.

Read about another case with similarities to this one: a man who sat in jail for 589 days on robbery charges despite having alibis

Wagoner’s attorneys at the Public Defender’s Office were able to cast doubt on just about every one of the prosecution’s expert witnesses.

On Wednesday, Assistant State Attorney London Kite asked for more time to investigate the case, and she conceded "the state’s case at this juncture is weak. … In all candor to the court, they [defense attorneys] have undermined state’s evidence significantly." She said she understood if the court granted Wagoner’s release.

When Judge James Daniel released him on Wednesday, Wagoner took a breath and asked to speak: "I just want to say thank you. It’s been a lot, but I want to say thank you."

Kite said her investigation will determine if the state’s case is "viable."

As Wagoner waits for the State Attorney’s Office to continue its investigation, he will stay at his mom’s and try to get his old truck-driving job back as long as he maintains a curfew, doesn’t contact Johnson’s family and agrees to random drug tests.

"I’ve never had a person with a charge like this released," Assistant Public Defender Michael Bateh said. He, Assistant Public Defender Jason Gropper and former assistant public defender James Boyle worked together on the case.

Bateh credited Kite, who only came on the case in November, just before the case was supposed to originally go for trial.

"She was really the white knight in this case," Bateh said. "When she kept looking, we would tell her something and she would say you’re right, and we need to dig deeper, and that’s what we wanted. We wanted her to dig deeper.

"It’s frustrating for my client. He’s been sitting for three years and he professed his innocence from Day 1, and he never wavered. But it took someone like London Kite to look at it and review it to get where we are today."

Wagoner’s release may present a sign of change at the State Attorney’s Office since Melissa Nelson beat former state attorney Angela Corey in last fall’s election. A spokesman at the State Attorney’s Office said it doesn’t comment on pending cases.

One of Nelson’s first decisions was not retaining 11 employees, including former assistant state attorney Peter Overstreet who led the prosecution.

Overstreet, who is now a prosecutor in Panama City, handed over this case to Kite when he found out Nelson wasn’t keeping him.

Overstreet also prosecuted the case of Jerome Maurice Hayes, who was accused of robbery and held in jail for 589 days even as police found substantial evidence that he may have been innocent – including the fact his workplace said he had clocked in during the time of the crime. At one point, a Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office detective asked why Hayes was still in jail.

He and another prosecutor faced a Florida Bar complaint related to that case, though a Bar panel didn’t find that he violated rules of ethics. The panel noted that Overstreet said he’d instituted procedures "to avoid similar occurrences in the future."

In Wagoner’s case, a medical examiner initially declared Johnson’s death a homicide by blunt-force trauma, but after the defense hired one of the most prominent medical examiners in the country to review the case, the prosecution’s witness changed his opinion. "He still believes it’s a homicide but he has reservations about – he could go either way," Kite said Wednesday.

State fire experts said they reached their conclusions about what caused the fire only by a process of elimination, something called negative corpus, a process the National Fire Protection Association has called "not consistent with the scientific method, inappropriate, and [that] should not be used."

And newly analyzed DNA evidence found under Johnson’s fingernails appear to belong to a man, but that DNA was not consistent with Wagoner’s.

Kite said she wants to wait for more DNA testing and more investigations "so a decision can be made that’s well informed."

Kite said the defense had been asking for phone records for years but the defense only received the records after Kite took over. Overstreet said he couldn’t comment on the case, but he did disagree with this characterization, saying he provided the defense with the records promptly when asked. In November, he said, the defense attorneys asked specifically for the phone metadata and he provided that, too.

Andrew Pantazi: (904) 359-4310