Prade has been in prison since his 1998 conviction for the death of his former wife, Dr. Margo Prade.

AKRON — Douglas Prade, the former Akron police captain imprisoned for the 1997 murder of his former wife, has lost his latest bid to overturn his conviction.

In a 3-0 decision released Wednesday, the 9th District Court of Appeals denied Prade’s request for a new trial.

The decision means the 72-year-old Prade will continue to fight for his freedom from inside the Allen Correctional Institution. He’s been in prison since his 1998 conviction for the death of his former wife, Dr. Margo Prade.

Prade had a fleeting taste of freedom that began in 2013 when a Summit County judge granted him a new trial based on more recent DNA evidence. That decision was overturned 18 months later and Judge Christine Croce reinstated Prade’s conviction.

The case has since been appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court and again by the lower appellate court.

Prade has consistently denied any involvement in his former wife's shooting death.

At the heart of Prade’s latest appeal is DNA taken from Dr. Prade’s lab coat, which she was wearing when she was approached in a parking lot outside her Akron medical office.

Evidence showed Dr. Prade was bitten and DNA swaths tended to show the existence of an unknown male profile. The value of that evidence has been debated ever since with prosecutors contending the DNA is the result of contamination or transfer.

Prade’s DNA experts contended that the DNA left on the lab coat was “highly likely to be from the killer.” Those findings, however, were problematic.

“Neither Mr. Prade’s experts, nor the state’s experts could say when or how the male DNA …was deposited on the bite mark,” Judge Thomas Teodosio wrote in the appellate decision.