(CNN) A California man who spent 14 years in prison for the murder of a newspaper columnist has been exonerated thanks to the same DNA technology that caught the Golden State Killer suspect, authorities said.

Ricky Davis was convicted of second-degree murder in the 1985 fatal stabbing of 54-year-old Jane Hylton. He walked free from prison Thursday, CNN affiliate KOVR reported, hours after becoming the first person in California to be exonerated with the help of genetic genealogy -- the combination of DNA analysis and family tree research.

In 1985, Hylton was found dead inside an El Dorado Hills, California, home that she shared with her daughter, Davis and his then-girlfriend, and another woman, according to the Northern California Innocence Project , which represented Davis.

Davis and his girlfriend, who were returning from a party, along with Hylton's daughter, who had been out with friends, found Hylton dead in one of the bedrooms, the NCIP said.

The case went cold until 1999, when investigators reopened the case. Police interrogated Davis' girlfriend several times and she ultimately changed her story, implicating Davis and herself in Hylton's death, the NCIP said.

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