Rodney Reed, who has sat on death row for two decades for the 1996 murder of Stacy Stites, will return to a Bastrop County court in October for a hearing where a district judge will consider claims that could point to his innocence.

In May, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals remanded Reed’s case back to Bastrop County after his attorneys argued that the prosecution had presented false and misleading testimony during his original trial and withheld critical evidence from the defense.

Reed was convicted of capital murder in 1998. Prosecutors argued he abducted, raped and strangled the 19-year-old Giddings resident while she was on her way to work. Her body was found on a rural road in Bastrop County, with Reed’s semen inside her.

Former Travis County Medical Examiner Roberto Bayardo testified at the original trial that the sperm could have only come from a sexual assault at or near the time of Stite’s death, firming up the state’s theory that Reed raped and killed her between the hours of 3 and 5:30 a.m. on April 23, 1996.

Bayardo later disavowed his testimony, stating that the sperm could have been deposited days earlier, which would have backed up the defense’s theory that Stites and Reed had consensual sex days before her murder.

"If the prosecuting attorneys had advised me that they intended to present testimony that spermatoza cannot remain intact in the vaginal cavity for more than 26 hours, and argue that Ms. Stites died within 24 hours of the spermatoza being deposited, I would have advised them that neither the testimony nor the argument was medically or scientifically supported," Bayardo said in a 2012 declaration.

Those statements were never weighed in court after Reed’s conviction.

In May, the appeals court asked Bastrop County to consider the misleading testimony.

Additionally, it asked that it look into the defense’s other claim that the state withheld critical evidence that pointed to another possible killer: Stite’s fiancé, Jimmy Fennell.

Fennell testified during the original trial that he was at home with Stites the entire evening before she left to work on April 23. But a CNN interview with Bastrop County sheriff’s investigator Curtis Davis from 2016 — which never aired — could refute his alibi. Davis, who was a close friend of Fennell, told CNN that Fennell had confided to him that he had been out drinking the night before Stites was killed and went home late.

Fennell is in prison serving a 10-year sentence for the kidnapping and sexual assault of a woman in his custody when he was a Georgetown police officer in 2007.

The defense says it is likely he killed Stites when he learned of her and Reed’s affair.

The Bastrop County district attorney’s office said Monday it had never seen the CNN video and previously cautioned that on-camera interviews aren’t done under oath.

"The state will be looking into all of that in anticipation of the case being remanded back to Bastrop County on that issue," Bastrop County District Attorney Bryan Goertz said in May. "It’s just another legal hurdle that needs to be dealt with."

While the appeals court found that Reed "failed to make a prima facie showing of actual innocence," it decided his lawyers’ claims about the failures to disclose evidence and the false testimony deserved to be heard in trial court. It ordered both to be resolved within two months, which would have put Reed back in a courtroom this month.

The state, however, asked for an extension due to an abnormally busy summer schedule. It was granted last week.

Reed is now scheduled to appear in the 21st District Court on Oct. 10-13.

"The court’s decision reflects a mountain of exculpatory evidence that has come to light over the 19 years since Mr. Reed’s trial," Reed’s attorney Bryce Benjet said in a statement. "We look forward to the opportunity to present this important new evidence at the hearing in October, and will continue to pursue every lead in our search for the truth in this matter."