Thomas Highers, center, hugs his attorney Valerie Newman as his brother Raymond Highers , left, appear before Judge Lawrence Talon at Wayne County Circuit Court in Detroit on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2013. Associated Press/Carlos Osorio A guy looking for old friends on Facebook ended up helping to exonerate two Michigan brothers in prison for murder, the Detroit Free Press' John Wisely and Jim Schaefer report.

It all started in 2009, when Washington lawyer Kevin Zieleniewski was checking out what his old Detroit crew was up to on Facebook.

He discovered from a Facebook post that Raymond and Thomas Highers had been sentenced in 1988 for killing a local drug dealer named Robert Karey.

Zieleniewski immediately flashed back to his law school days.

Six years after the murder occurred, a classmate had mentioned he'd been at the dealer's house the night of the shooting. The friend recounted he and four friends had been jumped outside the house by several black armed men, who pointed at them and told them to leave. (The Highers brothers are white.)

Then he heard a gunshot. Zieleniewski eventually convinced the friend to come forward with his account.

Wednesday morning, the charges against the Highers brothers were officially dropped after they'd already served 25 years on prison.

Here's a clip from last month when a judge first released them on bond pending their new hearing — the first time they'd seen freedom in three decades:

Read the full account at Freep »