HATTIESBURG – (AP) A trial date has been set for a man under indictment for a 1979 rape and murder that three men already served nearly 30 years in prison for before their recent exoneration.
The Hattiesburg American reports 61-year-old Andrew Lee Harris will stand trial on a capital murder charge in Forrest County Circuit Court Oct. 29.
Harris is accused of the May 4, 1979, slaying of Eva Gail Patterson of Eatonville.
A hearing in September 2010 began the process of clearing the names of the three men convicted in Patterson’s slaying. Phillip Bivens, Bobby Ray Dixon and Larry Ruffin have all had their life sentences set aside.
Of the three men originally convicted, only one remains alive.
Ruffin died in prison in 2002, and Dixon died in November 2010
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