New York: An inmate at a Kansas prison has been released after 17 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit, after researchers tracked down his lookalike.
Richard Anthony Jones was sent to prison for a robbery in Roeland Park, Kansas, in 1999.
There was no DNA evidence nor fingerprints linking him to the crime scene.
At the trial Mr Jones said that he was with his girlfriend and other family members in Kansas City on the day of the robbery.
However, he was convicted on witness accounts, and sentenced to 19 years.
Mr Jones said that he began to despair that he would ever be released, after repeated efforts to appeal failed.
"All my appeals had been denied. It has been a rough ride," he said.
In 2015 he spoke to researchers from the Midwest Innocence Project - a group that aids wrongly convicted prisoners - telling them that he had been told by fellow inmates that he looked identical to a man they knew called Ricky.
The researchers finally managed to track down Ricky, and discovered that he lived within 16 kilometres of the crime scene.
"When I saw the picture of my double it all made sense to me," Mr Jones said.
Mr Jones' lawyers showed the two men's photographs to the victim, two witnesses to the crime and the prosecutor in the original case. None of them could tell the two apart.
A judge agreed and ordered that Mr Jones be released. He finally walked free on Thursday.
His lawyers had argued in their motion that Mr Jones had suffered "manifest injustice".
"Mr Jones was convicted solely on eyewitness testimony that has been proven to be inherently flawed and unreliable," they wrote.
Mr Jones said finding a photograph of the other man was a "needle in a haystack moment".
He told the Kansas City Star: "I don't believe in luck, I believe I was blessed."
No criminal case has been filed against his lookalike, who gave evidence at Mr Jones' hearing last week and denied committing the crime.
Mr Jones told the paper that he was now adjusting to life outside jail and was happy to be back with his children.
"Everybody has a doppelganger," said Alice Craig, Mr Jones' lawyer. "Luckily we found his."
Richard Jones was convicted due to eyewitness misidentification. MIP and KU Law are proud to have fought to exonerate Richard! https://t.co/tPAVLlp4dA
— Midwest Innocence (@The_MIP) June 8, 2017
Telegraph, London