Cleared of a DNA test after 38 years in prison in California for a murder he did not commit. Maurice Hastings, who has always proclaimed his innocence, was released at 69. He had been charged with the 1983 murder of Roberta Wydermyer, and two attempted murders. The sentence was handed down in 1988 but Los Angeles County District Judge George Gascón overturned it. “What happened in Hastings is a terrible injustice,” Gascon said. “I don’t want to blame anyone, I don’t want to be a grudge man,” Hastings said at a press conference after his release. He had requested the DNA test in 2000, but at first this request was denied. Last June, it emerged that the DNA recovered at the crime scene matches that of a man who died in 2020 while serving a sentence for kidnapping and rape.