CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — A state panel has finalized Nevada's $2.85 million payment to a woman who spent almost 34 years in prison for a Reno murder she didn't commit before she was exonerated by DNA evidence in 2015.
Attorney General Aaron Ford announced last month that a state judge in Reno had approved the settlement with Cathy Woods, who now is 70. She also received a Certificate of Innocence in the 1976 murder of a 19-year-old college student in Reno.
Nevada's Board of Examiners approved the payment Tuesday. Woods was released from prison in 2014 after DNA from a cigarette found near the murder scene was linked to an Oregon inmate