RENO, Nev. (AP) — County commissioners in Nevada have agreed to a $3 million settlement with a woman who spent 35 years in prison for a murder she didn't commit before she was exonerated by DNA evidence tied to a crime-scene cigarette butt.
The National Registry of Exonerations says Cathy Woods was the longest-ever wrongfully incarcerated woman in U.S. history.
The Washoe County Commission approved the settlement Tuesday.
Woods was released from prison in 2015 when new evidence linked the 1976 killing of a Reno college student to an Oregon inmate who since has been convicted of two San Francisco-area slayings that occurred about the same time.
Woods' lawyer said Wednesday they will continue to seek damages from the city of Reno and former detectives accused of coercing a fabricated confession from Woods while a patient at a Louisiana mental hospital in 1979.
