Mother cleared of daughter’s murder after 13 years

A WOMAN who spent 13 years in prison after being convicted of strangling her 13-year-old daughter has been exonerated by forensic evidence showing she died of a cocaine overdose.

Lynn DeJac, now 44, was released from prison in New York state and her second-degree murder conviction for the death of her daughter, Crystallynn Girard, was overturned in November after fresh analysis of DNA evidence.

Prosecutors had been planning to retry her this spring, saying the DNA found in her daughter’s body and bed did nothing to refute the circumstantial evidence that led a jury to convict Ms DeJac of killing the girl after a night of heavy drinking.