A man convicted in 2012 for kidnapping and murdering a 7-year-old girl in 1957 was released from prison by a judge on Friday and his life sentence annulled based on previously unknown evidence that pointed to his innocence. DeKalb County Circuit Court Judge William Brady also granted Jack McCullough’s request for a new trial. The judge ordered McCullough to remain in Illinois while he was free on bond. McCullough was convicted of killing Maria Ridulph, who disappeared in December 1957 while playing near her home in Sycamore, Illinois, about 65 miles west of Chicago. Her body was found about four months later and the case remained unsolved. McCullough, now 76, was a teenager when Ridulph went missing and was an early suspect. He told investigators he was on a train from Rockford in southern Illinois to Chicago, when the girl disappeared. He later joined the military, moved to Washington state and became a policeman in Lacey, a town east of Olympia. Read more http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jack-mccullough-freed-murder_us_57114aa2e4b0018f9cba171b
