After spending more than 30 years in prison, a woman in Nevada was found innocent of the murder charges filed against her and was ordered released from jail.

This after DNA evidence analyzed from a cigarette butt found at the crime scene 40 years ago matched not with the DNA of Cathy Woods but of a prisoner in Oregon.

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Cathy Woods was sentenced to serve life in prison in 1980 after the jury declared her guilty in the murder of a nursing student, who was found dead in 1976.

The conviction was based on the statement that Woods made in front of Reno officials. She claimed that that she had murdered a student named Michelle.

It was not immediately known why Woods admitted to the crime and if she was having mental problems during her arrest to admit to the murder.

The case, however, suddenly made a twist in 2010 when lawyers of Woods requested that the case be reopened and that the DNA found at the crime scene be tested.

Woods, now 64, was charged with the murder of a nursing student. The student was killed close to the University of Nevada campus in Reno.

Her lawyers, however, requested the court that the DNA samples be matched with Rodney Halbower, a male prisoner in Oregon.

Subsequent tests showed that the DNA at the crime scene, indeed, matched with that of Halbower.

Washoe County District Attorney Chris Hicks said the case has now been ended following the result of the DNA test.

"It is our belief that the newly discovered DNA evidence and the continued investigation of this case exonerate Cathy Woods of the murder of Michelle Mitchell," said Hicks in a statement.

Hicks said he did not fault earlier police, prosecutors and juries for sending the woman to prison because DNA testing was not available way back then.

"Whenever we hear about these rare cases where convicted individuals are later exonerated by DNA, it is a circumstance that upsets our society, rightly so," Hicks said at a news conference. "It is also depicted as a strike against our modern day criminal justice system. I would suggest otherwise".

TagsDNA test, Cathy Woods, Nevada Woman