The Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas stayed the execution of death row inmate Rodney Reed on Friday, remanding the case to the trial court for further development.

Reed was convicted in 1996 of the murder of Stacey Stites and was set for lethal injection on Wednesday evening. Stites, 19, was strangled, and her body was dumped on the side of a road in a rural area. There was evidence that she had been raped, and Reed was arrested based on DNA tests.

Reed has maintained his innocence, stating that he had been having an affair with Stites who was engaged at the time to former police officer Jimmy Fennell. Since his conviction, Fennell had been imprisoned after pleading guilty in 2008 to kidnapping a different woman while on duty and the woman had said he also raped her. A prison inmate who served time with Fennell produced a sworn affidavit stating that he heard Fennell confess to killing Stites because she cheated on him with a black man.

AS CARRIED