Innocent man free after 30 years in prison

DALLAS, Jan. 4 (UPI) -- Cornelius Dupree Jr., wrongly imprisoned for 31 years in Texas for rape and robbery before being cleared by DNA testing, was officially exonerated Tuesday.

State District Judge Don Adams told Dupree, who had been on parole since July, he was "free to go," The Dallas Morning News reported.

"It's a joy to be free again," Dupree, 51, said at his court hearing where he was officially exonerated.

Dupree later told reporters, "I feel that words won't make up for what I lost."

Dupree and a second man had been convicted in a 1979 abduction, robbery and rape in Dallas. Co-defendant Anthony Ray Massingill also was cleared in the case but remains jailed on a second rape conviction.