he said he'd known a guy in jail named, wait for it, robert mullins, the very same who'd testified againstk. the man then said that mullins had shared a secret. he had lied about rick's involvement in the murders. >> i mean, i already knew it, but to hear somebody else say it, you know. >> reporter: that mullins had lied? >> yeah. yes, sir. >> reporter: was kind of proud of what he was able to do? >> yeah. >> reporter: now this snitch-on-snitch story had the appeals judge's attention. >> the judge had to make a determination that the result of the trial would probably have been different. >> reporter: because mullins' story was that important in getting the conviction? >> right. >> reporter: the judge vacated rick's conviction, saying the new county solicitor, the one who had replaced humphries, could re-file charges if he wanted. the solicitor said he did not. so in 2013, after eight years inside, rick gagnon walked out of prison. he's settled on the carolina coast now, married with children. >> just the smell of the ocean, you know? it's like freedom. it was a terrible thing that, you kn

at the end of the day, what we learn from robert mullins is that he's been given a fairly detailed accounty gagnan of what occurred that evening and what the crime scene looked like. >> in fact, he said, mullins was the first to tell police this piece of bombshell news. gagnan had mentioned an accomplice in the killings. >> the only way you can have that information is from someone on the crime scene who participated in the crime. >> and then the prosecutor tried to spin an inconvenient fact in his favor. those mystery blood drops found at the murder scene had been tested. the dna was not a match to rick, but to an unidentified male. that, said the prosecutor, actually supported what mullins said, that rick had an accomplice. humphries believed the evidence was enough to put the defendant away. he only wished he could make the same case against rick's old girlfriend. what about bambi? i mean, she wasn't being tried in this courtroom. >> no. it was a travesty. >> her fingerprints are on this? >> all over it, figuratively. >> and that's just how he laid it out in his closing. he told the jur