A new round of DNA testing exonerates a homeless man who has spent nearly four decades in prison for the killing of a Santa Ana nanny, according to defense attorneys who are asking Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer to declare Kenneth Clair innocent of the 1984 slaying.

Clair, who spent years on death row before an appellate court overturned his death sentence and he was re-sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, has always denied killing 25-year-old Linda Faye Rodgers. A viral social media campaign — including a new trial petition that drew more than 160,000 signatures — turned his case into a cause celebre.

Rodgers was found bludgeoned, stabbed and strangled in the master bedroom of a Santa Ana house where she worked. Her child, and four others, were sleeping in another room. Clair, then 25, was living in an abandoned home next door to where Rodgers was caring for the children, had been arrested days earlier on suspicion of burglarizing the house where she was staying and was released from jail hours before the killing.

The evidence against Clair was largely circumstantial, including a claim by Clair’s ex-girlfriend who testified that Clair had shown her items taken from the house during the killing. The ex-girlfriend also wore a wire, and recorded a conversation in which Clair equivocated when asked why he killed Rodgers, not denying the slaying but falling short of confessing.