DNA Evidence Frees Man Serving Life Imprisonment For Killing Of Teen In 1998. Pictured

A man has finally regained his freedom seventeen years after he was sentenced to life in prison for killing a teenage girl. Malcolm Bryant closed his eyes and pumped his fist in a Baltimore courtroom Wednesday afternoon.

Prosecutors said Bryant, 42, had been exonerated by DNA evidence and dropped the charges against him. He was released a few hours later.

Bryant has always maintained his innocence, and over the past eight years won numerous court orders to test evidence from the 1998 killing of 16-year-old Toni Bullock.

When two DNA tests pointed to an unknown person who was not Bryant, prosecutors said the only conclusion was that Bryant was not the killer.

His attorney, Michelle Nethercott, the director of the University of Baltimore Innocence Project Clinic, said clearing Bryant was a long struggle.

"Malcolm Bryant has been incarcerated since Dec. 1, 1998, for a murder that he did not commit," Nethercott told reporters at a news conference at the Baltimore state's attorney's office. "Finally, after six rounds of DNA testing, he was able to show through DNA evidence that he was not the one who killed Toni Bullock."