After DNA sets previous suspect free after 15 years in prison, new suspect appears in South Lake Tahoe court

EL DORADO COUNTY, Calif. - A case currently making its way through El Dorado County Superior Court in South Lake Tahoe is an unusual one, and has been since July 7, 1985, when newspaper columnist Jane Hylton was found dead in an El Dorado Hills home with 29 stab wounds and a bite mark on her shoulder.

Proclaiming his innocence from the beginning, Ricky Leo Davis, spent 15 years in prison after an El Dorado County jury trial in 2005. With advancements in DNA analysis, the DNA found on Hylton's nightgown and under her fingernails did not match Davis and he has since become a free man.

This is only the second time found in the country where DNA has been used to not only overturn a conviction but also implicant a new suspect.

Hylton was 54-years-old at the time and had just moved with her 13-year-old daughter Autumn into the home of Davis's mother where his girlfriend also lived. According to court documents, Autumn was mad that her mother wouldn't let her go to a party with Davis, who was 20-years-old at the time, and his then-girlfriend Connie Dahle, 19. After they left, Autumn walked to a nearby park and ran into three teenage boys. She identified them as "Calvin, Michael, and Steve or Bryan."

She told authorities it was not Ricky that killed her mother. He later came home with Connie and went into the home with Autumn where they walked into a horrific murder scene.

Investigators got nowhere in finding the murderer and after a time, the case was closed.

It reopened 14 years later in 1999 as part of an El Dorado County Cold Case investigation.

Autumn, Dahl, and Davis were reinterviewed with interrogation techniques that have been questioned by El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson. Through the questionable interrogation techniques, Dahl said she bit the victim and that she, Davis, and Autumn participated in the murder. She entered an immunity agreement to testify against Davis, but Pierson (who was not in office at the time) said investigators fed Dahl information.

She is now deceased, reportedly of a drug overdose in 2014.

After a 2005 trial, Davis was convicted of Jane Hylton's murder and sentenced to life in prison. He was sent to the California State Prison, Solano. Throughout the investigation, trial and imprisonment, Ricky Davis maintained his innocence. Santa Clara School of Law’s Innocence Project learned about Davis in 2014, believed him, and then worked for six years to get him freed.

The new suspect is Michael Green who was 17-years-old at the time of Hylton's murder and is allegedly one of the boys Autumn met with the night of her mother's death. Even though 51-years-old at the time of his arrest in 2020, he had to first appear in juvenile court and go through that process, and has since been transferred to adult court.

The case is now in El Dorado County Superior Court and is expected to go to trial on August 2, 2022.

Green was in Judge Suzanne Kingsbury's courtroom in South Lake Tahoe on Friday, May 19, 2022. His case comes back to court on July 26 for a hearing on motions that are expected over the next four weeks.