Missouri woman's attorneys argue police officer committed 1980 murder she was blamed for

 Sandra Hemme, now 63, was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Patricia Jeschke

The attorney for a Missouri woman who has spent more than four decades in prison for a murder her supporters believe she did not commit, argued at a hearing this week that evidence implicates a police officer. Pointing to the person against whom an investigation was conducted for theft and who later went to jail.

Her lawyers say the only evidence linking Sandra Heim to the 1980 murder of St. Joseph library worker Patricia Jeschke are "wildly contradictory" and "factually improbable" statements she made to detectives while she was a patient in a psychiatric hospital. Had given. Hemme, who according to Sandy is now 63 years old, was sentenced to life in prison.

The hearing to present evidence of his innocence was granted after his lawyers filed a 147-page petition laying out their claims. Livingston County Presiding Judge Ryan Horsman will issue a ruling in the coming weeks or months, The Kansas City Star reports.

If Hamm is acquitted, her prison term would be the longest known wrongful conviction of a woman in American history.

Steven Fuston, a retired detective with the St. Joseph Police Department, testified that he stopped an interview with Heim at St. Joseph State Hospital because "she didn't seem completely coherent."

Over eight sessions of interrogation, Heim's lawyers with the Innocence Project say his story changed from denying any involvement to implicating a man who gave what turned out to be a secret alibi and falsely confessed to Jeschke's murder. .

Heim's legal team said the evidence instead pointed to 22-year-old police officer Michael Holman, who was investigated for insurance fraud and theft and later jailed. He died in 2015.

Holman was a suspect and was interrogated once. She told investigators that she had used Jeschke's credit card after finding the purse in the ditch. His truck was also seen in the area of the murder; The excuse he gave as to why he was nearby could not be confirmed.

A pair of gold horseshoe-shaped earrings, identified by Jeschke's father, were also found in Holman's possession.