A woman who spent 13 years in prison after being convicted of strangling her 13-year-old daughter has been exonerated by forensic evidence showing the girl died of a cocaine overdose, a prosecutor in the case said Wednesday.

But even as the district attorney announced that the death of Crystallynn Girard was not a homicide and could not be prosecuted, her now 44-year-old mother, Lynn DeJac, insisted that a former boyfriend was responsible.

She was released from prison and her second-degree murder conviction overturned in November after newly analyzed DNA evidence placed DeJac's former boyfriend, Dennis Donahue, in the bedroom of her daughter around the time the girl died.

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