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Supreme Court throws out conviction in 1987 Sumter Co. murder

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The Florida Supreme Court is throwing out the murder conviction of an Indiana man sentenced to death 25 years after a Sumter County slaying.
 
The court ruled Thursday that there wasn't enough evidence to reasonably convict Carl Dausch for the July 1987 murder of Adrian Mobley.
 
The case was revived in 2002 when the Florida Department of Law Enforcement received a grant to analyze DNA from cold cases.
 
DNA from a cigarette butt found in Mobley's car targeted Dausch as a suspect. He was tried in 2011 and sentenced in 2012.
 
But the court ruled that the evidence in the case wasn't strong enough for a murder conviction and that there was some credibility to Dausch's claim that he was a hitchhiker the real killer picked up after stealing Mobley's car.