James Langhorne exhaled, unfurled a piece of paper at the lectern and praised God.

For almost 30 years, Langhorne insisted that he did not kill Laurence Jones Jr. in Baltimore. Now, citing unreliable and conflicting testimony, witness recantations and failures to disclose exculpatory evidence, prosecutors agreed with him.

Following a more than five-year investigation, Lauren Lipscomb, chief of the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office’s Conviction Integrity Unit, filed a motion asking a judge to throw out Langhorne’s conviction.

On Monday, Baltimore Circuit Judge Michael A. DiPietro granted the motion. Prosecutors then dropped the charges against Langhorne, and he was released from the Roxbury Correctional Institution.

“Day to day, I’m going to process it. Day to day, I’m going to get better,” Langhorne, 51, told reporters on Thursday at a news conference. “I worked 30 years to get to this point. I’m going to enjoy every moment.”

On Nov. 20, 1993, Jones was fatally shot after a night out while walking back to his home on Bank Street, between South Eden and South Spring streets in Fells Point, not far from the Perkins Homes public housing complex.

He was 24.

Jones graduated in 1992 from the University of Maine with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. He had moved to Baltimore with plans to further his education at Johns Hopkins University.

Until 1996, the case remained cold.

Then a jailhouse informant seeking leniency claimed that Langhorne had admitted to killing and robbing a man of his wallet, money and rings.

Plus, Langhorne’s on-again, off-again girlfriend reported that he came home one night and told her that he was with a friend named “Wink” who shot and killed a man after they robbed him. She asserted that Langhorne showed her a gold and black ring with a line of diamonds taken in the mugging.

Meanwhile, Langhorne testified that he was using a pay phone on the corner of South Eden and Bank streets but not involved in the killing. Langhorne said he heard a gunshot and saw a man he knew as “Skip” running toward him.

Langhorne was found guilty in 1998 in Baltimore Circuit Court of first-degree murder and related offenses and sentenced to life in prison, plus 20 years.

In 2019, Langhorne’s attorney, Daniel Wright, brought the case to the attention of the Conviction Integrity Unit, which launched an investigation. It involved interviewing about 25 people, conducting several crime scene analyses and reviewing all available documents.

The investigation revealed that Jones was neither wearing a ring nor carrying any money.

Langhorne’s on-again, off-again girlfriend recanted her testimony. Baltimore Police, she maintains, threatened to take her children and provided her with a script.

One witness testified that he heard a gunshot and saw two men run past him while he was working on his car. He identified Langhorne as one of them.

But the witness also recanted his testimony and reported that he could not identify either of the men. Police, he alleges, gave him money to buy drugs for his cooperation.

Investigators concluded that another witness gave unreliable and noncredible testimony.

They reported that exculpatory evidence “appears to have not been disclosed.”

“This really is, to me, one of the most amazing cases I’ve ever seen,” Baltimore State’s Attorney Ivan Bates said. “Truly, I have not a single shred of doubt in my mind that this young man, without a doubt, is innocent and should never have been in prison — ever.”

Shawn Armbrust, executive director of the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project, said there was a lot of pressure to solve the killing. She described the case as weak.

“It’s hard not to think that Mr. Langhorne was perceived throughout the investigation and trial as just another expendable young Black man in a high-crime neighborhood in Baltimore,” Armbrust said.

But Langhorne, she said, kept proclaiming his innocence.

Armbrust credited his doggedness, persistence and willingness to tell everybody until someone listened that he did not commit the crime.

A staff attorney at the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project, Maggie Abernethy, helped represent Langhorne at the hearing.

In a letter, one of Jones’ family members wrote that it was “unfathomable as to what Mr. Langhorne endured over the years, and sadly no one can give that time back to him.”

The name of the relative is redacted in the court file.

“Our new beginning will be as it was 30 plus years ago, waiting, waiting and waiting for a call in hopes that there was a break in the case,” the letter states. “As for James Langhorne, I hope and pray that his new beginning will be a positive one, not only for him but his family and community.”

Langhorne said he has not fully thought about the future.

Right now, he said, he just wants to breathe — and enjoy every day.