A recent DNA test showed that a man who was found not guilty in the murder of a horse groomer at a Florida racetrack more than 30 years ago was, in fact, the killer, the authorities said on Wednesday.

Lawyers for the man, Robert Earl Hayes, had asked investigators in 2020 to retest the strands of hair found in the hand of the horse groomer, Pamela Albertson, after she was raped and killed in February 1990 at the Pompano Beach racetrack in South Florida, where they both worked. The lawyers believed that the findings would help exonerate their client in the 1987 killing of another racetrack worker in Oneida County, N.Y., for which Mr. Hayes is currently in prison.

In the New York case, Mr. Hayes pleaded guilty to manslaughter, arson and burglary in 2004. He was sentenced to 15 to 45 years in prison and is eligible for parole in 2025.

But investigators also retested vaginal DNA collected from Ms. Albertson, and found that it was a match with Mr. Hayes, effectively proving that he was guilty all along, said Harold F. Pryor, the Broward County state attorney in Florida.

Ooooooooops.

Mr. Pryor cannot retry Mr. Hayes, now 58, in the Florida case because the Constitution prohibits people from being retried for substantially the same crime if they were already acquitted. But Mr. Pryor is asking the parole board in New York to keep Mr. Hayes in custody….

The Innocence Project of New York, which represented Mr. Hayes, did not comment on Wednesday, saying via email that “Mr. Hayes’s former attorney could not be reached.”

This  is  the first time in recorded history the Innocence Project had no comment.

Mr. Hayes’s association with the Florida case led the authorities in New York to charge him with manslaughter in the 1987 killing of Leslie Dickenson, a horse groomer at the Vernon Downs racetrack, 40 miles east of Syracuse.

Ms. Dickenson’s death had initially been ruled a suicide, but it was reinvestigated after Mr. Hayes was charged in the killing of Ms. Albertson.

Ms. Dickenson had been found by the authorities “hanging in her apartment,” covered in blood and with multiple stab wounds on her wrists and neck, according to a report from the Broward County Sheriff’s Office.

For sure  —  covered in blood with multiple stab wounds sounds just like a suicide.

Lawyers from the Innocence Project of New York argued that the hairs found in Ms. Albertson’s hands had belonged to a man who also worked on the same racetrack circuit as Mr. Hayes and both victims, and who they believed was the “real killer,” Mr. Pryor said. The latest DNA testing, however, showed that some of the hair belonged to Ms. Albertson and not to Mr. Hayes or the other racetrack worker.

How’s that?  The Innocence Project falsely accused someone who was  —  how shall I say this?  —  innocent, so that they could grease the skids for a killer to go out and do it again.

Goodness gracious, I need my smelling salts.