USA TODAY

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The first thing he did was hug his mom.

Joseph Webster, 41, was released from custody in Nashville on Tuesday after nearly 15 years in Tennessee prisons on a life sentence for a crime the courts now believe he didn’t commit.

He walked out of the Downtown Detention Center to a small crowd of family and old friends who had gathered over the course of about three hours.

“It’s time to pick the pieces up, start my life again,” he said.

Webster was convicted in 2006 on a charge of first-degree murder in the 1998 killing of Leroy Owens. Webster was indicted on the murder charge while in custody for a lesser conviction and has spent nearly two decades in jail on the combined sentences.

But a years-long investigation by the District Attorney’s Conviction Review Unit revealed new evidence that led the state to fully lose confidence in the case against Webster.

A Nashville judge ordered his conviction be vacated, paving the way for his release and the ultimate dismissal of the murder charge against him.

Marie Burns, Webster’s mother, waited outside for hours on Tuesday evening, pacing and chatting with family by turn. She said she was trying not to cry because if she cried too much she might have a panic attack.