PLACERVILLE, Calif. —

Prosecutors in Northern California will announce “major developments” Thursday in the case of a man whose conviction in the 1985 killing of his roommate was thrown out last year after the discovery of new DNA evidence.

Ricky Davis was convicted in 2005 of second-degree murder in the stabbing death of Jane Hylton, a 54-year-old columnist for the Foothills Times.

Pierson said he concluded the questioning of Dahl by detectives years ago was “what I would characterize as an aggressive, confession-driven interrogation.”

Pierson and Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert are expected to brief the media on new developments in the case. Schubert’s office has been a leading force in the use of DNA evidence to crack cold cases, techniques that in 2018 led to the arrests of James DeAngelo, a suspect in the Golden State Killer/East Area Rapist case, and Roy Waller, who has been ordered to stand trial in the NorCal Rapist case.

Davis, then 20, lived in the house where she was slain, as did then-19-year-old Dahl, according to the Innocence Project, which is part of the Santa Clara University School of Law.

Davis and Dahl told detectives they had gone to a party the night before and returned home at 3:30 a.m. where they found Hylton’s daughter waiting outside. The teenager told them she had gone out with a group of boys that night and was afraid her mother would be upset with her for being out too late, according to an online synopsis of the case by the project.

https://www.kcra.com/article/prosecutors-major-development-1985-california-slaying/30913652