Cathy Woods of Reno was exonerated after 35 years behind bars, becoming the longest-ever wrongfully incarcerated woman in U.S. history. Now after seeking compensation, she was granted $3 million in a partial settlement of a federal civil rights lawsuit on Aug. 27.

Reports the Los Angeles Times:

Cathy Woods, 68, will continue to seek additional damages from the city of Reno and former detectives she accuses of coercing a fabricated confession from her while she was a patient at a Louisiana mental hospital in 1979, according to her lawyer, Elizabeth Wang. … Woods, who now lives with relatives near the city of Anacortes, Wash., was the longest-ever wrongfully incarcerated woman in U.S. history, according to the National Registry of Exonerations.

Cleared by DNA, Woods had previously been convicted of the murder of UNR coed Michelle Mitchell, whose body was found in a garage near the university on Feb. 24, 1976, hands tied, throat slit.

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It had the makings of a cold case until three years later when “word came that a patient in a Louisiana mental health institute had told a nurse about a murder in Reno,” reports KOLO.

A Reno Police detective went to Louisiana and interviewed Woods and, though that interview was not recorded, it was considered a confession… Returned to Reno, she was convicted. That result was thrown out on appeal. She was tried a second time and convicted again.

The evidence against Woods was always lacking. Footprints at the scene did not match her shoe size, and the descriptions of someone seen in the area pointed to a man taller than Woods. But “mentally unable to assist in her defense,” she was also out as a lesbian at a time when that was a felony in Nevada–factors many experts would say had influence in her eventual conviction.

Then, however, came the turnaround moment in the case. Reports KOLO:

The evidence in the case remained secure in a special room underneath the courthouse and--when it was reexamined DNA was found on a cigarette butt left at the scene. … It wasn't hers, in fact, it wasn't a woman's. It was a man's linked to a string of murders of young women in the Bay Area in 1976. He was eventually identified as Rodney Halbower who happened to be in Reno for a hearing on the attempted murder of another woman in February of 1976.

Halbower, who was convicted last year of two of the Bay Area murders, has not been tried in a Nevada court for Mitchell's murder. But in 2015, Woods was finally released.