Man freed after 13 years hopes DNA ends suspicions in ISU student’s slaying

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Alan Beaman listens as one of his attorneys, Jeff Urdangen, speaks to the media Thursday Jan. 29, 2009, in Bloomington, Ill. following the dismissal of murder charges that kept him behind bars for more than a dozen years. Beaman was accused of murdering Illinois State University student Jennifer Lockmiller, from Decatur, in August of 1993. (AP Photo/The Pantagraph, Steve Smedley)

Updated: November 16, 2011 1:28AM

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — Alan Beaman’s conviction in a former girlfriend’s murder was overturned in 2008, but his lawyers say he lives under suspicion in spite of his freedom.

They hope new DNA tests requested by prosecutors in the 1993 killing of Illinois State University student Jennifer Lockmiller will help ease that suspicion rather than lead back to Beaman.

“Hopefully, the state and the defense are looking for the same thing. We hope the results will point to the person who killed Jennifer Lockmiller,” Chicago lawyer Jeff Urdangen told the Pantagraph newspaper in Bloomington.

McLean County State’s Attorney Bill Yoder just said he hopes the tests lead investigators to the killer.

“We have an unsolved homicide we hope to resolve someday,” he said.

Beaman spent more than 13 years in prison after being convicted of stabbing and strangling Lockmiller.

The 22-year-old Decatur woman was strangled with a clock radio cord and her partially nude body, stabbed in the chest with scissors, was found in an apartment in Normal. Beaman has always maintained he was 130 miles away in Rockford when she was killed.

The Illinois Supreme Court threw out his conviction in May 2008, ruling that prosecutors suppressed evidence about another suspect. Beaman was released the next month.

He has since sought a certificate from the courts declaring him innocent, which would allow him to seek state compensation. Prosecutors have asked the courts to decline because, they argue, the Supreme Court’s decision doesn’t mean he’s innocent. Beaman also is seeking a pardon from Gov. Pat Quinn.

AP