A stunning revelation Monday regarding a death row inmate from Bakersfield.
Christopher Lightsey had a hearing to determine if a murder case should be retried, but his hearing was continued.
After that, new information came to light in another case in which Lightsey is a suspect. The District Attorney's office told 17 News Monday, that Lightsey's DNA does not match evidence in the 1990 murder of Jessica Martinez.
On the evening of May 10, 1990, four-year-old Jessica Martinez disappeared from an apartment complex. It's the same complex where Lightsey also lived.
Martinez's body was found eleven days later, but it wasn't until 18 years later that Lightsey was named a suspect.
Friends say on the night of Martinez's disappearance, Lightsey left for hours and came back fidgety. In 2008, police took Lightsey's DNA to test it against male DNA found on Martinez's shorts.
Now, four years later, the District Attorney's office confirms the male DNA on Martinez's shorts does not match Lightsey's.
Meanwhile, Lightsey's fate hangs in the balance on the murder case that brought him to Bakersfield on Monday. The hearing will decide whether Lightsey was mentally capable of representing himself during his competency hearing in that case. If a judge decides now that Lightsey was not competent to represent himself, he will get a new trial.
Lightsey is expected back in court in that case in November.
