NEW ORLEANS - An innocent man is free again after spending 12 years in prison because of a wrongful murder conviction. 

Kendall Gordon was convicted of second-degree murder in 2010, and he was sentenced to life in prison at only 19 years old. WWLTV reported he was released Thursday morning and now walks free again at 31.

"He is to be released to his loving family, including his son who was only one year old when his father was taken from him. Mr. Gordon's homecoming is long overdue," said the Innocence Project of New Orleans, a nonprofit law office focused on getting justice for wrongly convicted individuals in Louisiana and Mississippi.

The crime he was accused of took place on Aug. 8, 2009, when Darceleen Comadore's New Orleans home was invaded by two men demanding money. The robbery resulted in the murder of her sister, Patrice Comadore, and the death of one of the robbers, later identified as Jesse Bibbins.

Comadore told police she believed one of the men was named Kendall or Kendrick Gordon, but she later retracted that statement. Comadore has since maintained Gordon's innocence, but all of her attempts to correct the mistake were unsuccessful.

Additionally, Gordon remained imprisoned after post-conviction DNA testing and other evidence collected from the night of the murder excluded him from being a contributor.

Gordon is the 40th innocent person to be exonerated in Louisiana or Mississippi with the help of IPNO, and he is the 30th in Orleans Parish alone.

"Orleans Parish has the highest per capita known wrongful conviction rate in the country. It has had eight times as many exonerations per capita than the national average. As Mr. Gordon walks out of prison, many other innocent people convicted in Orleans Parish remain incarcerated," IPNO said.