Warning: This story contains graphic details.

A 74-year-old Tennessee woman who was wrongfully convicted for murdering a family member was exonerated last week after spending 27 years in prison, CNN reported.   

Joyce Watkins and her then-boyfriend Charlie Dunn were convicted of first-degree murder in 1988 for the death of Watkins’ four-year-old great-niece, Brandi.   

According to CNN, Watkins and Dunn picked up Brandi in Kentucky on June 26, 1987, and noticed the next day that she was unresponsive, rushing her to a Nashville hospital.   

A medical examiner, Dr. Gretel Harlan, determined at the time that Brandi suffered from head trauma and significant vaginal injuries. Harlan claimed the injuries occurred during the nine hours Brandi was with Watkins and Dunn.   

The two were granted parole in 2015, but Dunn died in prison prior to his release, according to reports.   

 Watkins worked alongside the Tennessee Innocence Project and the Davidson Country District Attorney’s Office to clear her name.   

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“We got this case because she (Joyce) came to us,” Jason Gichner, a lawyer from Tennessee Innocence Project, told CNN. “She just showed up at the office and said, ‘Let me tell you my story. I need your help.'”   

Another doctor, Dr. Shipla Reddy, filed a report, saying that Harlan’s “methodology for dating the head injury based upon a lack of histiocytic response in the brain tissue is not a legitimate method for dating pediatric head trauma.”  

Davidson County Criminal Court Judge, Angelita Blackshear Dalton, cleared Watkin’s of Brandi’s murder. “Miss Watkins, this charge against you is dismissed.”   

Dunn was posthumously exonerated, according to CNN.   

“I thank all the people for their prayers and helping me get out of this mess which has cost me half of my life for nothing, But I’ll get over it,” Watkins told WZTV.