Two Georgia men who spent 25 years in prison were freed last week after their murder convictions were overturned when podcasters and their attorneys unearthed new evidence proving their innocence.

Darrell Lee Clark and Cain Joshua Storey were teenagers when they went on trial in January 1998 in the shooting death of their friend Brian Bowling, 15, at a party in 1996, the nonprofit Georgia Innocence Project, also known as GIP, said in a statement.Floyd County police at first believed Storey’s account of the shooting, which was that he was in the room with Bowling when he died in an accident playing Russian roulette. Moments before the fatal gunshot, Bowling was on the phone with his girlfriend and had told her he was playing Russian roulette with a gun brought over by his best friend, Storey, the GIP said.

Storey was initially charged with manslaughter for providing his best friend with the weapon, according to the innocence project.

However, at the urging of Bowling’s distraught family, the GIP said, police upgraded Storey’s charge to murder days after having spoken to a party host, and they connected Clark to the case as a co-defendant, even though he had a corroborated alibi.

State prosecutors argued the two teens conspired to kill Bowling in an act of revenge, the GIP said.

“You never think something like that is going to happen to you,” Clark said in the statement. “Never would I have thought I would spend more than half my life in prison, especially for something I didn’t do. I’m just glad the truth finally came to light after 25 years. I’m so thankful for the Georgia Innocence Project and Proof Podcast for what they did. Without them, I would still be in prison.”

Clark and Storey were released Thursday after motions for a new trial were filed on their behalf, their attorneys said. The Rome Judicial Circuit district attorney’s office agree