It was 24 years of fighting, appealing and waiting.
Then suddenly -- without notice, without apology -- Eric Kelley and Ralph Lee were free.
Prosecutors in Passaic County abruptly dropped their case against the two men on Friday during a routine court appearance in the lead-up to new murder trials.
The pair had been convicted in the 1993 slaying of a Paterson store clerk, but a judge tossed those convictions last year thanks to new DNA evidence. County authorities had fought their release, losing an appeal last month.
Kelley and Lee arrived with their attorneys at Passaic County Superior Court Friday morning expecting to argue over who was going to pay for the GPS monitoring bracelets that had been clasped around their ankles since their November release.
Now they sat inside a cramped office next to the jail where they had interrupted lunch for some sheriff's officers after a judge ordered the monitoring bracelets removed. Not expecting the ruling, the officers had to double check with the court that the pair were really free men.
"We always said we were innocent," Lee said, standing in the parking lot after everything had been sorted. "And we proved that today."
Kelley, 53, and Lee, 55, were convicted of beating and stabbing 22-year-old Tito Merino to death while robbing his uncle's video store. Paterson police arrested them after receiving tips that they may have been involved, and both men confessed under questioning but later recanted.
Their case was taken up by two legal groups, the Innocence Project and Centurion Ministries, who argued the confessions had been coerced and other facts in the case didn't add up. A July special report from NJ Advance Media detailed evidence the groups had gathered raising questions about the case.
A key piece of evidence was a green and purple baseball cap found near Merino's body, which police at the time believed was left behind by the killer.
Both Kelley and Lee were identified at various points as the owner of the hat, but new tests performed using technology not available at the time of the trial found no trace of either man's DNA.
A sample from the hat was also checked against a DNA database of convicted felons and came up with a match for a former Paterson man who finished a prison sentence for a knifepoint robbery just weeks before the video store killing.
But prosecutors declined to interview that man, Eric Dixon, who through his attorney has denied any involvement. They also appealed the order granting Kelley and Lee new trials and temporarily blocked their release on bail before dropping the case on Friday without explanation.
"The state has had these DNA results since end of 2014 showing that somebody else committed the crime," said Vanessa Potkin, an Innocence Project attorney representing Kelley. "It was a great thing that happened today, but it should have happened three years ago."
In a statement following the hearing, Passaic County Prosecutor Camelia Valdes said the appeals court ruling, coupled with the amount of time the two men spent in prison and the difficulty of presenting witnesses in a decades-old murder, prompted the office to drop charges.
"Considering the totality of the circumstances, to re-try these matters 25 years later would not be in the interests of justice," the prosecutor said.
Valdes' office did not respond to questions about whether it would reopen the murder investigation. In court papers, the office claimed Dixon had nothing to do with the murder.
A spokeswoman for state Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said he had "reviewed and discussed this matter with Prosecutor Valdes and supports the county prosecutor's decision."
In her statement, Valdes noted that none of the rulings had found Kelley and Lee innocent, but had only declared them worthy of new trials. The prosecutor said the decision was made "after consultation with the family of Tito Merino."
A message left at Victoria Video, the shop where the murder occurred, was not returned Friday.
Kelley and Lee say they are now focused on rebuilding their lives. Lee is recovering from health problems that developed when he was in prison and Kelley is working at an IHOP. Both men have been living with family and adjusting to life outside prison, they said.
Under state law, former inmates who are wrongfully convicted can sue the state for up to $50,000 for each year they spent locked up, making each man potentially eligible for as much as $1 million apiece. Their lawyers say they're still exploring their options.
"We walked into court today thinking we'd be arguing about trial dates and motion dates and things like that," said Centurion Ministries lawyer Paul Casteleiro, who represented Lee. "Then we get a dismissal, so you've got to get your feet on the ground."
The unexpected concession by prosecutors marked a quiet end for the case. Speaking to the gathered media, which consisted of a single reporter, Potkin was apologetic.
"We usually have such a big group to celebrate," she explained.
"We're good," Kelley assured her. "Time to go."
Where were they headed? They weren't sure. They had been planning on spending the day in court.
S.P. Sullivan may be reached at ssullivan@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter. Find NJ.com on Facebook.