RALEIGH  – A three judge panel will now hear whether a 70 year old man will set free after serving 38 years behind bars for two stabbing deaths. Deaths he said he never committed.

"The North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission completed a three-day hearing in the case of a Joseph Sledge who claims he did not kill a mother and her daughter in 1976 in Bladen County. Joseph Sledge has spent more than half his life in prison.

Eight members of the commission heard evidence and agreed unanimously that Sledge's claim merits further review. The three-judge panel will determine whether he should be freed and exonerated.

Sledge escaped from a prison in Elizabethtown after an argument with another inmate in 1976. Josephine and Ailene Davis were stabbed to death on the same night.

Sledge offered his own compelling testimony on the final day, recounting a story of how he was told by a deputy sheriff that he would be tried in the case.

“On our way to court He told me, man, he told me to keep this under your hat,” said Sledge “They are trying to put this case on you, man.”