Four news organizations have offered to pay for new DNA tests on evidence from an old Georgia murder case to determine whether the man executed for the crime was innocent. If the tests show Ellis Wayne Felker did not rape and kill teenager Evelyn Joy Ludlum in 1981, it would be the first time DNA evidence exonerated an American prisoner put to death. Felker was executed in 1996. He claimed he was innocent.

The Boston Globe, the Macon Telegraph, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and CBS News want the tests run on Ludlum’s and Felker’s hair, scrapings from under Ludlum’s fingernails, and hair found in Felker’s house. The district attorney in Houston County, Georgia, where the case was prosecuted, says he expects to approve the testing, though he calls it a total waste of time.