She served nearly 16 years for a murder she didn't commit. She just won $34 million.

An exonerated Nevada woman who spent nearly 16 years in prison was awarded $34 million last week after a federal jury found local police intentionally caused her emotional distress while investigating the murder she was convicted of, according to media reports.

A federal civil trial jury issued the verdict Thursday, siding with 41-year-old Kirstin Blaise Lobato, who goes by Blaise now, reported the Associated Press and television station KVVU-TV. 

Now retired Las Vegas detectives Thomas Thowsen and James LaRochelle were accused of faking evidence during their investigation, according to lawyers representing Blaise. Blaise will receive $34 million in compensatory damages from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and $10,000 in punitive damages from each retired detective, reported the AP.

Blaise told reporters Thursday that she’s happy this is all over, although she has “no idea what the rest of my life is going to look like,” according to the AP.

Attorney Craig Anderson, who is representing the retired detectives, did not immediately respond to Paste BN’s requests for comment Monday morning and neither did lawyers representing Blaise or the Law Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

Anderson told U.S. District Judge Richard Boulware he would file additional court documents after the verdict, the AP reported.

Convicted woman was attacked, cut man months before July 2001 death, says Innocence Project

Blaise was represented by lawyers from the Innocence Project, a nonprofit that works to free wrongfully convicted individuals, as well as other attorneys. The lawyers got involved after the Nevada Supreme Court ordered another evidence hearing for Blaise’s case in late 2016, according to the Associated Press.

Blaise was 18 years old when she was charged in connection to the 2001 murder of Duran Bailey, a man experiencing homelessness in Las Vegas, according to the Innocence Project.

Bailey’s body was found around 10 p.m. on July 8, 2001, next to a dumpster in a parking lot. His eyes had swollen shut, his skull was cracked and several of his teeth had been knocked out. His carotid artery was cut and his penis was removed, the Innocence Project posted on its website in January 2018.

Two months before Bailey was killed, Blaise was living with family a few hours from Las Vegas but was in the area visiting friends when someone allegedly attacked her in a motel parking lot and tried to sexually assault her, Blaise told the Innocence Project. She said she had been carrying a knife her father had given her for protection and slashed the man’s groin area then escaped. She claimed that when she drove off, the man was on the ground crying but still moving.

Nearly two weeks after Bailey's body was found, someone called the Las Vegas Metro Police Department and told them they’d heard Blaise had cut off a man’s penis in Las Vegas. 

Detectives drove a few hours to Blaise’s family home and took a statement from her. In her statement, she described the attack that happened “at least a month ago.” This statement led to her arrest.

Police focused in on Blaise

During Blaise’s trial, the prosecution relied on Blaise’s statement to detectives, as there was no physical or forensic evidence linking her to Bailey’s death, the Innocence Project said.

Police testified that Blaise admitted to the murder when detectives first spoke with her and again while in prison, reported the National Registry of Exonerations at the University of Michigan. According to the registry, Detective Thowsen testified that at the beginning of his interview with Blaise, he told her he understood that she had to defend herself in an attempted sexual assault in Las Vegas.

She didn't initially respond, prompting him to mention possible molestation during her childhood. He testified that Blaise began to cry and said “I didn’t think anybody would miss him," the registry said.

As for the alleged confession in prison, Korinda Martin, an inmate at the Clark County Detention Center, testified that Blaise bragged about amputating a man's penis and had put it “down his throat" in a drug deal gone wrong, the registry reported.

There was also confusion concerning Blaise’s whereabouts when Bailey died.

Blaise’s family members and neighbors testified and confirmed she was hours away from Las Vegas the day the man was found dead, the Innocence Project noted on its website. However, the prosecution relied on the medical examiner’s time of death estimation. According to the medical examiner, Bailey died around 4 a.m. on July 8th. The prosecution argued that no one knew where Blaise was around the time Bailey died.

How lawyers got her exonerated and released

Blaise was tried twice and first convicted of murdering Bailey in 2002. Two years later, the Nevada Supreme Court threw out the 2002 verdict, reported the AP. She was tried again in 2006 and convicted of manslaughter, mutilation and weapons charges and sentenced to 13 to 45 years in prison with the possibility of parole.

In October 2017, her team presented testimony from three insect scientists who determined that Bailey’s estimated time of death presented by the prosecution was wrong, the Innocence Project said.

The scientists made the determination based on weather conditions in Las Vegas on July 8, 2001, and the outdoor crime scene. According to the experts, had Bailey died when prosecutors said he did, there would’ve been blowfly eggs surrounding his body.

“Blowflies arrive very shortly after death and lay hundreds of easily observable eggs in a freshly dead body’s orifices and wounds,” the Innocence Project wrote on its website, adding that his body had no blowfly eggs on it. The project's experts claimed Bailey had to have died around 10 p.m. on July 8, when Blaise was hours away.

Clark County District Court Judge Stefany Miley vacated Blaise's convictions in December 2017 once this expert testimony was presented. Judge Miley’s decision was made on the grounds that Blaise had “ineffective legal representation” that didn’t call pathology and entomology experts as witnesses to discuss the victim’s time of death.

That same month, the County District Attorney’s Office dismissed all charges against her. She was released from prison on Jan. 3, 2018, the nonprofit said.

Saleen Martin is a reporter on Paste BN's NOW team. She is from Norfolk, Virginia – the 757. Follow her on Twitter at @SaleenMartin or email her at sdmartin@usatoday.com.