OMAHA, Neb. -- The co-defendant in a 23-year-old homicide investigation said she was coerced into saying that Joseph White and Thomas Winslow raped the victim.

Ada Taylor’s testimony during White’s trial helped lead to murder convictions for both men, but now she said she made it all up. Attorneys for the two men said recent DNA tests suggest they may not have been involved in the crime.

Taylor, who has served 19 years of her 20-year sentence for second-degree murder, said under oath that she suffocated Helen Wilson with a pillow while White and Winslow raped her. She told the jury that as a rape victim herself, she didn’t want Wilson to see her attackers’ faces.

Now, she said she lied about the whole thing.

“A lot of it was the fact that the county attorney and several others kept telling me they knew I had suffocated, they knew that I had used a pillow, and I told them that don’t remember any of it,” Taylor said.

White said he hopes the DNA evidence will help earn his release, or at least a new trial.

“DNA evidence proves that those co-defendants lied,” he said. “They are no longer credible witnesses.”

Taylor’s interview with KETV NewsWatch 7 was one of the first times she’s spoken publicly about the case. She said she never saw White or Winslow raping Wilson and has no memory of being in the apartment.

Former Gage County Attorney Richard Smith prosecuted the case and said the case wasn’t really about rape, but felony murder.

"Our argument was, is that it didn't really make any difference what the DNA showed, because our case wasn't premised on the DNA of sperm,” Smith said.

Attorneys for White and Wilson are expected to argue that if Taylor and other co-defendants lied about the rape, their whole testimony is in question. Taylor, one year from her release, said there’s a reason she lied on the stand.

“I was coerced into taking a plea bargain and coached into testifying to what I was coached to testify to,” she said.

Taylor stopped short of denying the actual murder, saying she doesn’t remember it. She also said she was an alcoholic and drug user at the time and wants a fair shake.

White and Wilson have hearings on the new DNA evidence scheduled for later this month.