Jack McCullough To Remain In Prison, Judge Rules

(CBS) -- Saying he needed more time to review the case, a judge this morning has denied a request to release a man serving a life sentence in the 1957 killing of a 7-year-old Sycamore girl.

Attorneys for 76-year-old Jack McCullough say he should be released from prison immediately, citing a prosecutor's recent investigation they say shows he is innocent in the death of Maria Ridulph.

Since McCullough's conviction wasn't vacated today, his attorneys requested he be released on his own recognizance while his petition goes through the court system.

Last month, prosecutors in DeKalb County have said newly obtained phone records show he could not possibly have abducted and killed her. In face, the records place McCullough in Rockford at the time of the murder.

In 2012, McCullough was convicted of murder in the death of Maria Ridulph, who disappeared from a street corner in Sycamore, where she and a young friend had been playing on Dec. 3, 1957.

Her body was found lying in a field in northwestern Illinois five months later.

In December 1957, McCullough was a 17-year-old Sycamore resident called John Tessier whose family lived about two blocks from the street corner where Maria was last seen.

McCullough was arrested in 2011 in Seattle, nearly 54 years after Maria's death.