After spending more than 12 years in prison for the murder of a Boulder man in 1994, Michael Clark went home with his family Monday evening, his conviction set aside.

“I’m so grateful to be here and with them and go on with the rest of our lives,” Clark told waiting reporters after he walked out of the Boulder County Jail, where he was briefly held after being transferred from the Fremont Correctional Facility in Florence on Monday afternoon.

The 49-year-old hugged his family and kissed his daughter’s head, knowing he’d be able to go home with them — something he hadn’t been able to do since 2012, when he was convicted of first degree murder in the shooting death of Boulder city employee Marty Grisham and handed a sentence of life without parole

“I think the real relief and real emotions are going to hit when he gets home,” Defense attorney Adam Frank said earlier Monday. “He’s over the moon happy that this is happening and we’ve gotten this far, and he is walking out today.”

Clark’s bond was set at $100,000 on Friday, the same amount that was set when he was first arrested in 2012. On Monday, he posted the required 10%.

On Friday, Boulder District Judge Nancy Salomone vacated Clark’s first-degree murder conviction after new DNA testing was conducted in his case. Clark’s case was one of hundreds investigated by former Colorado Bureau of Investigation analyst Yvonne “Missy” Woods, who was reported to have manipulated and altered DNA data in more than 1,000 cases across Colorado.

In 2023, the bureau found that Woods tampered with DNA testing by omitting and altering data in her work. Following the finding, about 3,000 DNA samples were called for retesting statewide. According to Boulder District Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Shannon Carbone, a CBI review found that in the mishandled cases, Woods deleted and altered data that concealed her tampering with controls and her failure to troubleshoot problems within the testing process.

Following the finding that Woods had mishandled cases, an outside lab conducted additional testing of a Carmex lip balm container that had been found underneath stairs outside Grisham’s apartment. Prosecutors pointed to DNA from the Carmex container in their case against Clark. In a motion filed in March, Frank wrote that the outside lab found “a lot of DNA” and DNA from inside the Carmex container was not consistent with Clark’s.

However, the lab report also stated that “Michael Clark cannot be visually excluded as a possible contributor to the interpretable portion of the mixture DNA profile” and the result provides limited support for his exclusion as a suspect.

Grisham, who was 48 at the time of his death on Nov. 1, 1994, was shot four times in the head and chest in the doorway of his apartment after answering a knock at the door during dinner with his girlfriend.

Police never found the murder weapon, but investigators were able to gather enough circumstantial evidence and witness testimony to get a conviction.

Boulder police said Clark — who at the time of the shooting was friends with Grisham’s daughter, Kristen — had forged checks he had stolen from Grisham’s apartment. Kristen had asked Clark to watch the apartment about a month before the shooting. Clark was a suspect from the beginning of the investigation but was not charged until 2012, after prosecutors found evidence they say linked Clark to the sale of a 9mm gun similar to the one used to shoot Grisham.

While Clark’s attorneys tried to convince the jury there was no hard evidence to prove Clark was the shooter, prosecutors argued the evidence showed Clark was the one person with the means and the motive to kill Grisham.

On Dec. 10, 2012, Clark appealed his conviction to the Colorado Court of Appeals. On Sept. 29, 2016, his conviction was affirmed, according to a motion filed in district court. The Court of Appeals denied a request for rehearing on Nov. 3, 2016. On July 6, 2017, Clark petitioned the Colorado Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari — asking for a review of his case — but on Oct. 10, 2017, it was denied.

Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty is expected to announce at a June 6 hearing whether or not he will retry Clark on charges stemming from the 1994 killing.