AGUADA, Puerto Rico, Dhu-AlQa'dah 8, 1437, Aug 11, 2016, SPA -- The witness said he was sure: He'd driven three men to the beach and watched them sexually attack and kill a 21-year-old pharmacy student, AP reported. The judge had his doubts, but the jury was convinced: Nelson Ortiz, Jose Caro and Nelson Ruiz were sentenced to life in prison. Now, however, they've won at least a new trial under a new Puerto Rico law that expands defendants' rights to lodge appeals based on DNA testing. Glorimar Perez was found shot to death along Puerto Rico's northwest coast in July 1988. The killing shocked her hometown of Aguada, where almost everyone knew each other and relied on the whistle of a nearby sugarcane factory to signal it was time for lunch. Suspicion quickly fell on two young blue-collar workers, apparently based on circumstance. The men had no criminal record and said they did not know each other. Ruiz went to school with Perez but said they were never friends. He said he believes police arrested him based on untrue allegations she had romantically spurned him. Ortiz said he never knew Perez but believes he was arrested because one witness said a man who looked like him got into her car the day she was killed. Caro was drawn into the case later. He said he'd had never seen Perez, and that police came to interview him more than a year after the killing, saying that an unidentified person had implicated him. Prosecutors didn't think they had enough evidence to arrest them until five years after the killing. The men were convicted in 1995, and months later, the key witness recanted. He said he had falsely implicated the three in a plea bargain exchange for immunity on other unrelated charges he faced. But appeals court judges repeatedly batted down attempts for a new trial. The three men saw a new chance in December, when the U.S. territory enacted a law that lets convicts request DNA analyses in cases where it was previously impossible: on new evidence or on evidence that was never analyzed or questioned at the trial. -- SPA 23:55 LOCAL TIME 20:55 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/w