home to be with his family just in time for the holidays. >> relieved. glad it's over. >> and his family appeared before the cameras to say they had never doubted his innocence. >> we've always stood by eddie saying we knew he didn't do it. anybody that knows eddie knows he wouldn't do it. >> steve strom, watching all this, was horrified. or so said his friend dick. >> he just went to pieces again. he says, they haven't got enough on him so they're going to come looking for me again. he said, it's going to start all over. >> oh, the prosecutor tried to assure the public he wasn't giving up on making a case against ed owens. we were still confident ed was the guy. we just didn't want to go off half cocked, look stupid, quite frankly. >> frankly, it was in most people's opinion, over. it was dead as far as a lot of people were concerned. >> as far as i was concerned, absolutely it was. >> your man was free to go. >> he was.