In November of 1979, a man was found beaten to death along a quiet trail in a New Hampshire

College town.

Within a day, police had a suspect, but the case was hardly open and shut.

The college student convicted of the murder and the family who stood by him were prepared to spend a lifetime fighting to prove his innocence.

They believed the investigation narrowed too quickly, that key questions went unanswered, and that the truth had yet to fully surface.

But before the courts could decide what came next, the Atlantic Ocean wrote the final chapter of this story.

I'm Kylie Lowe and this is the case of Joseph Woodside on Dark Down East.

Around Vance, Around 145 a.m. on November 14, 1979, two students were walking along a. familiar trail off Petty Brook Lane,

near the Wilderness Trail Sports Shop on the University of New Hampshire campus.

According to reporting in the Concord Monitor, it was a route students used all the time, a shortcut between the dorms and downtown Durham,

especially late at night. As they walked through the chilly fall darkness, they noticed a man

lying beneath a burdock bush just off the trail. It was clear he was injured and incapacitated somehow, but at first, they didn't understand

what they were seeing.

The students later told reporters Laura Mead and Joel Brown of UNH's student newspaper

of the New Hampshire that they thought the man was just unconscious.

One of the students slid a sweatshirt and a bandana beneath the man's head,

trying to make him more comfortable.

Then one of the students ran to call for an ambulance.

The stillness of the trail didn't last long.

Headlights cut through the darkness,

emergency lights flashing as first responders arrived.

Voices carried through the trees as police followed,

...