A district attorney in southwest Georgia is reviewing the 1960 death of an 8-year-old girl in a case that initially led a lawyerless young man to be sentenced to death less than three days after the body was discovered.

R. Victor McNease Jr., the top prosecutor in the Pataula Judicial Circuit, decided to reinvestigate the case after a documentary was released last year about the defendant’s 26-month legal fight to win his freedom.