A Texas appeals court on Wednesday formally exonerated a former grocery store clerk who spent nearly 25 years in prison for his wife's 1986 beating death, reaffirming a judge's decision to set him free last week based on DNA testing that linked her killing to another man.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals declared Michael Morton innocent of killing his wife, Christine, and made him eligible to receive $80,000 from the state for each year of confinement, or about $2 million total.

Morton, 57, was convicted on the basis of circumstantial evidence and sentenced to life in prison. He maintained over the years that his wife and their 3-year-old son were fine when he left for work at an Austin Safeway the day she was killed, and that an intruder must have attacked her.

DNA found during tests this summer on a bloody bandana discovered near the crime scene matched that of a former convict, who remains at large. Prosecutors recommended that Morton be freed immediately after that man's DNA was also linked to a hair found 17 months later at the scene of another woman's beating death in north Austin, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) from the Mortons' home.

A North Carolina woman will spend up to 18 years in prison after pleading guilty Thursday to murdering her disabled 10-year-old stepdaughter, nearly a year after freckle-faced Zahra Baker's disappearance and death shocked communities here and in her native Australia.

Elisa Baker, 43, entered the courtroom wearing a hot-pink jail jumpsuit and handcuffs. She sat between two defense attorneys and teared up before pleading guilty to second-degree murder, with aggravating factors that included desecrating the body of Zahra Baker, who used a prosthetic leg and hearing aids after a struggle with bone cancer.

Elisa Baker also pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in the case, and to charges unrelated to Zahra's death, including obtaining property by false pretenses, financial identity fraud and bigamy.

Adam Baker, Zahra's father and Elisa's husband, was present in the courtroom in Newton, about 60 miles northwest of Charlotte. Adam Baker, who came to the U.S. with his daughter after meeting Elisa online, faces multiple criminal charges of his own, although none are related to his daughter's death.

Zahra's biological mother, Emily Dietrich, flew in from Australia for the hearing. She cried when she heard details of her daughter's gruesome death.

Elisa Baker's guilty plea comes almost a year after Zahra was reported missing from her home in Hickory. Initially, she and Adam told police they believed their daughter had been kidnapped, but that story quickly unraveled as police arrested Elisa and charged her with forging a ransom note.