UPDATE: No verdict yet in Bowman murder trial

By Ryan Dean

KSDK -- The judge in a decades old capital murder case has released the jury for the night after a day of deliberations did not produce a verdict. The jury will continue deliberations Thursday morning.

Families of both the defendant, 58-year-old Gregory Bowman, and the victim, 16-year-old Velda Rumfelt, have been at a Clayton courthouse all day waiting for a verdict. Now they'll have to wait through the night.

Bowman, a resident of Bellmont, Illinois, is on trial for the Rumfelt's murder. The case was cold for decades until 2007, when investigators say they found the defendant's DNA on the victim's underwear.

Prosecutors accuse Bowman of raping and killing Rumfelt back in 1977. Rumfelt was in-town from Kansas City visiting family and friends. She was last seen in Clayton. Her body was found in rural area near Eureka. She had been strangled and her neck was slit.

Bowman could get the death penalty if found guilty. He spent 29 years in prison for the murder of two women in Belleville, Illinois, but was released when his conviction was overturned. The judge in that case said Bowman was tricked into a confession. He still faces a retrial for those murders.