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Alex Cabrero reportingFifteen years is a long time to live with a dark secret. So, one man decided to confess to police.
His crime: Murdering a 2-year-old Salt Lake boy . But the man won't spend a day in jail.
It's because something in our constitution called Double Jeopardy.
Basically, it means if you're tried on a charge and found not-guilty, you can't be tried on that same charge again.
For Michael Lane, who now lives in Salina, Utah, it means he won't have to go to jail.
PJ Watts would be 17 years old today if only his mother's boyfriend hadn't killed him when he was two.
Jennifer Watts, PJ's Mother: "It’s very hard to look back on everything and realize I defended the man that killed my son."
Michael Lane, shown here in 1991, was found not-guilty by a jury.
Fifteen years worth of his own guilt brought him to the Salt Lake City Police Department recently, where he confessed.
"I had him on the floor, and I pulled his diaper off, picked him up. I was being rough and mean. He fell back down and stopped crying for a minute. Then he started crying again, so I picked him up and threw him back down again. Probably did this a couple times."It was enough to kill him.
Jennifer Watts, PJ's Mother: "He stole a part of me I’ll never get back. I'm a different person now. Angry. It's not fair."
What's also not fair, is Lane won't spend a second in jail for the murder because of the jury's decision 15 years ago.
Bob Stott, Salt Lake Co. District Attorney's Office: "He can't be tried for the same charge, and that's called double jeopardy."
Lane even can't be charged with lying to the jury, since this confession isn't part of any trial.
Bob Stott, Salt Lake Co. District Attorney's Office: "He didn't take the stand. He didn't testify, so we don't have a perjury case. We don't have anything."
The only thing we do have, is a mother who thinks justice failed her and her son.
Jennifer Watts, PJ's Mother: "There was a little life there and it needs to mean something, and it needs to mean something to everybody. Nobody's been held accountable for it, and that's not right."
