Did mentally ill man confess to murder?

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) - Josue Ortiz has spent the past six years behind bars for the murders of two brothers. And although he confessed to the killings, investigators have come forward with evidence they believes proves Ortiz is innocent.

The investigators themselves aren't saying much publicly yet because they are building a federal case against three alleged Seventh Street Gang members for the same murder.

MORE | News 4 covered this development last year

Defense attorney John Nucherino said, "I have evidence that I believe if a judge saw it, considered it, would vacate Josue's conviction. You have an innocent individual sitting in a maximum security prison."

Ortiz has been in prison since the fall of 2004 when Nelson and Miguel Camacho were shot to death in a home on Niagara Street. Ortiz was only 23-years-old and had just come to Buffalo from Puerto Rico a few months before. He did not speak English and his lawyer says Ortiz has been diagnosed with serious psychosis.

"Josue attended the funeral of the Camacho boys," Nucherino said.

At the funeral, his attorney claims Ortiz first heard details of the murder, and because of his mental illness somehow felt that his safety was in jeopardy for knowing it.

"And whatever was said to him, he was so scared for his life and his family's that he hailed down a Buffalo Police car and jumped in it," Nucherino said.

Ortiz confessed to the killings, then a year later took a guilty plea. Even late last year he told a Federal Grand Jury he did it, yet federal agents didn't believe him and indicted three alleged members of the Seventh Street Gang on federal charges for that same murder.

So will Ortiz be set free?

Erie County District Attorney Frank Sedita says, "I must proceed with caution in this matter because this defendant has confessed to a double murder on multiple occasions in multiple forums...however I am under a Federal Court order not to talk about the details of that."

READ | Sedita's full statement on the murders

Nucherino plans to file a motion to vacate Ortiz' conviction but will somehow have to do it without jeopardizing the federal case against the three who are now accused of the murder.

"So there's a high level of sensitivity in this because that case is not over with," Nucherino said.