For almost ten years now, Joseph Brown has been sitting in prison, serving a life sentence for a crime he swears he did not commit. In fact, another man has confessed to the crime.

When News 13 first introduced you to Brown in 2004, he insisted, "My momma knows I did not commit this crime. I’m not guilty of armed robbery that I've served six years in prison for.”

For the past ten years, he and his mother have remained firm in their insistence that he is not the man who robbed the Publix on Middle Beach Road, on May 12, 1998. A man named Joseph Wilson confessed to the crime in 2003, sending a letter to the State Attorney’s Office admitting his guilt.

Wilson, who spoke with News 13 in his first television interview about the case, says, "I don't want to see another man serve the rest of his life in prison for something I did.”

He described to News 13 how he did it, saying, "I walked all around the store to make sure I was the last one to go through. I went through the express lane. I had a pair of jeans and a pair of white Voight tennis shoes. I can't remember the shirt.”

He says he was also wearing a dark colored baseball hat, and had a gun in his waistband. He says, "I just came up to the cashier and made it look like I was going to purchase a few items.”

Those items included a bottle of wine, which was left behind. But the fingerprints taken from the bottle by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement matched neither Brown, nor Wilson.

Wilson claims, "Earlier that day, I had stolen a license plate from another truck that was in the Wal-mart parking lot.”

Joseph Brown admits he was at the store on May 12th, an hour before the robbery because that's where he always shopped. He even helped a lady named Kathy Valenti put groceries in her car, but that fact that never came out during his trial in 1999.

Brown explained, "My public defender told me we cannot tell anybody that! We can't put you in that grocery store! You just got out of prison; they'll never believe that you were a good Samaritan, helping that lady with her groceries.”

Brown’s current public defender, Phil Patterson, feels it just doesn’t make sense that someone would help a woman put groceries in her cart, then hang around and rob the store.

"No, that's kind of ridiculous actually,” Patterson says, “Someone that's going to commit an offense punishable by life in prison, that's probably not going to hang around the crime scene letting other people see him or waiting for police to show up.”

Kathy Valenti later identified Brown as the suspect, along with the cashier who picked him from a picture lineup. News 13 did speak with Kathy Valenti on the phone, about what she remembers from that day; however, she declined to talk to us on camera.

Panama City Beach Police arrested Brown the day after the crime and charged him with armed robbery.

Patterson says, "The only evidence against Mr. Brown was eye witness identification, which is notoriously inaccurate. People see someone under startling circumstances and then a lot of times they trust police to have the right person when brought to a lineup and just kind of go along with the program.”

In fact, it wasn't until Valenti saw Brown's mug shot on television, two days later that she called police and mentioned that he had helped her put groceries in her car at the Publix that night. Also in police reports, the cashier indicated she was confused about whether the robber was wearing glasses.

If the cashier was confused about whether the robber was wearing glasses or not, couldn’t she be confused about another characteristic?

Panama City Beach Police Major Dave Humphreys admits, "Certainly, that's certainly possible.”

The two men do have some similarities, like their medium build, short dark hair, and their close age.

However their criminal backgrounds are very different. During the summer of 1998, when the robbery occurred, Wilson was on a six county robbing spree, striking nine times from Pinellas to Escambia County. He was charged for several of those robberies, along with multiple drug charges. Joseph Brown's record includes, only one count of grand theft of a motor vehicle.

Brown cries, "I do not know who committed the crime, all I know is that I did not. I did not rob that store. If Joseph Wilson did he's trying to tell people he did. He's confessing.”

But police say Wilson’s confession is one piece of the case that doesn’t add up.

Major Humphreys explains, "He doesn't only have some of the facts right, but a lot of material facts about the crime he didn't have right.”

Those facts include the amount of money stolen, which hand he used to show the cashier his gun, and whether he ever pulled the gun out. Humphreys adds, "Mr. Wilson only confessed to the crime after the statute of limitations had run on this crime and had done so basically with nothing to lose for it.”

Nothing to lose, because according to the State Attorney's Office, the statute of limitations on armed robbery is 4 years. The crime happened in 1998. Wilson confessed five years later, so even if he did it, he can't be prosecuted for it now.

Still, Wilson explained some details that only someone at the crime seen could have known. To this Humphreys says, "Yes, he did know some details of the crime, yet you do have to keep in mind that he'd spent some time in jail with Joseph Brown. The two of these men communicated."

But that’s a statement Joseph Wilson denies. Wilson says, "The first time I ever met Joe Brown was when we were being escorted at the evidentiary hearing. I didn't meet him until that hearing."

That hearing was in 2006, at the Bay County Courthouse, when Wilson took the stand. Despite efforts Wilson’s confession, last summer Judge Dedee Costello denied Brown a new trial. News 13 asked her to explain why she ruled this way, but she declined to comment pending the case's appeal.

Patterson says, "I think if a jury now hears all the evidence that's now available, Joe Brown stands a good chance at getting his life back.”

Brown’s attorney expects to know something regarding the appeal by late summer.

Major Dave Humphreys says, "If something new comes up, some evidence that shows somebody made a terrible mistake here, we certainly want to rectify that, but an investigator has worked this crime, the state attorney reviewed it, a jury convicted him, we don't have anything new that tells us anything different then what we had.”

So for now, Joseph Brown remains behind bars and while he continues to fight for his freedom, he says it's just that, which he misses most.

"My freedom, being able to walk down a muddy dirt road, seeing my mother, seeing my sister.”

Brown’s mother, who adamantly supported her son’s innocence, passed away in December, without seeing her son get a second chance to prove his case.

Today Brown sits in the Florida State Prison, serving a life sentence.

"Another man's confessed to robbing this store and I'm serving the time for and the court system in this county still don't care.”