ST. LOUIS • Lawyers who say that an innocent man has spent almost three decades in prison for the rape and murder of a St. Louis woman say that new evidence has further strengthened his case and cast more doubt on the original investigation.

Lawyers for George Allen Jr., 55, who filed documents in Cole County seeking to overturn Allen's conviction in September, say that subsequent investigation by the Missouri Attorney General's office has revealed lab and other evidence that they detailed in an amended court filing Friday.

Neither physical evidence nor eyewitness testimony linked Allen to the stabbing of Bell, 31, in her apartment in the 1000 block of Marion Street in LaSalle Park on Feb. 4, 1982.

Police picked Allen up in the neighborhood more than a month later because he resembled a suspect and questioned him even after determining he wasn't the man they were looking for.

Allen confessed, but later said the confession was coached.

Jurors at Allen's first trial voted 10-2 for acquittal. He was found guilty by a different jury three months later and could have been sentenced to death, had a juror not had to leave during the penalty phase.

Allen has already exhausted his appeals. DNA evidence was inconclusive.

But Allen's lawyers say that there is "overwhelming evidence" that Allen is innocent, and as more evidence surfaces, the case becomes even more convincing.

They say lab evidence that proved that Allen could not have been the source of semen found at the scene should have been provided to Allen's original lawyers.

A recent interview with former St. Louis police Det. Ronald Scaggs casts Allen's interrogation into doubt, raising a series of questions about the interview techniques and the reliability of Allen's purported confession.

Scaggs said that police were "iffy" about Allen's conviction. He said Allen was asked leading questions and shown crime scene photos that could have affected detectives' ability to test Allen's knowledge of the crime. Scaggs, they say, also said that Allen drew a diagram of the crime scene that was inaccurate. That was never turned over to Allen's lawyers.

And statements from Bell's boyfriend at the time, which Allen didn't have access to during the trial, call the rape allegations into question, they claim.

"Hopefully the new evidence submitted today will persuade the Attorney General's office to move quickly to release Mr. Allen," said Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project, in a statement.

Bryan Cave lawyer Daniel Harvath, one of the attorneys working on the case, said in a statement that "this case was built on a faulty foundation that has completely crumbled."

In a statement Friday, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce's office said, "The Circuit Attorney's Office has confidence that the Attorney General's Office will objectively review this document and take appropriate action on behalf of the State of Missouri on this matter."

A spokeswoman for the Missouri Attorney General's office declined to comment.