A Cook County judge has exonerated a Chicago man convicted for murder and imprisoned in 1994, when he was 13, after the real killer has been identified.

Cook County Criminal Court Judge Joseph Claps' decision on Friday set Thaddeus Jimenez, now 30, free after spending 16 of his 50-year sentence for the shooting dead of Eric Morro, 19, on Feb. 13, 1993.

"I'm happy to be alive today after spending a little over 16 years in the Department of Corrections," Jimenez said at a press conference at the Cook County Criminal Courthouse, according to Chicagobreakingnews.com. "I survived because of the love and support I received from my mother, who battled cancer and other illnesses while I was away," he said.

The exoneration followed the arrest of the suspected shooter, Juan Carlos Torres, 30, of Indiana, on Friday, according to prosecutors.

Jimenez's companion at the time of the shooting testified in court that he shot the victim leading to his conviction. But different findings from an investigation by the Northwestern University Center on Wrongful Convictions in 2005 and recantations of two witnesses in 2007 prompted the state attorney's office to review the case.

A taped interrogation of Torres, in which he admitted to shooting Moro and being relieved that Jimenez was tagged as the shooter, also became a substantial evidence that led Cook County Assistant State's Attorney Celeste Stack and Jimenez's lawyers to ask the judge to vacate the conviction.