Good morning everyone,
As promised, here's the full text of Judge Scarano's decision to toss Katherine Seeber's guilty plea.

BALLSTON SPA — Katherine Seeber's 2001 guilty plea has been tossed by Saratoga County Judge Jerry Scarano. Seeber, accused of murdering her step-great-grandmother, pleaded guilty to the crime in 2001 and has been serving a sentence of 20 years to life in prison since then.

Jeffrey Hampshire, who has a long history with Saratoga County law enforcement, including a recent conviction for his involvement in a fatal March 2010 hit-and-run, was also accused in Ruth Witter's murder but was acquitted at trial.

Seeber will likely be retried for Witter's murder, but District Attorney James A. Murphy III said he is considering appealing Scarano's decision. At this time, Murphy said there is no date set for the new trial.

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Note: Yes, we are aware there was a mistake in the headline on this story both online and in print today. The online headline is now correct: Ruth Witter died of strangulation, not stabbing. A lame excuse for the error: none of the copy editors working yesterday were around in 2001 during the original trial and they got confused on the details. Like most of our reporting staff (and me) they were in high school in 2001. Everyone's getting a crash-course in this murder trial today to avoid further mistakes.

Katherine Seeber's '01 guity plea thrown out