'20/20' Preview: Leah Freeman's Murder Case Examined After Ex-Boyfriend's Recent Prison Release

On Friday night, viewers who tune in to watch ABC's "20/20" will get to see an inside look at Leah Freeman's murder and why the only person ever convicted of the crime was recently released.

On the night of June 28, 2000, Leah's boyfriend, Nick McGuffin, was supposed to pick her up from a friend's house. However, her friends indicated that she had left on foot earlier in the night. This prompted him to begin searching for her at local gas stations and around other areas of the town where he believed she could be.

He eventually reassured her mom that he would find her and bring her home that night, but everything proved to be unsuccessful. Before heading home from his search, he stopped by Leah's house one last time. Upon arrival, he saw a flicker of light in her bedroom window and assumed that she had made in home unbeknownst to him.

"Back then it was 2000. It's not like she could send me a text. She couldn't call me on a cell phone," he said in the preview below.

After she failed to return home, her mother contacted police, who initially treated the disappearance as a teenage runaway. According to ABC News, on the same night that she went missing, one of her shoes was found beside a cemetery near her high school. It wasn't until about a week later when her other shoe was found with blood on it, that police began to piece together that something may have happened to her.

On Aug. 3, 2000, Leah's body was discovered decomposing on a "steep wooded embankment, eight miles away through back roads from where the first shoe was found."

The case eventually went cold, but on Aug. 23, 2010, McGuffin was arrested for her murder. However, his conviction was eventually overturned. As stated by his mother, Kathy McGuffin, it was unbelievable that it had "finally, finally happened."

On Friday night, viewers will get to see the path that was taken leading up to his release.

This episode of "20/20" will air Friday at 9 p.m. EST on ABC.