LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A federal jury has awarded $28.1 million to six people who were wrongfully convicted in an 1985 rape and slaying in southeast Nebraska.

The jury’s verdict against Gage County and several of the officials who carried out the investigation was announced Wednesday.

The six people who sued — James Dean, Kathleen Gonzalez, Debra Shelden, Ada JoAnn Taylor, Joseph White and Thomas Winslow — were wrongly convicted of killing Helen Wilson in Beatrice and served a combined 77 years in prison before DNA testing cleared them in 2008. They’ve become known as the Beatrice Six.

The first trial last year ended in a mistrial.