It was a murder that shocked the nation.
The child, Michael Lewis, stood less than five feet tall when he pointed a gun into a parked car at an Atlanta convenience store and pulled the trigger.
He left dead 23-year-old Darnell Woods, fatally shot as Woods' two young sons sat in the back seat.
Described by sociologists as a "super predator" and by prosecutors as a "cold blooded thug," at age 14, Lewis was sentenced to life in prison.
He was one of the first children charged under a 1994 Georgia law that required juveniles, accused of certain violent crimes, to be tried as adults.
Two weeks ago, he walked out of the Macon Transitional Facility on parole.
"It's a surreal experience," he said. "It really hasn't all settled in on me because I've been trying to get everything together. But it's a lot better than what I've been experiencing for the last 26-and-a-half years."
As he has since he was charged, Lewis maintains his innocence.
The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles turned Lewis’ prior parole requests down several times before granting his release but, like most cases, gave no explanation about what was different this time around.
For Lewis, its decision means he now can do things that most people already have done by the time they're 39.
In the days since he left prison, he’s flown on a plane, bought furniture, and seen the ocean — all for the first time.
"It's a lot of little, small things that I could have done but never had the opportunity to do, developing as a human being in society," he said. "But I'm going to try to look back on it now and try to make up for lost time because that's gone, and I can't do anything but try to make better memories now."
Lewis reflects and calls his life before the shooting a "living hell," one that could lead only to prison.
A book published in 2002, The Condemnation of Little B, describes a childhood that included an absent father, crack-addicted mother, homelessness and foster care.
The book’s author, Elaine Brown, whom Lewis considers a mother figure, lives in California and is helping him get on his feet, post-prison.
The Georgia parole board and the State of California also allowed Lewis to move to Oakland, where she lives.
Lewis credits Brown with turning his life around.
A former Black Panther Party chairman and former Georgia activist, Brown took Lewis under her wing, calling and visiting him in prison and raising his case's profile.
Lewis is now working for Brown's nonprofit organization that is developing a mixed-use affordable housing community.
Optimistic and excited for his future, he says he'll be running the community marketplace, with the goal of spinning it off into his own business.
Lewis' Atlanta criminal defense attorney, Leigh Shrope, says she opposes trying children as adults and sentencing them to life in prison.
"I think a 13-year-old is not a fully developed human being," she said. "I do not think you can look at a 13-year-old and say that they're 'irreparably corrupt.' Usually, if someone finds themself in this situation, there's usually other parts of society that have failed them."
Current Georgia law still requires children 13 years and older to be tried as adults in certain cases of violent crime, such as murder.
On the other side of this story, the man Lewis was convicted of killing, Darnell Woods, would have turned 49 years old by now.
The Fulton County District Attorney's office represented the state in its prosecution of the crime against him.
The office did not respond to a request for comment.
A version of this story published earlier stated that Georgia law allows children 13 years and older to be tried as adults in certain cases of violent crime, such as murder, when in fact, Georgia law requires it.
