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Evidentiary hearing set for man convicted of UNCC student's death

GASTON COUNTY, N.C. — An evidentiary hearing is scheduled for a man sentenced to life in the death of a North Carolina college student.

Local media outlets report Union County Superior Court Judge W. David Lee on Monday scheduled the hearing in the case of Mark Carver for Sept. 25.

Carver was convicted in 2011 of first-degree murder in the 2008 death of 20-year-old Irina Yarmolenko, a UNC Charlotte student who was found strangled to death beside her car at the bottom of an embankment near the Catawba River.

[Irina "Ira" Yarmolenko's Death: Timeline of Events]

The hearing comes seven months after the N.C. Center on Actual Innocence filed a motion asking that Carver's conviction be overturned or his case retried. Attorney Chris Mumma blames the conviction in part on Carver's past counsel, which presented no evidence in his case.

Carver was accused of murdering Yarmolenko, whose body was found in 2008, strangled next to her car not too far from where Carver was fishing on the Catawba River.

For years, the North Carolina Center for Actual Innocence has been examining the case, and Carver's attorneys believe they can show he wasn't the killer.

Carver's DNA was found outside Yarmolenko's car.

His new defense attorney believes it may have been transferred there by a police officer who shook Carver's hand at the river.

“At a minimum, Mark Carver deserves a new trial,” said Christine Mumma, of the NC Center on Actual Innocence.

The DNA sample, and how it was tested by North Carolina's crime lab, is now central to the defense argument for the conviction to be overturned.

“They made a conscious decision not to adopt national standards and that should have been raised in the 2011 trial,” Mumma said.

Gaston County District Attorney Locke Bell called an expert from the state's crime lab to defend the testing process used almost a decade ago.

“We were following the quality assurance standards that were in place at the time,” said McKenzie Dehaan, of the NC Crime Lab.

Ira Yarmolenko’s family did not respond to Channel 9’s call.

Several of Carver's supporters believe there's evidence that suggests the student took her own life that day.

“He's in prison for something he didn't do and he's very confused on how all this happened to him,” Mumma said.

In April, a judge allowed DNA evidence to be retested in a state lab.

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Carver’s attorneys believe he is serving a life sentence because his DNA was found on Yarmolenko’s car, however, they think his DNA was transferred there after police officers shook Carver's hand at the river.

In April, attorneys asked for the DNA from all five officers who were at the scene the day of the murder.

The judge could decide whether Carver receives a new trial after Monday’s hearing.

The case has gained national attention over the years and was even profiled on an ABC "20/20" special.

Carver's cousin, Neal Cassada, was also charged with murder. He died of a heart attack the day before his trial was scheduled to begin in 2010.

Cassada had also always maintained his innocence.

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