ERIC IS FREE!

My friend Alicia texted me a short time ago with this:

"CNN says Eric was freed!!!"

I went online and this is what it says!

Family: American finally freed in Nicaragua

"MANAGUA, Nicaragua (CNN) -- An American man held in a Nicaraguan jail was released Friday, four days after a court overturned his conviction on charges of murdering his former girlfriend, his family told CNN.

A mix-up kept Eric Volz, 28, of Nashville, Tennessee, in custody after an appeals court reversed the ruling that found him guilty of the 2005 death of Doris Jimenez.

Thursday night, a Nicaraguan appeals court in Granada cleared up the confusion and signed release papers for Volz, said Maria Jose Oviedo, assistant to one of the judges on the court.

Once the documents were processed by the police hospital in Managua -- where Volz was undergoing treatment for a variety of ailments -- he was set free under Nicaraguan law, a court official said.

The release came despite a prosecutors' decision to appeal the case to the Supreme Court. Magistrate judges in the appeals court in Nicaragua have up to 10 days to review the request for appeal. Watch how Volz was convicted »

The delay began after the Managua judge who sentenced Volz to 30 years in prison stalled over court documents, said Volz' attorney.

Attorney Fabbrith Gomez said the judge, Ivette Toruno Blanco, claimed the documents were incorrectly numbered and that she had returned them to Granada.

Magistrates in Granada spent the rest of the week trying to figure out the whereabouts of Volz's case file.

Once the files were found, the appeals court judges "stayed up late" Thursday night working on the paperwork for release, Oviedo said.

The order was delivered to the hospital in Managua, a city about 30 miles away from Granada, Friday.

Volz was convicted in 2006 of raping and killing Doris Ivanez Jimenez.

Ten witnesses in the case testified or gave affidavits swearing that he was in his office in Managua, two hours away from the town where Jimenez was killed, at the time of her slaying. He founded and served as publisher of EP (El Puente) magazine.

But one man testified that he had seen Volz in the town, San Juan del Sur, just after the time police believe Jimenez was killed.

That man, Nelson Danglas, was originally arrested in the slaying but received full immunity in exchange for his testimony against Volz. No physical evidence from the scene linked Volz to the slaying.

In addition to Volz, the same court convicted another man, Julio Chamorro, of the murder, although investigators never connected him with Volz."

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Now's let's pray that he makes it safely home with his mom back to Nashville!!

God is big!!