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RALEIGH (AP) — A man imprisoned for almost 17 years for a murder he says he didn't commit testified Tuesday before a three-judge panel that could release him, sticking to the same story that he has told since he was arrested.

Greg Taylor, 47, of Cary said he spent a night of drinking and doing drugs as he and friends drove from one location to another to buy crack cocaine. He left his home about 6 p.m. on Sept. 25, 1991, and was being interrogated by police by about 9 a.m. the following day about the death of Jacquetta Thomas, 26, a prostitute whose beaten body was found on a Raleigh street.

"Did you cut her throat?" defense attorney Joe Cheshire asked Taylor.

"No," he replied.

"Did you use a blunt instrument to hit her in the throat and head?" Cheshire asked.

"No," he replied again.

Taylor, wearing a suit and tie along with leg shackles, spoke so softly at times that a court reporter asked him to speak up. He choked up as he testified about his daughter, who was 8 years old at the time of his arrest. During his interrogation, police asked him "What is your little girl going to say?"

"I didn't do it," he said, repeating what he told police. "I did not do it."

His daughter, 26-year-old Kristen Puryear of Durham, sat on the front row of the courtroom and wiped away tears during parts of her father's testimony. It was the just the second time Taylor has testified in court about the charges; the first was during a hearing on an appeal.

Taylor came to the attention of police because he and a friend had driven on a dirt path off a cul de sac in Raleigh, where they smoked crack. Taylor's vehicle became stuck and, as they walked from the cul de sac, they saw what they thought was a body, he said. They didn't report seeing the body, but when Taylor returned to retrieve his sports utility vehicle, the police were there, he said.

The North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission pressed for the hearing, saying it found enough evidence to warrant a review. Another man, Craig Taylor, has confessed to the crime. North Carolina is the only state with a government agency dedicated to verifying claims of innocence.

Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby has said he's skeptical, partly because Craig Taylor has confessed to almost 70 other crimes. Working with him at the prosecutor's table is Tom Ford, who originally tried the case against Greg Taylor.

Cheshire has focused on what he described as a lack of physical evidence against his client and the police interrogation, during which Taylor was told "you can be a witness or you can be a defendant." His client, he said, turned down repeated offers from police to blame Thomas' death on his friend who was with him that night, Johnny Beck, even when police told him that Beck was blaming the murder on him.

Beck also is scheduled to testify.

Willoughby did not give an opening argument at the hearing, which is expected to last two or three days.