Advances in DNA profiling allowed prosecutors to re-open the Nicarico case against Dugan, as his DNA was found to match that in forensic DNA in semen at the scene. Still in prison, Dugan was indicted in 2005 for the Nicarico murder. In 2009, Dugan pleaded guilty to the murder and was sentenced to death by a jury. Following Illinois's passage in 2011 of a law to abolish the death penalty in the state, Dugan's sentence was commuted to life in prison. He is serving his sentence at the Stateville Correctional Center.