PROVIDENCE, R.I. ? For a guy who claimed to be innocent, Jeffrey Scott Hornoff behaved an awful lot like a guilty man.

In the days, weeks and years after Victoria Cushman was bludgeoned to death with a fire extinguisher in 1989, Hornoff changed his story several times. Under police questioning, he whimpered, held his head in his hands and stared morosely at the floor.

Now, more than six years into a life sentence for murder, it turns out his only offense was adultery – and lying about it to police. The former Warwick police detective’s attempts to hide the infidelity were apparently what got him convicted.

None of that, however, became clear until this month, when Todd J. Barry, a 45-year-old carpenter who was never even a suspect, came forward and confessed to the murder. Investigators said he acted out of guilt. They gave no motive for the slaying but said Barry and the victim had dated.

“It’s an utter stroke of luck,” said Rob Warden, director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at the Northwestern University School of Law. “We probably don’t have more than a dozen examples nationally of cases in which a voluntary confession has led to an exoneration.”

He added: “If this had happened in another state that had the death penalty, Hornoff would almost certainly be dead.”

‘Small secrets’

Two days after Barry was charged with murder, a judge set Hornoff free.

“Scott Hornoff had small secrets that he wanted to protect,” said Atty. Gen. Sheldon Whitehouse. “Protecting those small secrets made him look like he was protecting the big secret that he had murdered Victoria Cushman.”

Hornoff, a 40-year-old father of three, has declined all interview requests until his case has been dismissed, which could happen Dec. 6.

Hornoff and Cushman met in 1989 while she was working at a sporting goods store where Hornoff, a member of the Warwick Police dive team, bought his scuba gear. He was married, with a baby. He and Cushman began sleeping together that summer.

Todd J. Barry appears in Kent County District Court in Warwick, R.I., for a bail hearing in the 1989 killing of Victoria E. Cushman. Barry's confession that he killed Cushman freed Jeffrey Scott Hornoff, who was convicted of the crime in 1996 and served more than six years of a life sentence.

Cushman, 29, told co-workers she thought Hornoff would leave his wife for her. Later that summer, Hornoff apparently told Cushman he was breaking it off with her. A co-worker of Cushman’s testified that Cushman was surprised and angry.

Two days later, Cushman failed to show up for a work, and she was found bludgeoned to death in her apartment. The weapon, a 17-pound fire extinguisher, was found nearby. Detectives also found a letter she had written to Hornoff in which she refused to break off their affair and insisted he leave his wife.

Lacking any blood, fingerprints or other forensic evidence linking Hornoff to the crime, prosecutors seized on the letter.

There was also Hornoff’s behavior. In the hours after Cushman’s body was discovered, he gave conflicting accounts of his relationship with Cushman, even denying at one point that he knew her. His alibi differed from what his wife and brother told investigators.

“The criminal justice system is simply unforgiving when people do things that are quite natural,” Warden said. “When somebody asks if you’re having an affair, it’s quite natural to lie. Then you’re a liar. When you start telling the truth, you’re changing your story. That’s two strikes as far as a jury’s concerned.”

Good intentions backfire

The Warwick Police Department’s handling of the case probably didn’t help. In their zeal to protect Hornoff, his fellow officers may have made him look more guilty, Whitehouse said. Evidence was lost or misplaced. Police also gave him a polygraph and said he passed; investigators later said the test violated every rule for conducting such procedures.

The state police eventually took over the case, and in 1994, more than five years after the slaying, Hornoff was charged with murder.

“By then it was almost like common knowledge that Scott had killed the girl,” said City Councilman Carlo Pisaturo Jr., who pushed for an independent investigation of the department’s handling of the case. “All indications were that he was guilty and that the cops had covered for him.”

Warwick Police Chief Wesley Blanchard and another high-ranking officer resigned amid allegations they aided in a cover-up.

Hornoff and his wife were divorced a few years ago but remain close.