A former Mays Landing man serving a 55-year prison sentence for killing an Egg Harbor Township woman in 2014 will be released from prison after an appellate court overturned his conviction, ruling police illegally seized his phone a month before applying for a search warrant.

Timothy P. Wright, 45, of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, was convicted of murder in 2022 in the death of 25-year-old Joyce Vanderhoff.

Atlantic County Prosecutor William Reynolds did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The body of Vanderhoff was found naked on a desolate stretch of Weymouth Road in Hamilton Township about 9 a.m. Feb. 14, 2014. Her death was ruled a homicide by strangulation, and Wright wasn’t charged until 2019.

During Wright’s trial, prosecutors provided “turn by turn directions” from

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