RALEIGH, N.C. (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 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 kill Jacquetta Thomas?" defense attorney Joe Cheshire asked Taylor at the end of his examination. "Were you present when she died?"

"No, sir," Thomas replied to both questions.

"Did you have anything to do with her death?" Cheshire asked.

"No, sir," he replied a third time.

Taylor, wearing a suit and tie along with leg shackles, spoke so softly at times he was asked to speak up so the court could hear him. 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. He is not related to Greg Taylor.

The commission, established in 2006, makes North Carolina 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 Willoughby at the prosecutor's table was Tom Ford, who originally tried the case against Greg Taylor.

Ford prodded Taylor, asking him immediately if he recalled a conversation with his trial attorney in which they agreed Taylor shouldn't take the stand because of his temper.

"No, sir," Taylor replied.

"You don't remember him specifically telling you and you agreeing with it, their assessment that your temper would not allow you to withstand a cross-examination without lashing out at me?

"No, sir," Taylor replied, maintaining a calm demeanor.

Ford pressed Taylor, getting answers of "I don't know" and "I don't recall" to many questions. But Taylor didn't change the basics of his story that he didn't kill Thomas.

Cheshire didn't mention Craig Taylor's confession. Instead, he sought to cast doubt on the physical evidence, the trial testimony -- including testimony that blood was found Taylor's SUV when it was not -- and the credibility of a prostitute and a jailhouse snitch who testified against Taylor.

He also went through the police interrogation, during which Taylor was told "you can be a witness or you can be a defendant."

Taylor, 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. Ford was among those who made such an offer, including after Taylor was behind bars, when Ford said he and a judge would make his case to the governor if Taylor would cooperate.

Still, Taylor said no. When Cheshire asked him why Tuesday, he replied: "It was still the same as it has been all along. There was no way I could testify against Johnny Beck because we didn't have anything to do with this crime. "