Davontae Sanford was just 14 when he told police he killed four people in a drug den, drawing their bodies like stick figures to show where the victims died — on the floor, a couch, a chair.

Sanford was sentenced to at least 38 years in prison for the 2007 slayings, which police say were planned as a robbery.

But now he insists his confession was a lie. A veteran homicide investigator agrees that the young man's statements were unreliable. And his attorney is seeking help from an unlikely ally: A hit man convicted in no fewer than eight other murders.

"It's our hope that he will testify for us," defense attorney Kim McGinnis said of Vincent Smothers, who has told police he took part in the slayings.

For more than a year, a judge has been hearing testimony on the teen's request to take back his 2008 guilty plea and seek a new trial. Prosecutors stand behind their case against the teenager, but at least two officers who interrogated Smothers say he took responsibility for the same murders.