FREDERICTON — A New Brunswick man who spent decades fighting a wrongful murder conviction that landed him and a friend behind bars had only a few months to relish his victory, the organization that helped in his legal battle said Saturday as it announced his death.

Innocence Canada, which led the legal fight to exonerate Walter Gillespie and his friend Robert Mailman of their 1984 murder convictions, said Gillespie died Friday in his home in Saint John, N.B., at the age of 80.