WEBVTT - #354 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Tommy Ward Pt. 2

0:00:05.400 --> 0:00:07.520
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions.

0:00:07.720 --> 0:00:10.039
<v Speaker 2>I'm Laura and I writer and I'm Steve Drewson.

0:00:10.640 --> 0:00:13.360
<v Speaker 1>Today we bring you back to Ada, Oklahoma for the

0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:16.560
<v Speaker 1>second half of our story about Tommy Ward and Carl Fontano.

0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:19.600
<v Speaker 1>When we left off last week, Tommy and Carl were

0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:23.320
<v Speaker 1>sitting on death row after police turned Tommy's bad dream

0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:26.639
<v Speaker 1>into a murder confession. This week, we'll tell you about

0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:29.680
<v Speaker 1>some serious twists in the case, from the discovery of

0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:33.360
<v Speaker 1>the victim's body to the revelation of hidden evidence that

0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:36.920
<v Speaker 1>turned this case upside down. We'll update you on everything

0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:39.920
<v Speaker 1>that's happened since the twenty eighteen Netflix series The Innocent

0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:43.400
<v Speaker 1>Man told Tommy and Carl's story. There's been some very

0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:45.640
<v Speaker 1>good news for one of them and a lot of

0:00:45.680 --> 0:01:02.360
<v Speaker 1>hope for the other. Steve. For those listeners who missed

0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:04.920
<v Speaker 1>last week's episode, let's tell them what happened.

0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:09.039
<v Speaker 2>In Ada, Oklahoma. Denise Harroway, a twenty four year old woman,

0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:13.959
<v Speaker 2>goes missing. She vanishes. The police bring Tommy Ward in

0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:15.559
<v Speaker 2>for questioning, and.

0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:18.360
<v Speaker 1>It got ugly fast. Tommy told the police about this

0:01:18.480 --> 0:01:22.280
<v Speaker 1>nightmare he'd had about Denise's disappearance, and over a nine

0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:27.120
<v Speaker 1>hour interrogation, police turned that dream into a confession. They

0:01:27.160 --> 0:01:30.280
<v Speaker 1>even hauled in Tommy's friend, Carl Fontano and got him

0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:33.360
<v Speaker 1>to confess too. But here's the thing. These confessions were

0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:36.560
<v Speaker 1>riddled with errors. They named a third perpetrator who had

0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:40.120
<v Speaker 1>a rock solid alibi. They repeated the stories that police

0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:43.320
<v Speaker 1>fed to Tommy and Carl without adding anything new. These

0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:46.040
<v Speaker 1>confessions were obviously obviously false.

0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:51.080
<v Speaker 2>Now going into trial, the prosecutors have two confessions that

0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:54.680
<v Speaker 2>are at odds with the objectively noble facts of the cry.

0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:56.720
<v Speaker 1>But they thought they had an ace in the hole.

0:01:57.000 --> 0:02:00.320
<v Speaker 2>And that ace in the hole was a single fact

0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:05.080
<v Speaker 2>that both Tommy and Carl had told to police officers,

0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:10.720
<v Speaker 2>a description of a blouse that Denise Harrowy was wearing

0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:14.600
<v Speaker 2>at the time that she was abducted. A blouse that

0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:19.960
<v Speaker 2>it turned out was missing from Denise's wardrobe, A blouse

0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:23.760
<v Speaker 2>which even the police did not know about at the

0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:26.680
<v Speaker 2>time they interviewed Tommy and Carl.

0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:29.600
<v Speaker 1>But based on this one detail in their confessions, Tommy

0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:32.799
<v Speaker 1>and Carl were convicted of murder. And remember, her bodies

0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:34.760
<v Speaker 1>still hadn't been found when they were convicted.

0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:40.200
<v Speaker 2>No body, no bones, no motive, nothing but a description

0:02:40.680 --> 0:02:44.600
<v Speaker 2>of Denise Harroway's blouse, and they are on death row

0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:47.760
<v Speaker 2>because of that. That's where we pick up the story.

0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:55.359
<v Speaker 1>Three months after Tommy and Carl were convicted, a wake

0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:57.480
<v Speaker 1>up call arrived in the case that was built on

0:02:57.480 --> 0:03:01.720
<v Speaker 1>a dream. On January twenty firstnineteen eighty six, a man

0:03:01.880 --> 0:03:04.880
<v Speaker 1>was walking through a field in Gurdy, Oklahoma, when he

0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:08.959
<v Speaker 1>found a skull under some brush. Police found more human

0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:13.880
<v Speaker 1>remains spread across the field, and dental records confirmed a match. Finally,

0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:19.240
<v Speaker 1>they'd found Denise Harroway. This discovery produced a new round

0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:22.400
<v Speaker 1>of problems with Tommy and Carl's confessions. Denise had been

0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:26.400
<v Speaker 1>found unclothed, twenty miles away from where Tammy and Carl

0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:29.280
<v Speaker 1>had said they'd left her. Her body hadn't been burned

0:03:29.320 --> 0:03:32.000
<v Speaker 1>at all, despite the fact that Karl had said they'd

0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:36.200
<v Speaker 1>set her on fire, and the medical examiner confirmed even

0:03:36.240 --> 0:03:38.920
<v Speaker 1>though Tommy and Carl had said Denise had been stabbed

0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:42.840
<v Speaker 1>that never happened. She had actually been shot in the head.

0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:48.280
<v Speaker 2>It's like they're describing completely different crimes from what happened

0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:49.440
<v Speaker 2>to Denise Harroway.

0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:53.680
<v Speaker 1>Both Tommy and Carl's convictions were reversed on appeal, but

0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:57.200
<v Speaker 1>not because Denise's body had been found. It was because

0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:01.080
<v Speaker 1>the judge ruled they shouldn't have been tried together. Prosecutors

0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:04.200
<v Speaker 1>went ahead and tried both Tommy and Carl again, this

0:04:04.280 --> 0:04:07.520
<v Speaker 1>time separately, but using the same evidence as before.

0:04:08.120 --> 0:04:10.440
<v Speaker 3>When the second trial come up, before they had found

0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:14.560
<v Speaker 3>her remains and everything they found that crime scene had

0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:18.000
<v Speaker 3>proved Tommy's confession wrong. Nothing was right about it.

0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:22.080
<v Speaker 1>That's Tommy Ward's brother, Melvin. He's been advocating for Tommy's

0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:24.039
<v Speaker 1>innocence for over thirty years.

0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:26.200
<v Speaker 3>Our hearts was a high. I mean, how can you

0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:29.400
<v Speaker 3>ignore You know that she was shot back of the head,

0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:31.400
<v Speaker 3>and here you got two boys saying it was she

0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:35.320
<v Speaker 3>was sad. She was never stad even in corners before

0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:36.120
<v Speaker 3>states ad.

0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:39.240
<v Speaker 1>But believe it or not, the second trials were deja

0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:43.080
<v Speaker 1>vu all over again, just like before. The prosecutors relied

0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:46.000
<v Speaker 1>on the fact that Tommy and Carl had both said

0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:50.120
<v Speaker 1>Denise was wearing a blue flowered, ruffled blouse. The police

0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:53.080
<v Speaker 1>hadn't known anything about the blouse before the interrogation. The

0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:56.239
<v Speaker 1>prosecutors insisted that fact couldn't have been fed.

0:04:56.680 --> 0:04:59.720
<v Speaker 2>Imagine you're a prosecutor and you have to stand up

0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:02.880
<v Speaker 2>and of a jury and present them with a confession.

0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:07.320
<v Speaker 2>They can't tell you what happened to denise, who did it,

0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:12.920
<v Speaker 2>or even where the crime occurred. That's what these prosecutors

0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:16.400
<v Speaker 2>had to do. But they did it well enough, well

0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:20.800
<v Speaker 2>enough to convict both Tommy and Carl a second time.

0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:24.560
<v Speaker 1>When Tommy heard the verdict, he began to sob uncontrollably.

0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:28.640
<v Speaker 1>You're all liars, he shouted at the prosecutors. I'm being

0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:30.560
<v Speaker 1>punished for something I didn't do.

0:05:31.360 --> 0:05:34.800
<v Speaker 3>I don't know. I still have a hard time. I

0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:37.880
<v Speaker 3>actually thought it would be a hung jury the second one.

0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:40.640
<v Speaker 3>Confessions are hard to get by. You know, people still

0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:43.279
<v Speaker 3>believe that, you know, why did you confess if you.

0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:43.760
<v Speaker 2>Didn't do it?

0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:48.920
<v Speaker 3>So their confessions were similar, but they also was off.

0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:53.320
<v Speaker 3>You know, I'm not a lawyer by any means, but

0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:58.360
<v Speaker 3>I could not say how twelve adult jurors could just

0:05:58.400 --> 0:05:59.760
<v Speaker 3>ignore all the other evidence.

0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:02.720
<v Speaker 4>That's what they did had to have.

0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:07.560
<v Speaker 3>Tommy was totally convicted on his confession. Them confession sunk.

0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:10.960
<v Speaker 1>Them this time around. Tommy Ward and Carl Fontano were

0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:13.040
<v Speaker 1>ultimately sentenced to life in prison.

0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:17.880
<v Speaker 3>That's been thirty five years ago plus thirty five years later,

0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:19.520
<v Speaker 3>Tom's still waiting to get out.

0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:22.480
<v Speaker 1>Tommy and Carl went off to prison to serve their

0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:26.640
<v Speaker 1>life sentences. Years passed and their appeals were denied one

0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:27.400
<v Speaker 1>after another.

0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:32.840
<v Speaker 3>Tommy was a kid that he'd take his strays for instance,

0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:35.040
<v Speaker 3>And what I mean by astrays, I don't meet just

0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:38.080
<v Speaker 3>stray dogs. Like one time he found a hawk that

0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:41.240
<v Speaker 3>had a broken wing. He took that hawk and nursed

0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:47.800
<v Speaker 3>it back to help and let it go. Men and

0:06:47.800 --> 0:06:50.400
<v Speaker 3>a wife would would for years went and saw him.

0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:55.320
<v Speaker 3>You know, every two three weeks. Mama religiously go see him.

0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:59.880
<v Speaker 3>Even today, he calls me every week almost in prison.

0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:02.360
<v Speaker 3>He got into cabentry, and the way I understand it,

0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:06.200
<v Speaker 3>he's very good at it. He built a prefab homes

0:07:06.279 --> 0:07:10.560
<v Speaker 3>there and everybody that knows Tommy, everywhere he's at, even

0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:12.240
<v Speaker 3>in prison, everybody likes him.

0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:12.640
<v Speaker 2>You know.

0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:15.680
<v Speaker 3>He's a good Christian man. He's honest, and you know

0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:20.200
<v Speaker 3>he just just not any aim to do what they

0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:20.880
<v Speaker 3>claimed he did.

0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:25.080
<v Speaker 1>Tommy had befriended Carl Fontaneau when Carl had no family

0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:28.320
<v Speaker 1>or home. He wasn't much different from those other strays

0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:32.280
<v Speaker 1>Tommy took in in prison while Tommy worked carpentry jobs,

0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:36.200
<v Speaker 1>Carl pursued a different kind of woodworking. He taught himself

0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:39.640
<v Speaker 1>the lonely skill of building picture frames out of toothpicks

0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:42.400
<v Speaker 1>and glue, even though he didn't have any photos of

0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:56.880
<v Speaker 1>loved ones to go in them. While Tommy and Carl

0:07:56.960 --> 0:08:00.480
<v Speaker 1>sat in an Oklahoma prison, words started spreading about this

0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:04.400
<v Speaker 1>mysterious case that was built on a dream. Two books

0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:07.320
<v Speaker 1>were written about it, one in nineteen eighty seven and

0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:09.040
<v Speaker 1>a second in two thousand and six.

0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:12.520
<v Speaker 2>This was a case that captured the imagination of an

0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:16.920
<v Speaker 2>investigative reporter named Robert Mayer, who wrote a classic wrongful

0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:21.120
<v Speaker 2>conviction book entitled Dreams of Ada. And then none other

0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:23.640
<v Speaker 2>than John Grisham wrote a book about this case.

0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:26.520
<v Speaker 1>This is the only non fiction book Grisham ever wrote, and,

0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:28.800
<v Speaker 1>like he told us in the last episode, even he

0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:30.120
<v Speaker 1>couldn't make up a story like this.

0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:34.400
<v Speaker 2>Eventually, Grisham's book The Innocent Man would be turned into

0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:38.199
<v Speaker 2>a Netflix series, which was released in twenty eighteen.

0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:42.480
<v Speaker 3>Finally, somebody was taking notice as starting to believe in

0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:45.920
<v Speaker 3>Tommy's story. I mean, it's even gone so far where

0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:48.360
<v Speaker 3>I get on vicebook. People on the other side of

0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:53.680
<v Speaker 3>the world, I mean Ukrainian and in Price's Italy, you know,

0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:57.520
<v Speaker 3>wishing Tommy well and believing in his innocent It's just

0:08:57.559 --> 0:08:58.280
<v Speaker 3>pretty amazing.

0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:02.240
<v Speaker 1>While journalists were telling Tommy and Carl's stories, the two

0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:06.800
<v Speaker 1>men sat behind bars for decades. Both still insisted on

0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:10.640
<v Speaker 1>their innocence. They needed post conviction lawyers to take their case,

0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:14.320
<v Speaker 1>but any new legal team would face a problem. No

0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:18.320
<v Speaker 1>DNA evidence existed that could prove Tommy and Karl's innocence.

0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:22.000
<v Speaker 1>How on earth would any lawyers go about exonerating them.

0:09:22.280 --> 0:09:24.520
<v Speaker 1>It was a case, turns out, that was made for

0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:27.280
<v Speaker 1>the organization that Steve and I are lucky enough to

0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:31.560
<v Speaker 1>co direct, the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University

0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:32.760
<v Speaker 1>Pritzker School of Law.

0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:35.520
<v Speaker 4>The purpose of the Center on Wrongful Convictions is to

0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:41.760
<v Speaker 4>identify and rectify wrongful convictions and other serious miscarriages of justice.

0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:45.800
<v Speaker 1>Here's the co founder of our center, renowned journalist Rob Worden.

0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:48.559
<v Speaker 4>We thought that it was important to have an organization

0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:53.000
<v Speaker 4>that would investigate cases in which there was no DNA

0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:58.319
<v Speaker 4>but there was other persuasive evidence of actual innocence. Now,

0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:01.480
<v Speaker 4>these cases are much harder to prove than DNA, but

0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:06.000
<v Speaker 4>they are no less compelling. The Center on Wrongful Convictions

0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:09.959
<v Speaker 4>was a first innocence project in the country that was

0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:13.520
<v Speaker 4>taking non DNA cases as well as DNA cases.

0:10:13.920 --> 0:10:15.800
<v Speaker 1>In two thousand and six, when the Center had been

0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:19.000
<v Speaker 1>around for about seven years, Rob heard about Tommy Ward's

0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:21.720
<v Speaker 1>case and he couldn't forget what he learned.

0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:25.160
<v Speaker 4>We wouldn't even have had a wrongful conviction movement were

0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:31.760
<v Speaker 4>it not initially for vibrant investigative reporting. John Grisham and

0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:34.680
<v Speaker 4>I had a conversation about the Tommy Ward case when

0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:38.120
<v Speaker 4>he was in Chicago. The thing that was so striking

0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:43.319
<v Speaker 4>about the Ward font No case was that the dreams

0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:49.280
<v Speaker 4>conflicted with known physical facts of the crime. So we

0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:53.960
<v Speaker 4>have this evidence that the dream confessions are false and

0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:58.240
<v Speaker 4>that quite clearly the ideas here were implanted in the

0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:02.320
<v Speaker 4>minds of both Tommy and Carl by the police. The

0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:06.360
<v Speaker 4>case probably never should have been brought. It still has

0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:10.360
<v Speaker 4>immensely powerful evidence of actual innocence, and that's why the

0:11:10.360 --> 0:11:13.679
<v Speaker 4>Center on Ronical Convictions got involved, and we've been involved

0:11:13.720 --> 0:11:17.920
<v Speaker 4>in it for the ensuing a dozen or thirteen years,

0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:18.560
<v Speaker 4>still fighting.

0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:22.120
<v Speaker 1>Now here's one thing that fascinated Rob about the case

0:11:22.480 --> 0:11:26.320
<v Speaker 1>and about Ada, Oklahoma. Turns out Tommy Ward wasn't the

0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:29.280
<v Speaker 1>only innocent man from Ada who was convicted of murder

0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:30.840
<v Speaker 1>based on a dream confession.

0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:35.640
<v Speaker 4>Ron Williamson was a minor league baseball player who had

0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:39.720
<v Speaker 4>been sentenced to death based on a dream that he

0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:45.160
<v Speaker 4>described to police about the crime. He was exonerated by DNA.

0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:48.560
<v Speaker 4>So this was an intriguing situation for me.

0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:52.800
<v Speaker 2>Of the twelve known dream confessions in the history of

0:11:52.880 --> 0:11:57.920
<v Speaker 2>false confessions, we have two of them coming from Ada, Oklahoma,

0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:03.040
<v Speaker 2>this small, fineteen thousand person town. What are the chances

0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:06.880
<v Speaker 2>of that It's like a cancer cluster. What's going on

0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:11.120
<v Speaker 2>here is that these interrogators were hell bent on solving

0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:17.840
<v Speaker 2>high profile murders and they were converting dreams into confessions.

0:12:18.440 --> 0:12:22.960
<v Speaker 2>This was part and parcel of their arsenal of tactics

0:12:23.320 --> 0:12:27.640
<v Speaker 2>to break suspects down and get them to confess, and

0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:30.160
<v Speaker 2>they were getting false confessions.

0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:37.080
<v Speaker 1>If that other dream confession was false, if Ron Williamson

0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:41.200
<v Speaker 1>had been exonerated, maybe Tommy and Carl could be exonerated too.

0:12:41.720 --> 0:12:44.880
<v Speaker 1>Our colleagues at the Center on Wrongful Convictions partnered with

0:12:44.920 --> 0:12:49.720
<v Speaker 1>Oklahoma attorney Mark Barrett to represent Tommy Ward, Carl fontane

0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:54.440
<v Speaker 1>also got new representation. Together, both legal teams dug into

0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:58.280
<v Speaker 1>the case of Denise Harroway's disappearance, and what did they find.

0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:03.000
<v Speaker 1>Not DNA, but they did find evidence of innocence that

0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:07.520
<v Speaker 1>was equally compelling. A whole box of investigative reports that

0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:11.680
<v Speaker 1>had not been disclosed to Tommy or Carl's defense, eight

0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:16.160
<v Speaker 1>hundred and sixty pages of secret evidence, and the contents

0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:18.640
<v Speaker 1>of those reports talk about a dream come true.

0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:23.040
<v Speaker 2>The discovery of this box is a development that occurred

0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:26.679
<v Speaker 2>after all the books, after the Netflix series, and it's

0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:29.680
<v Speaker 2>a development that blows this case wide open.

0:13:30.520 --> 0:13:33.880
<v Speaker 4>The prosecution, that turns out, as we now have learned,

0:13:34.320 --> 0:13:40.079
<v Speaker 4>had concealed a huge body of exculpatory evidence, including evidence

0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:44.720
<v Speaker 4>corroborating Tommy Ward's alibi that he had been at a

0:13:44.960 --> 0:13:48.080
<v Speaker 4>party with a bunch of people at the exact time

0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:49.679
<v Speaker 4>of the abduction and couldn't.

0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:52.400
<v Speaker 1>Have been involved in that box. There was also a

0:13:52.480 --> 0:13:56.520
<v Speaker 1>full recantation from Carl Fontaneau which he wrote just days

0:13:56.559 --> 0:13:59.920
<v Speaker 1>after he confessed. There were police reports showing that the

0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:03.160
<v Speaker 1>the only witness who put Tommy Ward at mcinally's that night,

0:14:03.360 --> 0:14:08.120
<v Speaker 1>James Moyer, had completely changed his descriptions several times of

0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:11.400
<v Speaker 1>whoever it was he saw, But what about that blouse

0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:15.320
<v Speaker 1>with the blue flowers and lazy collar. That magical proof

0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:18.360
<v Speaker 1>that Tommy and Karl must be guilty because their interrogators

0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:19.800
<v Speaker 1>didn't know what Denise was wearing.

0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:23.600
<v Speaker 2>In that box, the lawyers found a draft missing person's

0:14:23.680 --> 0:14:28.120
<v Speaker 2>report written by the police but never actually circulated to

0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:31.240
<v Speaker 2>either the public or to defense counsel in this case.

0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:35.040
<v Speaker 2>That report described the blouse that Denise was wearing on

0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:38.440
<v Speaker 2>the day she was abducted. It said that Denise Harvey

0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:42.040
<v Speaker 2>was wearing a blouse with blue flowers and lace around

0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:46.240
<v Speaker 2>the neckline, and that report was dated one day after

0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:51.880
<v Speaker 2>Denise's disappearance. That's months before the interrogations, so the police

0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:58.480
<v Speaker 2>knew what Denise was wearing before they interrogated both Tommy

0:14:58.760 --> 0:14:59.480
<v Speaker 2>and Carl.

0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:03.120
<v Speaker 1>And there was more in the box. Lawyers also found

0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:07.000
<v Speaker 1>an undated report of an interview with Denise's sister, which

0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:09.680
<v Speaker 1>is probably where police got the information for the missing

0:15:09.720 --> 0:15:13.480
<v Speaker 1>person's bulletin. In it, she described Denise as wearing a

0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:17.200
<v Speaker 1>button down blouse with small blue flowers that had lace

0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:20.600
<v Speaker 1>around the collar and elastic on the sleeves. These are

0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:23.680
<v Speaker 1>the same details, the same words that ended up in

0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:27.360
<v Speaker 1>Tommy and Carl's confessions. Not to play on stereotypes, but

0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:29.800
<v Speaker 1>what are the odds that these two rough and tumbled

0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:33.200
<v Speaker 1>dudes from rural Oklahoma would have described a woman's lacey

0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:36.600
<v Speaker 1>blouse using exactly the same words as Denise's sister.

0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:41.960
<v Speaker 2>This eviscerates the state's case. The one fact, the blouse fact,

0:15:42.360 --> 0:15:44.800
<v Speaker 2>that put these men on death row. We now know

0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:48.880
<v Speaker 2>that the police knew about it before they interrogated Tommy

0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:53.200
<v Speaker 2>and Carl. We now know that Denise's sister told them

0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:58.240
<v Speaker 2>about it shortly after she disappeared. Now we know it

0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:01.320
<v Speaker 2>must have been fed to them by the same police

0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:04.840
<v Speaker 2>officers who fed so many other facts to them. The

0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:09.240
<v Speaker 2>anchor that police claimed was the basis of conviction in

0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:13.280
<v Speaker 2>both Trial on and Trial two. You gotta pull that

0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:16.800
<v Speaker 2>anchor up, because remember, there's nothing else in this case,

0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:18.440
<v Speaker 2>there's no other evidence.

0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:20.920
<v Speaker 1>It was the one unanswerable fact, and.

0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:27.040
<v Speaker 2>Now it's answerable. The confessions no longer convict Tommy and Carl.

0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:30.320
<v Speaker 3>The detectives said they did not know the description of

0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:35.400
<v Speaker 3>their shirt until after Tommy's and Carl's confession. Well, we

0:16:35.560 --> 0:16:39.040
<v Speaker 3>kind of have personal that that's not true. These detectives

0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:41.960
<v Speaker 3>got both of them to mension Odell Tipsworth's name in there.

0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:45.520
<v Speaker 3>They added the description of the shirt in there. It

0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:48.400
<v Speaker 3>was just as much these detectives confession as it was

0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:50.600
<v Speaker 3>Tommy and Carl's. I guess that's the best way of

0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:51.120
<v Speaker 3>saying that.

0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:54.680
<v Speaker 1>So much for the prosecution's ace in the hole. Police

0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:57.880
<v Speaker 1>had known all along what Denise was wearing when she disappeared.

0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:00.800
<v Speaker 1>Tommy and Carl were in a I.

0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:03.920
<v Speaker 3>Don't know, I don't understand law or anything, but here

0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:08.760
<v Speaker 3>you have a blatant miscarriage to justice because it's their

0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:11.639
<v Speaker 3>job to hand over all the evidence to, you know,

0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:15.880
<v Speaker 3>the defense, but the prosecuting attorney did not do that.

0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:17.280
<v Speaker 3>That's a violation of their riots.

0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:19.959
<v Speaker 4>When you put this all together, there is just no

0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:25.640
<v Speaker 4>question that Tommy Ward and Carl Fontineau are absolutely innocent

0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:28.320
<v Speaker 4>of this crime and have been the victims of one

0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:31.800
<v Speaker 4>of the most egregious miscarriages of justice in the history

0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:33.000
<v Speaker 4>of the United States.

0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:39.720
<v Speaker 2>The confessions of Tommy Ward and Carl Fontineau are worthless.

0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:43.800
<v Speaker 2>There is nothing holding this case together at all.

0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:47.520
<v Speaker 1>Based on these new discoveries, both Tommy and Carl filed

0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:51.199
<v Speaker 1>petitions for relief Tommy and state court and Carl in

0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:55.199
<v Speaker 1>federal court. Carl's judge was the first to act. In

0:17:55.200 --> 0:17:59.720
<v Speaker 1>twenty nineteen, he threw out Carl Fontineau's conviction. After thirty

0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:05.439
<v Speaker 1>four years behind bars, Carl was released unbond. He's finally free.

0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:10.600
<v Speaker 4>I'm absolutely delighted that Carl Fontineau has been released. Of course,

0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:14.040
<v Speaker 4>the damage that's been done to him can never be undone.

0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:17.159
<v Speaker 4>Nobody can ever make this right for Carl. But at

0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:19.480
<v Speaker 4>least he is no longer in prison.

0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:22.760
<v Speaker 2>And when he was released, he was welcomed with open

0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:28.080
<v Speaker 2>arms by a new community, a new family, the community

0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:33.919
<v Speaker 2>of Exoneries from the state of Oklahoma. But justice in

0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:37.840
<v Speaker 2>this case won't be complete until Tommy Ward is free.

0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:41.520
<v Speaker 3>We're very happy for Carl, and Tommy's very happy for Carl.

0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:45.000
<v Speaker 3>Of course, it shows hope for Tommy because a lot

0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:47.760
<v Speaker 3>of the things that the federal judge had come out

0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:50.399
<v Speaker 3>with it also falls under Tommy's case.

0:18:51.200 --> 0:18:54.760
<v Speaker 1>As of this recording, Tommy's still waiting behind bars for

0:18:54.880 --> 0:18:57.560
<v Speaker 1>his judge to decide whether he can walk free too.

0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:02.680
<v Speaker 1>Tommy's been waiting for that decision thirty five years, and God,

0:19:03.000 --> 0:19:16.680
<v Speaker 1>we hope it's the right one.

0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:19.920
<v Speaker 3>I would guess Tommy would be dreaming about freedom now.

0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:23.760
<v Speaker 1>In this case that's started with a nightmare. There are

0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:28.800
<v Speaker 1>new things to hope for now, doors opening, chains being removed,

0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:33.639
<v Speaker 1>family embracing you and taking you home. These are the

0:19:33.680 --> 0:19:37.600
<v Speaker 1>things that all wrongfully convicted people hope for until finally,

0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:40.600
<v Speaker 1>one day those dreams come true.

0:19:41.320 --> 0:19:43.280
<v Speaker 3>I have more hope for Tommy now than I've had

0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:46.840
<v Speaker 3>in a long time. After thirty five years of knowing

0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:49.320
<v Speaker 3>that your little brothers in prison for something he didn't do.

0:19:49.560 --> 0:19:51.960
<v Speaker 3>You want him out. We want him out bad, and

0:19:52.119 --> 0:19:54.960
<v Speaker 3>he deserves to be out. If there's any justice in

0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:57.919
<v Speaker 3>this world, he'll be out one of these days.

0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:03.760
<v Speaker 1>Fifteen years after author John Grisham started researching this case,

0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:07.240
<v Speaker 1>he still speaks with Tommy Ward all the time and

0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:09.800
<v Speaker 1>remains a strong advocate for Tommy's freedom.

0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:12.840
<v Speaker 5>Tommy prays for me, will not pray for him. I

0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:15.240
<v Speaker 5>will say, Tommy, relax, I'm okay, worry about you, sip.

0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:17.280
<v Speaker 5>That's not the kind of guy is. He has a

0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:19.439
<v Speaker 5>long prayer list and he keeps a lot of people

0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:22.640
<v Speaker 5>on that list. And Tommy would probably go to work

0:20:22.680 --> 0:20:25.840
<v Speaker 5>helping people when he got out when he gets out.

0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:28.760
<v Speaker 5>This is an innocent man. Get him out of prison,

0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:30.159
<v Speaker 5>that's what should happen.

0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:37.399
<v Speaker 3>Hello, this is a collect call from Tommy, an inmate

0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:39.399
<v Speaker 3>at Dick Connor Correctional Center.

0:20:39.960 --> 0:20:43.960
<v Speaker 1>You may start the conversation now. Hello, Hey Tommy, This

0:20:44.080 --> 0:20:44.760
<v Speaker 1>is Laura.

0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:45.879
<v Speaker 2>And this is Steve Tommy.

0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:49.920
<v Speaker 1>Hi Tommy, how are you doing?

0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:55.080
<v Speaker 6>Okay? The same my prayers that s been coming to

0:20:55.119 --> 0:20:55.439
<v Speaker 6>an end?

0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:57.480
<v Speaker 2>Sim We sure hope.

0:20:57.520 --> 0:21:00.480
<v Speaker 1>So can you tell us how you u your time

0:21:00.520 --> 0:21:01.280
<v Speaker 1>these days?

0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:04.720
<v Speaker 6>Well, I'm been trying to keep busy, you know. I

0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:07.840
<v Speaker 6>do a lot of the hobby crams for you know,

0:21:07.920 --> 0:21:11.760
<v Speaker 6>like Christmas presence or Birthday presence and kind of case.

0:21:11.760 --> 0:21:12.600
<v Speaker 6>They're busy doing that.

0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:16.240
<v Speaker 2>You've had so many ups and downs over the past

0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:21.040
<v Speaker 2>decades that you've been locked up. Do you allow yourself

0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:24.399
<v Speaker 2>to think about what you're going to want to do

0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:25.320
<v Speaker 2>when you get out.

0:21:25.840 --> 0:21:30.520
<v Speaker 6>Yeah. I like woodwork, and I'd like to open up

0:21:30.560 --> 0:21:33.040
<v Speaker 6>my own wood shop. And I always thought of, you

0:21:33.080 --> 0:21:35.639
<v Speaker 6>know a lot of elderly people were I could go

0:21:35.720 --> 0:21:38.440
<v Speaker 6>in and maybe lower their cabinets for them and the

0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:40.960
<v Speaker 6>housers and stuff like that, you know, make it like

0:21:41.000 --> 0:21:44.880
<v Speaker 6>wheelchair accessible where they can stay at home longer instead

0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:46.360
<v Speaker 6>of having to go to a nursing home.

0:21:47.240 --> 0:21:51.280
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that was pretty meaningful work to do. Do you

0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:54.320
<v Speaker 1>get letters from people who have watched your story on

0:21:54.400 --> 0:21:55.679
<v Speaker 1>TV or who read the books?

0:21:56.320 --> 0:21:58.919
<v Speaker 6>Oh? Yeah, it's a lesson to hear from everybody that

0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:03.600
<v Speaker 6>has written to me. Someone is to after the cares.

0:22:05.720 --> 0:22:09.200
<v Speaker 1>A lot of people care, Tommy, and just from talking

0:22:09.240 --> 0:22:11.879
<v Speaker 1>to you now, I can see that you deserve every

0:22:11.920 --> 0:22:25.439
<v Speaker 1>one of those blessings and a whole lot more. Tommy

0:22:25.480 --> 0:22:28.879
<v Speaker 1>Ward is now sixty years old. Will he finally be

0:22:28.960 --> 0:22:31.760
<v Speaker 1>able to reclaim what's left of his life as an

0:22:31.760 --> 0:22:36.200
<v Speaker 1>exonerated man? We hope so, Tommy, We support you all

0:22:36.280 --> 0:22:41.400
<v Speaker 1>the way. Your dream of freedom is our dream. Too.

0:22:44.080 --> 0:22:47.480
<v Speaker 1>Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions is a production of Lava for

0:22:47.520 --> 0:22:52.240
<v Speaker 1>Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one Special

0:22:52.240 --> 0:22:55.880
<v Speaker 1>thanks to our executive producers Jason Flamm and Kevin Wardis.

0:22:56.480 --> 0:22:59.480
<v Speaker 1>Our production team is headed by senior producer and Pope

0:22:59.680 --> 0:23:02.800
<v Speaker 1>a Lot with producers Joshi Hammer and Jess Shane. Our

0:23:02.840 --> 0:23:06.080
<v Speaker 1>show is mixed by Genie Montalvo. John Colbert is our

0:23:06.119 --> 0:23:10.159
<v Speaker 1>intrepid intern. Our music was composed by Jay Ralph. You

0:23:10.200 --> 0:23:13.320
<v Speaker 1>can follow me on Instagram or Twitter at Laura and

0:23:13.400 --> 0:23:15.040
<v Speaker 1>I Wrider, and you can follow me.

0:23:15.080 --> 0:23:17.160
<v Speaker 2>On Twitter at Sdrizzen.

0:23:17.480 --> 0:23:20.840
<v Speaker 1>For more information on the show, visit Wrongful Conviction podcast

0:23:20.960 --> 0:23:24.160
<v Speaker 1>dot com. Be sure to follow the show on Instagram

0:23:24.200 --> 0:23:28.919
<v Speaker 1>at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and

0:23:29.200 --> 0:23:31.160
<v Speaker 1>on Twitter at wrong Conviction