WEBVTT - #496 Maggie Freleng with William Beeman 0:00:01.000 --> 0:00:03.840 Hello, You have a call at no expense to you 0:00:03.960 --> 0:00:09.080 from an inmate at Anamosa Dave. 0:00:09.280 --> 0:00:10.200 What did he call himself? 0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:18.360 You may begin speaking now, Hello. 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:20.599 Hello, how you doing? 0:00:21.000 --> 0:00:22.639 I'm good? Is this William? 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:23.880 Yes? 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:25.720 Okay? What do you like to be called? Do you 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:28.760 like to be called will or William? 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:32.040 Most people call me Drifty Drifty. 0:00:33.040 --> 0:00:36.120 Bill got the nickname drifty because his mind tends to 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:37.840 wander and he's. 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:40.080 Aloof Bill was kind of a loner. 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:42.040 This is his mom, Donna. 0:00:42.560 --> 0:00:46.760 He's off from the corner by himself, reading or watching television. 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:49.000 I just don't like crowds. 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:54.480 Crowds even people I like it, don't like crowd especially 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:55.400 in prison. 0:00:56.120 --> 0:00:59.000 I come in when I was twenty three. I was 0:00:59.120 --> 0:01:03.600 sixty seven. Now do you realize what happened day to 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:12.360 day in a place like this? And I just he 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:14.240 wouldn't believe some of the stuff I've seen. 0:01:15.000 --> 0:01:18.360 So he sticks to himself, and the name drifty stuck 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:21.200 to him. Like this. One time in the prison yard, 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:23.520 two guys started getting into it. 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:27.440 They get dark in then down the old fort. I 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:31.319 used to watch the two red tail hawks sore while 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:34.120 they were arguing, and he says, ah, there he goes 0:01:34.240 --> 0:01:35.360 drifted off again. 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:40.400 Drifty Beaman, but he also says I can call him Bill. 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:46.320 I'm William Beaman. I've been incarcerated for forty four years 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:51.040 or something that I didn't do, and I hope some 0:01:51.120 --> 0:01:55.360 good comes of this, not only for me, but for others. 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:58.279 From LoVa for good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie 0:01:58.320 --> 0:02:08.400 Freeling today. William Beeman. William Beeman was born April twenty second, 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:12.760 nineteen fifty seven, in Muscatine, Iowa. What was life like 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:14.079 growing up in Iowa? 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:14.680 Hey? 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:24.520 It was great. Mustin eat that that rule. I mean, 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:27.519 it ain't no big city, but we had a lot 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:34.560 of industry and stuff around. Heine's fargest metalw factory was 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:39.320 in Muscatine Banded eggs Hedge Corners. We had three factors 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:39.959 to them. 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:45.080 And many many other factories. Once known as the pearl 0:02:45.120 --> 0:02:48.360 button capital of the world in the early nineteen hundreds, 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:52.760 before most buttons were made of plastic, Muscatines button factories 0:02:52.800 --> 0:02:56.520 employed half of the city's workforce. The city was the 0:02:56.560 --> 0:03:01.800 world's largest producer of pearl buttons. Muscatine was a blue 0:03:01.800 --> 0:03:04.920 collar town, and so was Bill's family. Here's Bill's mom 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:05.840 Donna again. 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:11.200 I was a checkout at highge and I also managed 0:03:11.280 --> 0:03:13.079 the music department at war Worse. 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:18.160 She was also a mom to two other. 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:20.400 Kids, two girls and a boy. 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:22.359 Bill is in the middle. 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:28.320 Harry's four years older than I am. She's mom's first marriage. 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:35.200 And my little sisters you're younger. And we were together 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:36.960 all the time, and Teresa. 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:40.960 Teresa and Belle were like two pieces of pod where 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:42.400 you've seen one, you've seen the other. 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:46.440 Bill and his little sister, Teresa did everything together. 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:50.360 Every now and then at dolls was or so she'd 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:55.880 play army with me. I thought both of them how 0:03:55.880 --> 0:04:00.600 to fight is one against two, But I got a 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:03.320 little nose star fighting back. They had to learn how 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:08.480 to fight, so it kind of hard. Hits some sentence too. 0:04:09.240 --> 0:04:11.680 The girls kicked on him that I think it was 0:04:11.720 --> 0:04:12.680 because he was a boy. 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:14.360 What would they do? 0:04:15.480 --> 0:04:18.400 Oh just tale tale stuff. 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:22.320 Uh, Bill's doing this, Bill's doing that? 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:26.120 Which wasn't He wasn't doing anything really, so. 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:29.240 I was two against fun. One time I got accused 0:04:29.279 --> 0:04:33.720 of shooting out a woman's neighbor woman's window with my beaf. Again, 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:37.520 as the only guy on the blocks that had to 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:41.400 beat against him, I had to pay for the window. 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:45.240 I had to help fix mode and filled the snowing 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:50.240 lawn for a year. Yeah, I've been down here four 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:53.120 or five years and found out Terry's the woman done it, 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:55.760 because that woman made her mad. 0:04:56.720 --> 0:04:59.200 Donna now remembers those times fondly. 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:01.840 He was a happy, go lucky kid. 0:05:02.160 --> 0:05:05.240 He had a no adney on a mini bike, and 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:08.480 he made ramp some things out here in the backyard 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:11.440 and jumped them and rode over him. 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:15.560 She remembers hunting and family camping trips and making him 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:16.559 his favorite food. 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:21.600 He likes whoppers, and then he likes pizza. When he 0:05:21.680 --> 0:05:24.840 was a kid, I fixed stuff on the grill at 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:27.960 that time, and there was hamburgers and hotbugs. 0:05:28.839 --> 0:05:32.360 You know, he just lived on stuff like that. 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:35.480 Donna remembers being close with her only son. 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:39.400 It just seemed like every time he had a little problem, 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:45.880 he would come to me and his dad usually sup 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:48.440 a lot in the daytime because he worked at night. 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:53.680 And I just I don't know what to say. Bill 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:55.000 and I were just close. 0:05:55.880 --> 0:05:59.039 Donna says. The girls were troublemakers, but not Bill. 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:05.640 Bill smoked, He never drank, he never took street drugs. 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:08.520 He just well I don't know. 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:10.039 He stayed home most of the time. 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:14.440 At night, they would watch TV or cook, or Bill 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:16.600 would go off and do his favorite thing. 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:19.640 That was what he was more interested than was his 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:22.880 mini bike and modad and his motorcycle. 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:26.560 As Bill got older, he struggled in school. Donna says 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:28.880 he would have to stay home often because he'd get 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:32.680 so worked up about going to school he'd make himself sick. 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:38.359 He actually ran a fever and throw up. Really yeah, 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:40.120 and Bill was very smart. 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:44.520 Despite being smart, school just wasn't for Bill, so Donna 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:48.360 took him out instead. Bill got his ged and joined 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:50.480 a job core program in South Dakota. 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:55.040 I went to South Dakota. I got thirtified as a 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:59.240 welder Union carpentry building supply. 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:03.960 After getting certified, Bill bounced around working different gigs, trying 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:06.480 to figure out what he wanted to do in life. 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:10.840 Or did gas station as maintenance man at a nursery 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:15.680 or nursing home. I was a maintenance man in a 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:19.880 dress shop or gas stations, working a couple of different 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:27.400 button factories, one feet mill bandagg rubber, retire pre. 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:31.800 Treading, lots of working and writing. What did you write? 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:34.440 What I was doing? The street racing and stuff on 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:40.680 the street with the dirt bike was three fifty six 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:46.080 fifty straight bike and a GS thousand Dzuki street. 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:51.840 In his early twenties, Bill was good looking, tall, slim, 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:55.560 with floey brown hair. He's been described as a charmer, 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:59.320 and that's evident by the amount of girlfriends Bill says 0:07:59.360 --> 0:07:59.760 he had. 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:06.120 That's kind of a butthole because how was Cardra to 0:08:06.200 --> 0:08:06.800 settle down. 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:11.320 After a while searching for the right job, Bill finally 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:14.120 found one he liked as a part time DJ at 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:20.720 a local night spot called Baker's Front Street Disco. What 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:22.080 kind of music were you playing? 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:23.240 Disco? 0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:27.640 Disco? So you know, what would that have been like 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:31.120 in nineteen seventy eight, What were the heads? 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:36.199 What all depends on the real disco was always you 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:42.040 had to beg Michael Jackson had more than people thought. 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:47.600 Then you had poin Iner sisters and oh it's been 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:48.280 a long time. 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:55.559 You might be wondering what a guy who hates crowds 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:56.920 was doing as a DJ. 0:08:57.640 --> 0:08:57.920 Well. 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:00.000 Bill says that the DJ booth was on the side 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:03.360 and floor. There was only room for him and a 0:09:03.360 --> 0:09:04.439 few chairs. 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:06.520 So there wasn't a bunch of people coming up there 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:09.679 and stand in row right, so I wasn't in any 0:09:09.760 --> 0:09:10.720 crowds and stuff. 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:13.960 And Bill loved it. He was part of the fun, 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:16.560 but far away enough to feel safe. 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:18.960 I could look out over the dance floor and everything, 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:22.600 see everybody having a good time, and I knew they 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:26.880 were doing it because of me. And that's what being 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:28.000 a DJ mean to me. 0:09:28.679 --> 0:09:30.520 Bill had the life. 0:09:30.679 --> 0:09:35.080 As DJ and night I built remodeled houses during the day. 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:36.040 I really liked that. 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:51.520 One night in April nineteen eighty, twenty three year old 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:53.600 Bill Beeman was in his DJ booths. 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:57.120 People would use all kinds of different reasons to come 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:00.280 talk to me up in the booth, and I think 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:01.720 gets first place I heard. 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:04.920 About it about the body of a young woman found 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:10.720 in the campground of wildcat Den State Park. She was 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:16.559 naked and had been beaten and stabbed seventeen times. Whispers 0:10:16.600 --> 0:10:19.040 of the crime were making their way around town. 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:21.880 Yeah, everybody was talking about it. Mom and dad was 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:22.559 talking about it. 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:25.280 The body turned out to be twenty two year old 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:29.000 Michelle Winkle. Police said she had last been seen on Monday, 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:33.240 April twenty first, nineteen eighty at the Canterbury Inn and Spa, 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:36.360 A hotel she would go and swim at after work. 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:41.400 Michelle Winkle allegedly spent a lot of time alone. 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:45.120 She didn't seem to have a lot of close friends 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:46.000 are relatives. 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:49.200 Erica Nichols Cook is the director of the Wrongful Conviction 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:53.040 Unit at the Iowa Public Defender's Office. She says Michelle 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:55.360 also spent a lot of time at the mall. 0:10:56.040 --> 0:11:00.240 She was also known as the crier by a group 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:03.240 of girls who worked at the mall. That's so mean 0:11:03.760 --> 0:11:05.320 because she'd walk around them all crying. 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:10.120 Erica says Michelle had a troubled life. 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:16.640 She had experienced a lot of mental instability. She had 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:20.760 been treated for psychiatric issues in seventy eight seventy nine 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:22.040 at the University of Iowa. 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:25.040 She had recently moved back home with her parents, who 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:29.120 were devout Catholics, and Erica says Michelle's father could be. 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:34.480 Abusive, comments about her being overweight. There was comments that 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:38.079 she wouldn't wear red because her dad said only sluts 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:43.760 were read, that he called her piggy, those types of things. 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:45.800 So kind of a sad life. 0:11:45.800 --> 0:11:50.640 That sounds like, yes, I think, much more so than 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:55.319 the state portrayed at the trial. She'd had some struggles. 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:57.360 We also learned that she liked a hitchhike. 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:00.800 Michelle had recently been in a car accident and her 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:04.120 dad wouldn't let her drive the family car anymore. Despite 0:12:04.160 --> 0:12:08.200 living on a state highway, she had to walk everywhere. 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:12.280 So she would walk along this state highway and catch 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:16.000 a ride into town or catch a ride back out. 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:19.560 She was last seen that Monday around ten forty five pm, 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:22.760 leaving the spa and getting into a brown car with 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:26.640 a white man. Five days later, her body was found. 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:32.440 One of the sticking points in this investigation was that 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:36.560 they didn't have any immediate leads of who Michelle was 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:39.199 with or who she could have been hanging out with 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:40.760 or gotten a ride from. 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:45.040 Police evaluated her body for sexual assaults and collected semen 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:49.520 and blood samples, but in nineteen eighty forensic testing was 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:53.679 in its infancy. The most law enforcement could determine from 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:57.640 a sample was blood type, and their tests found specimens 0:12:57.800 --> 0:12:59.640 from an unknown male and. 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:04.640 Someone told investigators that she used to go to Baker's 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:08.920 Front Street disco and that they had seen her there. 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:11.680 Police thought maybe she got a ride to the disco 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:12.600 after swimming. 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:16.440 That was the only reason they even interviewed me. They 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:18.200 thought maybe her with somebody. 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:21.480 More than a week after the body was found, police 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:24.320 brought him Bill for questioning. Bill says he was laid 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:27.440 up and on painkillers because he'd broken his foot on 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:32.080 his birthday about two weeks earlier. He also had a migraine. 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:34.480 I've had migraine headaches since I was a little kid, 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:40.240 and my dumbass didn't know I couldn't mix the pain 0:13:41.240 --> 0:13:45.120 painkiller from migraines with the painkiller for more broken foot. 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:47.200 And on top of that, he was now in a 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:50.080 police station being asked about Michelle. 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:53.679 Yeah, I didn't know her at all, but police. 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:54.120 Let him go home. 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:56.559 His girlfriend is then questioned. 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:58.559 His girlfriend, Joyce, and she. 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:02.240 Says, well, he was with me that week of his birthday, 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:04.400 and you know, after he broke his foot, but. 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:07.559 Her memory was blurry, and she says. 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:10.240 I don't know for sure about Monday night if he 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:13.160 stayed at my house or went to his apartment. 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:16.120 Bill had accompanied Joyce to the police station that day 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:18.760 on May eighth, and police brought him back in to 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:22.120 question him again about what had happened Monday night. 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:27.520 And during that interrogation they tell Bill that we know 0:14:28.040 --> 0:14:34.520 that you know something. We think you picked her up 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:38.120 and killed her Monday night. 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:41.240 They must have realized I was on drog or whatever 0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:44.040 and decided to had done. 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:46.520 They also knew Bill had a reputation. 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:51.880 I've never been addicted to anything other than motorcycles. 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:57.600 And maybe girls. Bill had a reputation with girls. 0:14:57.280 --> 0:15:00.920 And a club. I had three motorcycles. I had a 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:03.400 fifty seven two to a hard top. I had a 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:08.760 blue van and the sixty eight BIS came and a 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:17.160 fan cloth and they made a joke about it. Day 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:22.040 after I got arrested, nine girls come down Stanley. We 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:27.000 were engaged and needed to talk to me. See, I 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:28.320 told you I was about all the time. 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:31.760 He might have been a butthole, but Bill says he 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:35.320 wasn't a killer, and he had an alibi for Monday night. 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:40.080 I stopped the Clark gas station. It was not far 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:42.920 from where I lived, talked to a girl about my 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:46.680 birthday party. The next day I got home. 0:15:47.320 --> 0:15:52.200 Joyce was there, but detectives weren't buying it. They were 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:55.160 pointing the finger at Bill in the interrogation room, and 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:58.120 Bill says his mind was cloudy from the meds and 0:15:58.720 --> 0:15:59.320 from fear. 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:02.920 They both had their guns out, wiping them off of handkerchiefs, 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:10.960 and I was thinking, this don't look good, and I 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:16.480 was starting to feel kind of happy, I guess, and 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:19.720 they kept saying, well, what if we had somebody that 0:16:19.840 --> 0:16:23.480 seen it. I said, they're lying because I didn't do it. 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:27.840 I was confused because I knew I didn't do it, 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:30.600 So how can they have this evidence? How can they 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:31.520 have these witnesses. 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:36.160 The interrogation wasn't recorded, and Bill didn't have a lawyer present, 0:16:36.760 --> 0:16:39.680 and the next thing he knows, he's in a holding cell. 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:43.480 I just thought they gout me for like a drunken 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:50.280 disorderly or something like that, and cop star laughing, SNA boys. 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:51.720 So they got you in here for murder. 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:54.400 Police called Donna to the station. 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:56.720 He didn't even know where he was at or what 0:16:56.760 --> 0:17:00.280 he was doing in there. When I walked in, I 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:04.280 said Bill, I said what is going on? And he said, Mom, 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:08.159 I don't know. He said, they took my picture and 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:10.440 took my wallet and my shoe strings. 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:15.640 According to police, Bill signed a confession. Do you remember 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:18.080 signing anything like? Do you remember having anything in front 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:18.280 of you? 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:23.800 I don't remember riding nothing, not I remember going in 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:27.680 there and Nick harping on this. Bad witnesses, bad evidence. 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:31.200 They were cleaning their guns, they were doing this. I mean, 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:35.399 my mind was on cody. 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:38.439 But there was the statement signed by Bill saying he 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:41.000 picked up Michelle that night, took her to the park 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:43.520 where they made out, and after she refused to have 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:45.919 sex with him, he kicked her in the head with 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:50.160 a steel toe boot. By the time the sexual assault 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:53.360 kit came back, it didn't matter that the samples didn't 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:58.840 match Bill. Law enforcement had what they needed, a confession. 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:02.760 Bill arrested that day on May eighth, for the murder 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:07.240 of Michelle Winkle. Donna was frantic trying to help Bill 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:10.919 and pay a two hundred and fifty thousand dollars bond. 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:13.800 They said that we could have got him out of 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:19.120 bond by putting my house up for you know, collateral. 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:20.560 And Dick wouldn't do it. 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:22.800 Bill's dad, He said no. 0:18:24.359 --> 0:18:29.320 And I tried to sell my coin collection and different things, 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:31.800 but it wasn't enough money. 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:35.200 Wow, how much money did you get for the coins? 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:38.960 Well, I only got five hundred dollars and I should 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:40.280 have got about two thousand. 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:42.679 That I had to pay. 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:47.919 The lawyers had to pay somebody. They got court appointed, 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:51.240 but there was somebody they had to pay, so I 0:18:51.320 --> 0:18:55.360 had to sell it and give them the money. And 0:18:56.240 --> 0:19:00.600 I was on disability and I didn't get much money 0:19:00.640 --> 0:19:02.760 at that time. I think I was only getting ninety 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:07.199 two dollars a month, and I tried to save my 0:19:07.320 --> 0:19:10.720 money and I hired a private detective, but that didn't 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:13.399 go any place, and I couldn't keep him because I 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:14.360 couldn't afford it. 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:18.800 Bill was actually offered a plea before. 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:22.760 Trial, second great plea barg well second degree then was 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:28.680 only twenty five years and me, mom, dad and lawyer's 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:32.720 got talked about it and I didn't do it. So 0:19:33.080 --> 0:19:35.800 I believed in system and boy. 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:45.840 Bill went to trial in October, just short of five 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:47.639 months after his arrest. 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:51.960 The state's theory was that Bill picks her up close 0:19:52.040 --> 0:19:54.280 to the SPA, but not from the SPA, at a 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:58.200 gas station and offers to give her a write home, 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:01.359 and they just said to drive around, and they end 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:04.960 up at the park, they start making out and then 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:08.479 you know the failed sexual encounter, but that he killed her. 0:20:08.520 --> 0:20:09.800 On Monday the twenty. 0:20:09.480 --> 0:20:13.600 First, a pathologist testified that Michelle's body was infested with 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:17.400 maggots placing the time of death around three to fourteen 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:21.520 days before her body was found on Saturday, but she 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:26.360 was last seen five days prior, on Monday the twenty first. Remember, 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:29.560 Bill had broken his foot on Tuesday the twenty second, 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:33.280 and the lead investigator conceded that Bill had an alibi 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:37.720 for all the days between Tuesday and Saturday when Michelle's 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:41.080 body was found. So law enforcement determined that if Bill 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:44.879 killed her, it had to have been on Monday, but 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:47.560 the evidence to back that up had holes. 0:20:47.840 --> 0:20:50.200 The only thing they had against me was the statement, 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:54.760 no way doubt stands see you know. The said, well, 0:20:54.800 --> 0:20:57.479 we know he'd done it because we've seen it, or no, 0:20:57.560 --> 0:20:59.920 we know he'd done it because this evidence backs it up. 0:21:00.359 --> 0:21:03.680 All their evidence counterdicted the statement. 0:21:03.640 --> 0:21:06.800 Michelle was seen getting into a brown car. Bill's defense 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:09.119 said he used a motorcycle to get around because his 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:13.760 car didn't run well. The defense also presented three alibi 0:21:13.800 --> 0:21:17.199 witnesses for the evening of April twenty first, who testified 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:20.560 to seeing Bill between ten thirty and midnight, when the 0:21:20.600 --> 0:21:25.040 crime had supposedly occurred. But most surprising of all was 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:28.520 that a witness testified at trial that she'd seen Michelle 0:21:28.560 --> 0:21:32.199 alive after the twenty first. A high school peer of 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:35.320 Michelle's testified she had seen her at the mall on 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:38.919 April twenty second, the day after she was supposedly killed, 0:21:39.320 --> 0:21:44.040 with a man who was not Bill. At trial, Bill's 0:21:44.080 --> 0:21:47.880 defense also contended he had signed the alleged confession out 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:52.200 of fear and confusion. Still, after deliberating for five and 0:21:52.200 --> 0:21:55.760 a half hours, the jury found Bill guilty of first 0:21:55.760 --> 0:22:02.400 degree murder on October eighth, nineteen eighty. Donna sat through 0:22:02.400 --> 0:22:03.639 the whole trial. 0:22:04.680 --> 0:22:08.680 It was terrible. I I really. 0:22:08.359 --> 0:22:13.640 Can't explain it. I have believed Bill right from the start. 0:22:14.200 --> 0:22:17.960 Bill just couldn't do that g anybody. I done a 0:22:18.040 --> 0:22:18.639 lot of crying. 0:22:19.840 --> 0:22:22.879 God took me through the value of death. You know, 0:22:22.960 --> 0:22:28.359 I stuff my tongue as and I'm still in the 0:22:28.440 --> 0:22:30.720 value of death. Far as that concern. 0:22:34.560 --> 0:22:37.560 Used to being alone, safe up in his DJ booth, 0:22:37.800 --> 0:22:42.040 far away from everyone, Bill was surrounded in prison. 0:22:42.440 --> 0:22:49.120 When I got Donald Fort Madison, it was like they 0:22:49.119 --> 0:22:51.040 were throwing a goki in the shark tan. 0:22:51.760 --> 0:22:53.640 Bill says he had to fight to survive. 0:22:54.200 --> 0:22:56.200 I turned out to be a wolf, and he. 0:22:56.200 --> 0:22:59.760 Was angry, resentful about what happened to him. And his family, 0:23:00.280 --> 0:23:02.840 and he took it out on anyone who crossed him. 0:23:03.280 --> 0:23:07.879 I had that rage. Somebody could say something stupid, go 0:23:07.960 --> 0:23:08.560 off on him. 0:23:09.240 --> 0:23:12.720 After decades, the rage turned into loneliness, and people on 0:23:12.760 --> 0:23:14.359 the outside fell. 0:23:14.160 --> 0:23:18.120 Off, girlfriend's friends, family, everybody did. 0:23:18.560 --> 0:23:19.760 Even Teresa. 0:23:19.960 --> 0:23:22.880 After a while, she just kind of fell off. 0:23:22.720 --> 0:23:26.479 Too, everyone except Donna. 0:23:26.760 --> 0:23:30.920 People don't have that much to do with somebody in prison, 0:23:32.119 --> 0:23:34.560 you know, they kind of forget him. 0:23:35.000 --> 0:23:38.360 But Donna never forgot about her only son. 0:23:39.040 --> 0:23:42.320 I feel terrible. I told Bill just this morning, I 0:23:42.359 --> 0:23:45.600 wish I could do more. I wish there was something 0:23:45.640 --> 0:23:48.600 I could do, and he said, Mom, you'd done it 0:23:48.640 --> 0:23:50.080 when you were younger. 0:23:50.840 --> 0:23:52.600 I've gave him money as. 0:23:52.760 --> 0:23:56.920 When I could, and done everything I could for him. 0:23:57.359 --> 0:24:00.359 For more than four decades, They've stayed in con instant 0:24:00.359 --> 0:24:04.119 contact through phone and visitation. What is that like? Going 0:24:04.119 --> 0:24:06.200 to visit your son in prison. 0:24:09.320 --> 0:24:12.280