Speaker 1: Hello, You have a call at no expense to you
Speaker 1: from an inmate at Anamosa Dave.
Speaker 2: What did he call himself?
Speaker 1: You may begin speaking now, Hello.
Speaker 3: Hello, how you doing?
Speaker 2: I'm good? Is this William?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: Okay? What do you like to be called? Do you
Speaker 2: like to be called will or William?
Speaker 4: Most people call me Drifty Drifty.
Speaker 2: Bill got the nickname drifty because his mind tends to
Speaker 2: wander and he's.
Speaker 3: Aloof Bill was kind of a loner.
Speaker 2: This is his mom, Donna.
Speaker 1: He's off from the corner by himself, reading or watching television.
Speaker 4: I just don't like crowds.
Speaker 2: Crowds even people I like it, don't like crowd especially
Speaker 2: in prison.
Speaker 4: I come in when I was twenty three. I was
Speaker 4: sixty seven. Now do you realize what happened day to
Speaker 4: day in a place like this? And I just he
Speaker 4: wouldn't believe some of the stuff I've seen.
Speaker 2: So he sticks to himself, and the name drifty stuck
Speaker 2: to him. Like this. One time in the prison yard,
Speaker 2: two guys started getting into it.
Speaker 4: They get dark in then down the old fort. I
Speaker 4: used to watch the two red tail hawks sore while
Speaker 4: they were arguing, and he says, ah, there he goes
Speaker 4: drifted off again.
Speaker 2: Drifty Beaman, but he also says I can call him Bill.
Speaker 4: I'm William Beaman. I've been incarcerated for forty four years
Speaker 4: or something that I didn't do, and I hope some
Speaker 4: good comes of this, not only for me, but for others.
Speaker 2: From LoVa for good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie
Speaker 2: Freeling today. William Beeman. William Beeman was born April twenty second,
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty seven, in Muscatine, Iowa. What was life like
Speaker 2: growing up in Iowa?
Speaker 1: Hey?
Speaker 4: It was great. Mustin eat that that rule. I mean,
Speaker 4: it ain't no big city, but we had a lot
Speaker 4: of industry and stuff around. Heine's fargest metalw factory was
Speaker 4: in Muscatine Banded eggs Hedge Corners. We had three factors
Speaker 4: to them.
Speaker 2: And many many other factories. Once known as the pearl
Speaker 2: button capital of the world in the early nineteen hundreds,
Speaker 2: before most buttons were made of plastic, Muscatines button factories
Speaker 2: employed half of the city's workforce. The city was the
Speaker 2: world's largest producer of pearl buttons. Muscatine was a blue
Speaker 2: collar town, and so was Bill's family. Here's Bill's mom
Speaker 2: Donna again.
Speaker 1: I was a checkout at highge and I also managed
Speaker 1: the music department at war Worse.
Speaker 2: She was also a mom to two other.
Speaker 3: Kids, two girls and a boy.
Speaker 2: Bill is in the middle.
Speaker 4: Harry's four years older than I am. She's mom's first marriage.
Speaker 4: And my little sisters you're younger. And we were together
Speaker 4: all the time, and Teresa.
Speaker 1: Teresa and Belle were like two pieces of pod where
Speaker 1: you've seen one, you've seen the other.
Speaker 2: Bill and his little sister, Teresa did everything together.
Speaker 4: Every now and then at dolls was or so she'd
Speaker 4: play army with me. I thought both of them how
Speaker 4: to fight is one against two, But I got a
Speaker 4: little nose star fighting back. They had to learn how
Speaker 4: to fight, so it kind of hard. Hits some sentence too.
Speaker 1: The girls kicked on him that I think it was
Speaker 1: because he was a boy.
Speaker 5: What would they do?
Speaker 3: Oh just tale tale stuff.
Speaker 1: Uh, Bill's doing this, Bill's doing that?
Speaker 3: Which wasn't He wasn't doing anything really, so.
Speaker 4: I was two against fun. One time I got accused
Speaker 4: of shooting out a woman's neighbor woman's window with my beaf. Again,
Speaker 4: as the only guy on the blocks that had to
Speaker 4: beat against him, I had to pay for the window.
Speaker 4: I had to help fix mode and filled the snowing
Speaker 4: lawn for a year. Yeah, I've been down here four
Speaker 4: or five years and found out Terry's the woman done it,
Speaker 4: because that woman made her mad.
Speaker 2: Donna now remembers those times fondly.
Speaker 3: He was a happy, go lucky kid.
Speaker 1: He had a no adney on a mini bike, and
Speaker 1: he made ramp some things out here in the backyard
Speaker 1: and jumped them and rode over him.
Speaker 2: She remembers hunting and family camping trips and making him
Speaker 2: his favorite food.
Speaker 1: He likes whoppers, and then he likes pizza. When he
Speaker 1: was a kid, I fixed stuff on the grill at
Speaker 1: that time, and there was hamburgers and hotbugs.
Speaker 3: You know, he just lived on stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Donna remembers being close with her only son.
Speaker 1: It just seemed like every time he had a little problem,
Speaker 1: he would come to me and his dad usually sup
Speaker 1: a lot in the daytime because he worked at night.
Speaker 3: And I just I don't know what to say. Bill
Speaker 3: and I were just close.
Speaker 2: Donna says. The girls were troublemakers, but not Bill.
Speaker 3: Bill smoked, He never drank, he never took street drugs.
Speaker 1: He just well I don't know.
Speaker 3: He stayed home most of the time.
Speaker 2: At night, they would watch TV or cook, or Bill
Speaker 2: would go off and do his favorite thing.
Speaker 1: That was what he was more interested than was his
Speaker 1: mini bike and modad and his motorcycle.
Speaker 2: As Bill got older, he struggled in school. Donna says
Speaker 2: he would have to stay home often because he'd get
Speaker 2: so worked up about going to school he'd make himself sick.
Speaker 1: He actually ran a fever and throw up. Really yeah,
Speaker 1: and Bill was very smart.
Speaker 2: Despite being smart, school just wasn't for Bill, so Donna
Speaker 2: took him out instead. Bill got his ged and joined
Speaker 2: a job core program in South Dakota.
Speaker 4: I went to South Dakota. I got thirtified as a
Speaker 4: welder Union carpentry building supply.
Speaker 2: After getting certified, Bill bounced around working different gigs, trying
Speaker 2: to figure out what he wanted to do in life.
Speaker 4: Or did gas station as maintenance man at a nursery
Speaker 4: or nursing home. I was a maintenance man in a
Speaker 4: dress shop or gas stations, working a couple of different
Speaker 4: button factories, one feet mill bandagg rubber, retire pre.
Speaker 2: Treading, lots of working and writing. What did you write?
Speaker 4: What I was doing? The street racing and stuff on
Speaker 4: the street with the dirt bike was three fifty six
Speaker 4: fifty straight bike and a GS thousand Dzuki street.
Speaker 2: In his early twenties, Bill was good looking, tall, slim,
Speaker 2: with floey brown hair. He's been described as a charmer,
Speaker 2: and that's evident by the amount of girlfriends Bill says
Speaker 2: he had.
Speaker 4: That's kind of a butthole because how was Cardra to
Speaker 4: settle down.
Speaker 2: After a while searching for the right job, Bill finally
Speaker 2: found one he liked as a part time DJ at
Speaker 2: a local night spot called Baker's Front Street Disco. What
Speaker 2: kind of music were you playing?
Speaker 4: Disco?
Speaker 2: Disco? So you know, what would that have been like
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy eight, What were the heads?
Speaker 4: What all depends on the real disco was always you
Speaker 4: had to beg Michael Jackson had more than people thought.
Speaker 4: Then you had poin Iner sisters and oh it's been
Speaker 4: a long time.
Speaker 2: You might be wondering what a guy who hates crowds
Speaker 2: was doing as a DJ.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: Bill says that the DJ booth was on the side
Speaker 2: and floor. There was only room for him and a
Speaker 2: few chairs.
Speaker 4: So there wasn't a bunch of people coming up there
Speaker 4: and stand in row right, so I wasn't in any
Speaker 4: crowds and stuff.
Speaker 2: And Bill loved it. He was part of the fun,
Speaker 2: but far away enough to feel safe.
Speaker 4: I could look out over the dance floor and everything,
Speaker 4: see everybody having a good time, and I knew they
Speaker 4: were doing it because of me. And that's what being
Speaker 4: a DJ mean to me.
Speaker 2: Bill had the life.
Speaker 4: As DJ and night I built remodeled houses during the day.
Speaker 4: I really liked that.
Speaker 2: One night in April nineteen eighty, twenty three year old
Speaker 2: Bill Beeman was in his DJ booths.
Speaker 4: People would use all kinds of different reasons to come
Speaker 4: talk to me up in the booth, and I think
Speaker 4: gets first place I heard.
Speaker 2: About it about the body of a young woman found
Speaker 2: in the campground of wildcat Den State Park. She was
Speaker 2: naked and had been beaten and stabbed seventeen times. Whispers
Speaker 2: of the crime were making their way around town.
Speaker 4: Yeah, everybody was talking about it. Mom and dad was
Speaker 4: talking about it.
Speaker 2: The body turned out to be twenty two year old
Speaker 2: Michelle Winkle. Police said she had last been seen on Monday,
Speaker 2: April twenty first, nineteen eighty at the Canterbury Inn and Spa,
Speaker 2: A hotel she would go and swim at after work.
Speaker 2: Michelle Winkle allegedly spent a lot of time alone.
Speaker 5: She didn't seem to have a lot of close friends
Speaker 5: are relatives.
Speaker 2: Erica Nichols Cook is the director of the Wrongful Conviction
Speaker 2: Unit at the Iowa Public Defender's Office. She says Michelle
Speaker 2: also spent a lot of time at the mall.
Speaker 5: She was also known as the crier by a group
Speaker 5: of girls who worked at the mall. That's so mean
Speaker 5: because she'd walk around them all crying.
Speaker 2: Erica says Michelle had a troubled life.
Speaker 5: She had experienced a lot of mental instability. She had
Speaker 5: been treated for psychiatric issues in seventy eight seventy nine
Speaker 5: at the University of Iowa.
Speaker 2: She had recently moved back home with her parents, who
Speaker 2: were devout Catholics, and Erica says Michelle's father could be.
Speaker 5: Abusive, comments about her being overweight. There was comments that
Speaker 5: she wouldn't wear red because her dad said only sluts
Speaker 5: were read, that he called her piggy, those types of things.
Speaker 2: So kind of a sad life.
Speaker 5: That sounds like, yes, I think, much more so than
Speaker 5: the state portrayed at the trial. She'd had some struggles.
Speaker 5: We also learned that she liked a hitchhike.
Speaker 2: Michelle had recently been in a car accident and her
Speaker 2: dad wouldn't let her drive the family car anymore. Despite
Speaker 2: living on a state highway, she had to walk everywhere.
Speaker 5: So she would walk along this state highway and catch
Speaker 5: a ride into town or catch a ride back out.
Speaker 2: She was last seen that Monday around ten forty five pm,
Speaker 2: leaving the spa and getting into a brown car with
Speaker 2: a white man. Five days later, her body was found.
Speaker 5: One of the sticking points in this investigation was that
Speaker 5: they didn't have any immediate leads of who Michelle was
Speaker 5: with or who she could have been hanging out with
Speaker 5: or gotten a ride from.
Speaker 2: Police evaluated her body for sexual assaults and collected semen
Speaker 2: and blood samples, but in nineteen eighty forensic testing was
Speaker 2: in its infancy. The most law enforcement could determine from
Speaker 2: a sample was blood type, and their tests found specimens
Speaker 2: from an unknown male and.
Speaker 5: Someone told investigators that she used to go to Baker's
Speaker 5: Front Street disco and that they had seen her there.
Speaker 2: Police thought maybe she got a ride to the disco
Speaker 2: after swimming.
Speaker 4: That was the only reason they even interviewed me. They
Speaker 4: thought maybe her with somebody.
Speaker 2: More than a week after the body was found, police
Speaker 2: brought him Bill for questioning. Bill says he was laid
Speaker 2: up and on painkillers because he'd broken his foot on
Speaker 2: his birthday about two weeks earlier. He also had a migraine.
Speaker 4: I've had migraine headaches since I was a little kid,
Speaker 4: and my dumbass didn't know I couldn't mix the pain
Speaker 4: painkiller from migraines with the painkiller for more broken foot.
Speaker 2: And on top of that, he was now in a
Speaker 2: police station being asked about Michelle.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I didn't know her at all, but police.
Speaker 2: Let him go home.
Speaker 5: His girlfriend is then questioned.
Speaker 2: His girlfriend, Joyce, and she.
Speaker 5: Says, well, he was with me that week of his birthday,
Speaker 5: and you know, after he broke his foot, but.
Speaker 2: Her memory was blurry, and she says.
Speaker 5: I don't know for sure about Monday night if he
Speaker 5: stayed at my house or went to his apartment.
Speaker 2: Bill had accompanied Joyce to the police station that day
Speaker 2: on May eighth, and police brought him back in to
Speaker 2: question him again about what had happened Monday night.
Speaker 5: And during that interrogation they tell Bill that we know
Speaker 5: that you know something. We think you picked her up
Speaker 5: and killed her Monday night.
Speaker 4: They must have realized I was on drog or whatever
Speaker 4: and decided to had done.
Speaker 2: They also knew Bill had a reputation.
Speaker 4: I've never been addicted to anything other than motorcycles.
Speaker 2: And maybe girls. Bill had a reputation with girls.
Speaker 4: And a club. I had three motorcycles. I had a
Speaker 4: fifty seven two to a hard top. I had a
Speaker 4: blue van and the sixty eight BIS came and a
Speaker 4: fan cloth and they made a joke about it. Day
Speaker 4: after I got arrested, nine girls come down Stanley. We
Speaker 4: were engaged and needed to talk to me. See, I
Speaker 4: told you I was about all the time.
Speaker 2: He might have been a butthole, but Bill says he
Speaker 2: wasn't a killer, and he had an alibi for Monday night.
Speaker 4: I stopped the Clark gas station. It was not far
Speaker 4: from where I lived, talked to a girl about my
Speaker 4: birthday party. The next day I got home.
Speaker 2: Joyce was there, but detectives weren't buying it. They were
Speaker 2: pointing the finger at Bill in the interrogation room, and
Speaker 2: Bill says his mind was cloudy from the meds and
Speaker 2: from fear.
Speaker 4: They both had their guns out, wiping them off of handkerchiefs,
Speaker 4: and I was thinking, this don't look good, and I
Speaker 4: was starting to feel kind of happy, I guess, and
Speaker 4: they kept saying, well, what if we had somebody that
Speaker 4: seen it. I said, they're lying because I didn't do it.
Speaker 4: I was confused because I knew I didn't do it,
Speaker 4: So how can they have this evidence? How can they
Speaker 4: have these witnesses.
Speaker 2: The interrogation wasn't recorded, and Bill didn't have a lawyer present,
Speaker 2: and the next thing he knows, he's in a holding cell.
Speaker 4: I just thought they gout me for like a drunken
Speaker 4: disorderly or something like that, and cop star laughing, SNA boys.
Speaker 4: So they got you in here for murder.
Speaker 2: Police called Donna to the station.
Speaker 1: He didn't even know where he was at or what
Speaker 1: he was doing in there. When I walked in, I
Speaker 1: said Bill, I said what is going on? And he said, Mom,
Speaker 1: I don't know. He said, they took my picture and
Speaker 1: took my wallet and my shoe strings.
Speaker 2: According to police, Bill signed a confession. Do you remember
Speaker 2: signing anything like? Do you remember having anything in front
Speaker 2: of you?
Speaker 4: I don't remember riding nothing, not I remember going in
Speaker 4: there and Nick harping on this. Bad witnesses, bad evidence.
Speaker 4: They were cleaning their guns, they were doing this. I mean,
Speaker 4: my mind was on cody.
Speaker 2: But there was the statement signed by Bill saying he
Speaker 2: picked up Michelle that night, took her to the park
Speaker 2: where they made out, and after she refused to have
Speaker 2: sex with him, he kicked her in the head with
Speaker 2: a steel toe boot. By the time the sexual assault
Speaker 2: kit came back, it didn't matter that the samples didn't
Speaker 2: match Bill. Law enforcement had what they needed, a confession.
Speaker 2: Bill arrested that day on May eighth, for the murder
Speaker 2: of Michelle Winkle. Donna was frantic trying to help Bill
Speaker 2: and pay a two hundred and fifty thousand dollars bond.
Speaker 1: They said that we could have got him out of
Speaker 1: bond by putting my house up for you know, collateral.
Speaker 3: And Dick wouldn't do it.
Speaker 2: Bill's dad, He said no.
Speaker 1: And I tried to sell my coin collection and different things,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't enough money.
Speaker 2: Wow, how much money did you get for the coins?
Speaker 1: Well, I only got five hundred dollars and I should
Speaker 1: have got about two thousand.
Speaker 3: That I had to pay.
Speaker 1: The lawyers had to pay somebody. They got court appointed,
Speaker 1: but there was somebody they had to pay, so I
Speaker 1: had to sell it and give them the money. And
Speaker 1: I was on disability and I didn't get much money
Speaker 1: at that time. I think I was only getting ninety
Speaker 1: two dollars a month, and I tried to save my
Speaker 1: money and I hired a private detective, but that didn't
Speaker 1: go any place, and I couldn't keep him because I
Speaker 1: couldn't afford it.
Speaker 2: Bill was actually offered a plea before.
Speaker 4: Trial, second great plea barg well second degree then was
Speaker 4: only twenty five years and me, mom, dad and lawyer's
Speaker 4: got talked about it and I didn't do it. So
Speaker 4: I believed in system and boy.
Speaker 2: Bill went to trial in October, just short of five
Speaker 2: months after his arrest.
Speaker 5: The state's theory was that Bill picks her up close
Speaker 5: to the SPA, but not from the SPA, at a
Speaker 5: gas station and offers to give her a write home,
Speaker 5: and they just said to drive around, and they end
Speaker 5: up at the park, they start making out and then
Speaker 5: you know the failed sexual encounter, but that he killed her.
Speaker 5: On Monday the twenty.
Speaker 2: First, a pathologist testified that Michelle's body was infested with
Speaker 2: maggots placing the time of death around three to fourteen
Speaker 2: days before her body was found on Saturday, but she
Speaker 2: was last seen five days prior, on Monday the twenty first. Remember,
Speaker 2: Bill had broken his foot on Tuesday the twenty second,
Speaker 2: and the lead investigator conceded that Bill had an alibi
Speaker 2: for all the days between Tuesday and Saturday when Michelle's
Speaker 2: body was found. So law enforcement determined that if Bill
Speaker 2: killed her, it had to have been on Monday, but
Speaker 2: the evidence to back that up had holes.
Speaker 4: The only thing they had against me was the statement,
Speaker 4: no way doubt stands see you know. The said, well,
Speaker 4: we know he'd done it because we've seen it, or no,
Speaker 4: we know he'd done it because this evidence backs it up.
Speaker 4: All their evidence counterdicted the statement.
Speaker 2: Michelle was seen getting into a brown car. Bill's defense
Speaker 2: said he used a motorcycle to get around because his
Speaker 2: car didn't run well. The defense also presented three alibi
Speaker 2: witnesses for the evening of April twenty first, who testified
Speaker 2: to seeing Bill between ten thirty and midnight, when the
Speaker 2: crime had supposedly occurred. But most surprising of all was
Speaker 2: that a witness testified at trial that she'd seen Michelle
Speaker 2: alive after the twenty first. A high school peer of
Speaker 2: Michelle's testified she had seen her at the mall on
Speaker 2: April twenty second, the day after she was supposedly killed,
Speaker 2: with a man who was not Bill. At trial, Bill's
Speaker 2: defense also contended he had signed the alleged confession out
Speaker 2: of fear and confusion. Still, after deliberating for five and
Speaker 2: a half hours, the jury found Bill guilty of first
Speaker 2: degree murder on October eighth, nineteen eighty. Donna sat through
Speaker 2: the whole trial.
Speaker 3: It was terrible. I I really.
Speaker 1: Can't explain it. I have believed Bill right from the start.
Speaker 1: Bill just couldn't do that g anybody. I done a
Speaker 1: lot of crying.
Speaker 4: God took me through the value of death. You know,
Speaker 4: I stuff my tongue as and I'm still in the
Speaker 4: value of death. Far as that concern.
Speaker 2: Used to being alone, safe up in his DJ booth,
Speaker 2: far away from everyone, Bill was surrounded in prison.
Speaker 4: When I got Donald Fort Madison, it was like they
Speaker 4: were throwing a goki in the shark tan.
Speaker 2: Bill says he had to fight to survive.
Speaker 4: I turned out to be a wolf, and he.
Speaker 2: Was angry, resentful about what happened to him. And his family,
Speaker 2: and he took it out on anyone who crossed him.
Speaker 4: I had that rage. Somebody could say something stupid, go
Speaker 4: off on him.
Speaker 2: After decades, the rage turned into loneliness, and people on
Speaker 2: the outside fell.
Speaker 4: Off, girlfriend's friends, family, everybody did.
Speaker 2: Even Teresa.
Speaker 4: After a while, she just kind of fell off.
Speaker 2: Too, everyone except Donna.
Speaker 1: People don't have that much to do with somebody in prison,
Speaker 1: you know, they kind of forget him.
Speaker 2: But Donna never forgot about her only son.
Speaker 1: I feel terrible. I told Bill just this morning, I
Speaker 1: wish I could do more. I wish there was something
Speaker 1: I could do, and he said, Mom, you'd done it
Speaker 1: when you were younger.
Speaker 3: I've gave him money as.
Speaker 1: When I could, and done everything I could for him.
Speaker 2: For more than four decades, They've stayed in con instant
Speaker 2: contact through phone and visitation. What is that like? Going
Speaker 2: to visit your son in prison.
Speaker 1: After forty four years? You get used to it, but
Speaker 1: I don't like it.
Speaker 3: I want him home.
Speaker 2: Do you worry that maybe you're getting older and you
Speaker 2: might not see him come home?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 1: I'm ninety two and I have several things that matter.
Speaker 1: My voice, as you can tell, I have COPD, which
Speaker 1: kind of gets worse all the time, and I have
Speaker 1: an ampathy in my legs and of course the usual
Speaker 1: arthritis and everything, and I.
Speaker 3: Just want him home. I'd like to know I have
Speaker 3: a sum for a while.
Speaker 1: I just sometimes feel like I've never had a son.
Speaker 1: And then there's times I feel like, you know, I've
Speaker 1: had him and he's just gone for a while.
Speaker 3: But I don't sleep.
Speaker 1: I uh, if you just had a key where you
Speaker 1: could shut off your mind, but you can't do that.
Speaker 2: However, when Erica came across Bill's case, Donna was able
Speaker 2: to sleep a bit easier. When Erica's office was first started,
Speaker 2: she was given a specific assignment from higher.
Speaker 5: Ups get a DNA exoneration.
Speaker 2: Iowa had never had one, so she was on the hunt,
Speaker 2: and Bill's case appeared to have evidence from which her
Speaker 2: team could potentially recover DNA.
Speaker 5: We had a chance to know submit that all for
Speaker 5: testing if it could be found, and that kind of
Speaker 5: started our quest.
Speaker 2: I guess, a quest that gave Donna nude hope.
Speaker 1: Oh, Erica is a doll. I there you if she's
Speaker 1: a miracle. She has found out stuff that we didn't
Speaker 1: even know.
Speaker 2: Erica started with the basics, what would have been Bill's
Speaker 2: motive to kill Michelle.
Speaker 5: The most fascinating part was that there was no connection
Speaker 5: between him and the victim. They weren't They hadn't dated,
Speaker 5: they didn't go to school together, they hadn't been seen together.
Speaker 2: But Michelle had been seen with an unidentified man in
Speaker 2: a brown car from the beginning. Were there any better
Speaker 2: suspects that should have been looked into?
Speaker 5: Yes, we found a handwritten suspect matrix from the in
Speaker 5: the DCI file.
Speaker 2: That is something you could only hope to find.
Speaker 5: And we'd read a little bit about the fact that
Speaker 5: she had gone out with a guy or told someone
Speaker 5: that she had a date with the Larry Dance.
Speaker 2: Erica found that Larry Dance had gone out with Michelle
Speaker 2: about a month before she disappeared.
Speaker 5: He told investigators that he'd picked her up from the spa.
Speaker 5: They'd gone back to his house. They were messing around,
Speaker 5: they got naked and got into his bed, and then
Speaker 5: she changed her mind and didn't want to have sex,
Speaker 5: and so they went to sleep, and he took her
Speaker 5: to her friend to a mutual friend's house the next
Speaker 5: morning and dropped her off there and to me the
Speaker 5: similarities between his story and the confession quote unquote were
Speaker 5: so eerily similar.
Speaker 2: And Danz didn't have an alibi for the night of
Speaker 2: the twenty first, but he was cleared after a polygraph and.
Speaker 5: The lead DCI investigator, Rick saiwasinc His brother Jeff vouched
Speaker 5: for Larry Dance and said he's a good guy. I
Speaker 5: play softball with her. But the most alarming was that
Speaker 5: law enforcement had her dad, Francis Winkle, as a suspect
Speaker 5: on their list.
Speaker 2: Remember, Michelle had a troubled home life, which was evident
Speaker 2: to Erica by the fact that no one had reported
Speaker 2: her missing.
Speaker 5: I can't imagine if my family saw me on Monday
Speaker 5: and didn't hear from me when my body was found
Speaker 5: on Saturday, that they still hadn't raised an alarm.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 5: Michelle never came home, and the brothers also had a
Speaker 5: really callous attitude towards her, things like she'd being a
Speaker 5: problem child, used to run away. And then none of
Speaker 5: the family members testify at trial. They actually call the
Speaker 5: brother Mark's girlfriend now wife, Diana, to say the last
Speaker 5: time that she saw her at the house was that
Speaker 5: Monday afternoon. She wanted a ride into town, so she
Speaker 5: could go to the bank before going to work, and
Speaker 5: her brother refused to take her, so she left on foot.
Speaker 2: What did all this information tell you?
Speaker 5: That the investigation that it had all of the features
Speaker 5: of a wrongful conviction, That investigators focused on the player right,
Speaker 5: the DJ, the guy that had multiple girlfriends. They ignored
Speaker 5: all these other legit credible alibis or motives for murdering her.
Speaker 5: We knew there was just there had to be more
Speaker 5: to the story.
Speaker 2: Erica and her team discovered a list of people who
Speaker 2: said they saw Michelle alive after the twenty first, the
Speaker 2: only day the state concedes Bill could have killed Michelle.
Speaker 2: It wasn't just the schoolmate who testified at trial that
Speaker 2: she'd seen Michelle at the mall Tuesday.
Speaker 5: People saw her alive up through Thursday.
Speaker 2: This list was never disclosed to the defense. Erica filed
Speaker 2: this as a Brady violation withholding exculpatory evidence from the defense.
Speaker 2: Then she turned to the crime scene.
Speaker 5: The pathologist testified she was heavily infested with maggots, and
Speaker 5: she's not when you look at the crime scene photos.
Speaker 5: An entomologist that we hired said that the best in
Speaker 5: her opinion, the best estimate was that Michelle died Wednesday night,
Speaker 5: the twenty third, and that she did not die on Monday,
Speaker 5: that the bugs that were there, the maggots, and the temperatures,
Speaker 5: that there's no way she died on Monday and looked
Speaker 5: like that on Saturday.
Speaker 2: And again everyone agrees Bill could not have killed Michelle
Speaker 2: after Monday the twenty first. So Erica also filed an
Speaker 2: actual innocence claim, but she had to explain if Bill
Speaker 2: was actually innocent, why did he confess? She says, to
Speaker 2: start calling the statement a confession is a stretch.
Speaker 5: It's a one page statement, and he never admits or
Speaker 5: remembers killing her. It's I must have done it, but
Speaker 5: I don't remember it. And so it raises all of
Speaker 5: these red flags about whether it's reliable, and what coercion
Speaker 5: was happening in that room, and how vulnerable was he.
Speaker 2: In terms of the evidence that brought Erica to Bill's
Speaker 2: case in the first place.
Speaker 5: We were denied DNA testing because the state kept saying
Speaker 5: the evidence was gone. They don't have it, they can't
Speaker 5: find it.
Speaker 2: The sexual assault kit the one thing that could help
Speaker 2: prove Bill's innocence.
Speaker 5: We could find everything but the physical evidence.
Speaker 2: So Erica also filed a young blood claim.
Speaker 5: Young Blood versus Arizona, which is a due process violation
Speaker 5: for destruction of evidence. And so we just had a
Speaker 5: trial on that in June, and the court ruled and
Speaker 5: denied that claim and said that while the sexual assault
Speaker 5: kit has been destroyed, it wasn't done in bad faith.
Speaker 5: A couple of big things the court missed was that
Speaker 5: the victim's clothing is still unaccounted for. It was never released,
Speaker 5: it was never on an order to be released it.
Speaker 5: It was there, they collected it, they had it.
Speaker 2: So you just don't know where it is. Like, do
Speaker 2: you think it was destroyed?
Speaker 5: I think it was destroyed. I think it should have
Speaker 5: been with the sexual assault kit. Wow, it should have
Speaker 5: been in the sheriff's office.
Speaker 2: And remember agent Saiwazink, whose brother vouched for Larry Dan's.
Speaker 5: He's the last one to have known to have had
Speaker 5: the sexual assault kit or any physical evidence. He picked
Speaker 5: it all up from the lab des Moines and was
Speaker 5: supposed to drive it back to Muscatine a couple hours away.
Speaker 5: But he doesn't file a report, he doesn't sign a
Speaker 5: chain of custody document, he doesn't do anything.
Speaker 2: All of the claims Erica filed have been denied. She's
Speaker 2: amending them and refiling.
Speaker 5: If we lose these claims in Iowa, I think next
Speaker 5: stop is federal court.
Speaker 2: Erica says that Iowa is a hard place to litigate
Speaker 2: post conviction cases.
Speaker 5: There's no skepticism and everybody knows everybody and it's oh,
Speaker 5: I know him, he's a great guy. He's done lots
Speaker 5: of murder cases. To me, it's a hard place to
Speaker 5: be because I'm the outsider. I'm a threat. The work
Speaker 5: is a threat because they're so nice. They don't get
Speaker 5: anything wrong.
Speaker 2: Do you get any community backlash?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I think there is a unwillingness to work with us.
Speaker 2: And through all this bill sits in prison year after year.
Speaker 4: Every time we turn around, we prove I didn't do it,
Speaker 4: and nobody seems to give a shit. There's no justice
Speaker 4: in Iowa. There's no way you can convince me. I
Speaker 4: don't care what they do. Convince me. Ryl ever be
Speaker 4: justice in Iowa or the courts. I mean, if you're
Speaker 4: going to put somebody in prison, you've got to be
Speaker 4: damn sure. Especially with a death sentence, which is a
Speaker 4: life sentence in Iowa, you should be sure you should
Speaker 4: be on the shadow of a doubt. Well, I got
Speaker 4: a cave darkness.
Speaker 2: One minute remaining.
Speaker 3: I had a dream last night that Bill was home.
Speaker 2: Were there any specifics in your dream?
Speaker 1: I just dreamed that he came walking in and we
Speaker 1: just kind of, you know, I was explaining to him
Speaker 1: what things were, because Bill no computers, no phones, no,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of things. And this town has
Speaker 1: changed so much since.
Speaker 3: In fact, it's changed so much.
Speaker 1: That I see these things whenever this lady takes me
Speaker 1: to the doctor or out of town that I don't
Speaker 1: know is there.
Speaker 3: And that was the main thing, and I was so tickled.
Speaker 1: I just would let him out of my sight, and
Speaker 1: I took him to McDonald's because that's the first place.
Speaker 3: He's gonna go. And then it's going to be a pizza.
Speaker 2: Every now and then. Donna lets herself believe that dream
Speaker 2: of having Bill home will become a reality.
Speaker 3: Oh I'm gonna love it. I don't know as I'm
Speaker 3: gonna be here that long that I'm gonna love every
Speaker 3: minute of it.
Speaker 2: Bill was recently moved to another prison and he's been
Speaker 2: having a hard time adjusting. He says this new prison
Speaker 2: is rough, it's also hard holding onto hope. He has
Speaker 2: yet another petition pending in.
Speaker 4: Court, but it's gonna take probably a year.
Speaker 2: I asked Bill if he thinks his mom has a
Speaker 2: year left.
Speaker 4: No, no, I'm afraid she don't.
Speaker 2: What does it mean to you to have had her
Speaker 2: all these years?
Speaker 4: Yes, Mama, that's the where mom is.
Speaker 2: Bill says, if his mom is going on, there's only
Speaker 2: one other thing he'd want.
Speaker 4: We left the hell over.
Speaker 2: And get a motorcycle.
Speaker 4: I want to have a woman on the back. I
Speaker 4: want to be going down the road. Reached down and
Speaker 4: lay my hand on her sigh the land next to
Speaker 4: me for her being on the back of the bike,
Speaker 4: and I'll know I'm home.
Speaker 2: If you want to help Bill, you can contact the Muscatine,
Speaker 2: Iowa County Attorney Jim Barry. Thank you for listening to
Speaker 2: Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. Please support your local innocence
Speaker 2: organizations and go to the links in the episode description
Speaker 2: to see how you can help. This episode was written
Speaker 2: by me Maggie Freeling, with story editing and sound designed
Speaker 2: by senior producer Rebecca Ibara. Our producer is Kathleen Fink.
Speaker 2: Our mixer is Josh Allen, with research by Donald Salzman
Speaker 2: and additional production help by Jeff Cliburn. Executive producers are
Speaker 2: Jason Flamm, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Wordis. The music is
Speaker 2: by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Make sure
Speaker 2: to follow us on all social media platforms at Lava
Speaker 2: for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow
Speaker 2: me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with
Speaker 2: Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
Speaker 2: in association with Signal Company Number one