Speaker 1: On October twenty nine, Elkhart, Indiana police were called to
Speaker 1: the apartment of a Michael Kirshner and his mother known
Speaker 1: a Canal. Allegedly, while they and four friends were watching
Speaker 1: a movie, two men forced their way in, demanding money
Speaker 1: and drugs. After the taller of the pair allegedly shout
Speaker 1: at his friends and missed. A struggle between Michael Kirshner
Speaker 1: and the shooter resulted in a non fatal gunshot wound
Speaker 1: to Michael's abdomen. The gunman's hat fell off during the struggle,
Speaker 1: and the two assailants fled. The police collected no evidence
Speaker 1: from the scene, but took statement through the witnesses and victims,
Speaker 1: who described the shooter as tall and skinny carrying a
Speaker 1: long silver gun, and the other men as short and
Speaker 1: stocky with no weapon. Two days later, one of the witnesses,
Speaker 1: Eddie Love, allegedly identified a short and stocky man named
Speaker 1: Chris Parrish. About three months later, a suspected person natcher
Speaker 1: named Keith Cooper was identified as the taller shooter from
Speaker 1: a photo lineup, Even though the jury was presented with
Speaker 1: DNA results from the sweatbed of the shooters hat that
Speaker 1: were allegedly inconclusive. The identifications appeared conclusive enough to separately
Speaker 1: convict both men. But this is wrongful conviction. We're gonna
Speaker 1: take a quick break and we'll be right back. The
Speaker 1: Pacers Foundation is a proud supporter of this episode of
Speaker 1: rawerful Conviction and of the Last Mile organization, which provides
Speaker 1: business and tech training to help incarcerated individuals successfully and
Speaker 1: permanently re enter the workforce. The Pacers Foundation is committed
Speaker 1: to improving the lives of Hoosiers across Indiana, supporting organizations
Speaker 1: that are dedicated primarily to helping young people and students.
Speaker 1: For more information on the work of the Pacers Foundation
Speaker 1: or the Last Mile Program, visit Pacers Foundation dot org
Speaker 1: or the Last Mile dot org. Welcome back to Rafle Conviction. Today.
Speaker 1: We're going to tell the story of a man who
Speaker 1: was wrongly convicted in a place that, well, with what
Speaker 1: has been uncovered there already, in such a small population,
Speaker 1: it just might be the per capital rafle conviction capital
Speaker 1: of this country and therefore the world, a dubious distinction.
Speaker 1: And I'm talking about Elkhart, Indiana. But first let's introduce
Speaker 1: the man himself, Keith Cooper, I mean, Keith, I'm sorry
Speaker 1: you're here because of the reason why you're here and
Speaker 1: what you had to go through, but I'm really happy
Speaker 1: and honor that you're here with us today. I'm glad
Speaker 1: to be here. And with him is his civil attorney
Speaker 1: and our resident Elkhart expert, who you might remember from
Speaker 1: our coverage of Andy Royer's case, which we're gonna have
Speaker 1: linked in the bio. This man is an adjunct professor
Speaker 1: at Notre Dame Law, a staff attorney at the Egeneration
Speaker 1: Clinic out of the University of Chicago, and a partner
Speaker 1: at the nationally recognized civil rights law firm Lobby and Loby,
Speaker 1: where he was an investigator before he even passed the bar.
Speaker 1: That's some that's some impressive resume, and we're honored to
Speaker 1: have you here with us again. Hellio is Low. Sorry,
Speaker 1: thanks and thanks so much for having us on. Now, Keith,
Speaker 1: you didn't always live in Hukard, Indiana, and you weren't
Speaker 1: born to raised there, right. You started off on the
Speaker 1: South side of Chicago, So tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: about that. I grew up in a single family home.
Speaker 1: My mother was raising three of bro It was kind
Speaker 1: of rough as I got older, I started, uh having babies,
Speaker 1: and then I got married with my wife, you know,
Speaker 1: to validate was on a rise in Chicago doing that
Speaker 1: in the nineties, and I didn't want to kind of
Speaker 1: atmosphere right for my children. So we decided to move
Speaker 1: to a car because she had family there, and I
Speaker 1: was like, okay, well cool, but I give it a shot.
Speaker 1: I was going on twenty nine, I had three children
Speaker 1: at the time, and then when I got there, it
Speaker 1: was they started at our smooth and then take me
Speaker 1: long fortune days before I got my first job at
Speaker 1: banks Lumber and Uh, life was great. Yeah, it sounds
Speaker 1: like it. I mean, twenty nine years old, three kids, married,
Speaker 1: you know, more or less living. What sounds like that,
Speaker 1: you know, personificcasion of the American dream. And what's ironic
Speaker 1: is that you left Chicago, which had not only had
Speaker 1: a rise in crime at the time, but then the
Speaker 1: police were also very dangerous. The police in those days,
Speaker 1: and this is not hyperbole, were regularly torturing people. They
Speaker 1: were bringing them to a warehouse instead of the police station,
Speaker 1: not just suspects but also witnesses. They were subjecting them
Speaker 1: to beatings, genital electrocution, suffocation, putting bags over their head
Speaker 1: while they were chained to a wall, beating them with
Speaker 1: telephone books. And they did that not only the suspects again,
Speaker 1: but also to witnesses in order to extract confessions but
Speaker 1: also testimonies that they needed to make cases against others.
Speaker 1: Sticks check out our coverage of Marcus Wiggins. He was
Speaker 1: their youngest victim and he was thirteen years old when
Speaker 1: they subjected him to this torture. We're going to have
Speaker 1: that linked in the bio as well. So anyway, you
Speaker 1: had jumped out of the literal frying pan into what
Speaker 1: you didn't know was another one in the form of
Speaker 1: the town of Elkhart, Indiana. You're right, Elkhart is a
Speaker 1: city of manifests and justice. To date, there's been five
Speaker 1: e generations from Elkhart. Our clinic represents another dozen in
Speaker 1: terms of the number of wronkly convicted people from there.
Speaker 1: You know, who knows what that number is. I'm sure
Speaker 1: there's hundreds more. I mean hundreds more. That would be
Speaker 1: crazy in a big city, but we're talking about a
Speaker 1: town of fifty thousand of that's really disturbing. And as
Speaker 1: you can hear in our coverage of Andy Royer's case,
Speaker 1: which we're also going to link in the bio. There's
Speaker 1: coerced false witness statements, fraudulent fingerprint analysis, a false confession
Speaker 1: from a cognatively impaired man, and the kicker. The prosecutor
Speaker 1: watched it happen and not only did she not stop it,
Speaker 1: but rather she used it to ronically convict not one,
Speaker 1: but two people in this case. And then I mentioned
Speaker 1: that she used the current elected prosecuting attorney for Elkhart County.
Speaker 1: And even more disturbing, with how small of a town
Speaker 1: it is, all of these bad actors no one another,
Speaker 1: are aware of each other's misdeeds. And one of the
Speaker 1: detectives in the case we're going to cover today became
Speaker 1: the chief of police and that lasted until two thousand
Speaker 1: and eighteen, and that's ed Win Biggler. And by the
Speaker 1: end of this episode, you're also going to be acutely
Speaker 1: aware of his partner, the lead detective in this case,
Speaker 1: Steve Razuko. Elliott, can you give us some background on Razuko.
Speaker 1: You know, something that we would later obtain on the
Speaker 1: civil side of things was Razuko's application of the Okar
Speaker 1: Police Department and so they conduct you know, a background
Speaker 1: investigation to Rasuco, and then they go to like three
Speaker 1: references that he actually lists. You know, it's like when
Speaker 1: you're applying to a job, You're like, hey, let me
Speaker 1: list like the three most favorable people to be in
Speaker 1: the world. And at each of those three places, they
Speaker 1: gave them terrible references. You know. One of the people
Speaker 1: was like, I would never hire him again. This guy
Speaker 1: was overly aggressive, you know, like every red flag he had,
Speaker 1: bad credit, was deep in debt, going through a bankruptcy,
Speaker 1: several arrests for reckless driving, fighting, an accident with a
Speaker 1: parked car, and a high speed chase with the police.
Speaker 1: So nothing in this background investigation was like Steve Zuko,
Speaker 1: let's give that guy a badge and a gun and
Speaker 1: see what he can do for the citizens of Belkart.
Speaker 1: But at least one former supervisor seemed to have found
Speaker 1: value in Razuko, saying, quote, he knew all the drunks,
Speaker 1: all the bandits, and all the prostitutes. He's a big guy,
Speaker 1: and he's been in some bar scrapes and come out
Speaker 1: the winner. And quote, this guy was an uber, aggressive
Speaker 1: dirt bag with plenty of friends in the underbelly of town.
Speaker 1: And what you'll come to know about this guy is
Speaker 1: that his emo was not solving crimes, but rather finding
Speaker 1: a target of his investigation, just fixing all the facts
Speaker 1: and coercing not only says efects, but witnesses as well
Speaker 1: to give statements that fit his target. You know, this
Speaker 1: guy was willing to violate the constitutional rights of anyone
Speaker 1: in the community, especially people of color or people without
Speaker 1: financial resources to take him on and got away with
Speaker 1: committing criminal offenses for decades. And we'll go a bit
Speaker 1: further than what those criminal acts were later on, but
Speaker 1: bear in mind he wasn't the only problematic dirt bag
Speaker 1: investigating this case. There's also ed Wynn Bagler, who eventually
Speaker 1: became the chief of police, and another detective named Steve
Speaker 1: Ambrose CEB. Ambrose later was implicated in serious misconduct as well,
Speaker 1: including shooting and killing a black man in the yok
Speaker 1: Art community by the name of Derrick Connors. And everybody
Speaker 1: that I had spoken to an ELK cart as serious
Speaker 1: concerns about whether Detective Ambrose murdered Derrick Honnors without justification,
Speaker 1: and there was an investigation into that, a lawsuit so
Speaker 1: this town that Keith had moved to in search of
Speaker 1: a safe place to raise his family. Wasn't actually so
Speaker 1: safe with these guys protecting and serving Now, Not only
Speaker 1: was it unsafe for Keith and his family, but also
Speaker 1: another young man named Chris Parrish, who was also wrongly
Speaker 1: targeted by Razuko, Ambrose and wind Burgler util Chris was
Speaker 1: almost ten years younger than Keith and had grown up
Speaker 1: in Elkhart. I think with Chris Parrish something to keep
Speaker 1: in mind, as he was a real young kid whose
Speaker 1: family had run ins with the police department. And you know,
Speaker 1: as we talked about this case, you'll see that the
Speaker 1: police went out of their way to manufacturer of keys
Speaker 1: against Chris Pearish when all the evidence credibly showed that
Speaker 1: he was innocent all along. So it was these previous
Speaker 1: run ins with the law, which were nothing serious by
Speaker 1: the way, but they offered a motivation for the police
Speaker 1: to try to frame Chris, who already had a mug
Speaker 1: shot from when he was fourteen years old, which made
Speaker 1: it even easier for them. But with you, Keith, you
Speaker 1: were brand new to town, unknown to local law enforcement,
Speaker 1: so you see him like a pretty random choice, but
Speaker 1: they went ahead and did it anyway, did you know
Speaker 1: Chris Parrish before all this happened. No, I never knew
Speaker 1: Chris parper Yeah, so Christopher Parrison Keith Cooper never met
Speaker 1: each other until a decade after Chris's exoneration, And you know,
Speaker 1: a couple of years after Keith was exonerated, they had
Speaker 1: separate defense attorneys. You know, Chris was from our car
Speaker 1: Keith was from Chicago. They lived different lives. Frankly, there
Speaker 1: are different age groups. You know. Keith was a period
Speaker 1: with children. Chris was his early twenties. Yeah, Keith was
Speaker 1: like nine years older than him and living a totally
Speaker 1: different lifestyle. So the idea that two of you committed
Speaker 1: an armed robbery together, on its face makes no sense.
Speaker 1: So let's get into the climate itself. Now, this incident
Speaker 1: may not have even happened in the way that the
Speaker 1: victim described it. The police really never did collect any
Speaker 1: evidence at the scene, but rather it was collected later
Speaker 1: for them by the alleged victims. But it's really all
Speaker 1: we have to go on. So on October twenty, allegedly
Speaker 1: there were about six people in an apartment at a
Speaker 1: public housing project in Elkhart. Seventeen year old Michael Kirshner,
Speaker 1: his mother known a canal, and then about four of
Speaker 1: Michael's friends, including fifteen year old Eddie Love and another
Speaker 1: guy named Jason Ackley and two others, and they said
Speaker 1: that they were watching a movie, that ridiculous movie, Don't
Speaker 1: be a Menace to South Central while drinking or juice
Speaker 1: in the hood when they allegedly got a knock on
Speaker 1: the door from two black men, one short, one tall,
Speaker 1: with a hat on, and they were looking for someone
Speaker 1: named Shell. Whether that was Short from Michelle, we don't know.
Speaker 1: In either event, they had the wrong apartment, according to victims,
Speaker 1: you know, their account is that when they denied that
Speaker 1: Shell was there, these two guys forced their way into
Speaker 1: the apartment because the victims had like a bag of
Speaker 1: laundry coins on the living room table and there was
Speaker 1: an SKS rifle. Ultimately there was a scuffle and in
Speaker 1: the midst of the scuffle, one of the victims, Michael Kirshner,
Speaker 1: was shot right. He allegedly got in between his mother
Speaker 1: and the gunman, which was the taller of the two assailants,
Speaker 1: and took a non fatal gunshot to the abdomen, which,
Speaker 1: if true, is very heroic. Now this taller gunman was
Speaker 1: the role in this crime that Keith later got saddled with.
Speaker 1: Also notable by the way, during that tussle, the taller
Speaker 1: man's hat fell off. Yeah, and it wasn't just any hat,
Speaker 1: you know back in the eighties and nineties, you know,
Speaker 1: when they had malls. It was like one of those
Speaker 1: hats that you can customize. They were like rhyan stones
Speaker 1: on it that formed the letter J. Notably, you know,
Speaker 1: Keith Cooper doesn't have the letter J anywhere in his name.
Speaker 1: But when the shooter and the second person left the apartment,
Speaker 1: they left that hat and on that hat was DNA
Speaker 1: evidence that has excluded Keith Cooper since the time of trial.
Speaker 1: And we'll get into how that played out at trial
Speaker 1: in a bit. And from what I can understand, this
Speaker 1: hat and any other physical evidence from the scene, none
Speaker 1: of it was even initially collected by the police on
Speaker 1: the scene. What the hell is that all about? There
Speaker 1: are two different perspectives to this, you know. Later there
Speaker 1: was some evidence that came out during Chris Parrish's post
Speaker 1: conviction litigation that alleged that the shooting happened in a
Speaker 1: parking lot. And if they happened a parking lot. That
Speaker 1: might tend to explain why there wouldn't be any physical
Speaker 1: evidence in the apartment. There's a second explanation, which is
Speaker 1: that it's not just detectives and ELK cards that are
Speaker 1: completely incompetent, but also crime scene technicians. And so the
Speaker 1: crime scene technician when he went there, he didn't actually
Speaker 1: do his job and look for physical evidence from the shooting.
Speaker 1: And so two days later, when the victims came home
Speaker 1: from the hospital, they were the ones who recovered the hat.
Speaker 1: The showcasings called the police back, and that's when the
Speaker 1: police department came and seized the physical evidence. So there
Speaker 1: are some chain of custody issues from the get go here.
Speaker 1: But nonetheless, they had some bullets, shell casings, the hat
Speaker 1: with the d n A that excludes Keith. And then
Speaker 1: the witness's descriptions, right, two young black men. One was
Speaker 1: short and stocky, and then the tall gunman who had
Speaker 1: a long silver gun and was described as wiry. But
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if Keith ever was wiry. It certainly
Speaker 1: doesn't appear that way. Now. Yeah, Keith is tall, but
Speaker 1: he's never been a wiry guy. You're totally right about that.
Speaker 1: And in this case, there was a composite that was
Speaker 1: created early on, and it's like the most generic looking
Speaker 1: composite you'll ever see. I mean it like basically was
Speaker 1: a human being. There was no like detailed to it
Speaker 1: that would like lead you one way or the other
Speaker 1: to who actually did the shooting. And we'll link that
Speaker 1: in the bio as well. So this generic composite leaves
Speaker 1: room for a very loose interpretation as to which direction
Speaker 1: to take this investigation. So two days after the crime,
Speaker 1: one of the witnesses, a fifteen year old kid named
Speaker 1: Eddie Love, who may may not have been at risk
Speaker 1: of his own charges, had a highly pressurized sit down
Speaker 1: with Edwin Biggler. And it's been theorized that Win Biggler
Speaker 1: may have been pushing the idea that Chris Parrish was involved.
Speaker 1: So what is the result of this conversation. What's fascinating
Speaker 1: is there are like two different versions of this based
Speaker 1: on the reports. So, like Detective Win Bigler's reports said
Speaker 1: that Eddie Love said that the person looked like a
Speaker 1: person he knew named Chris Parrish. He didn't say it
Speaker 1: was Chris Parrish. So he was like clearly telling the
Speaker 1: cops like, hey, you know, like, I know this guy,
Speaker 1: Chris Parris, the guy you're looking for, looks like him.
Speaker 1: But Detective Razuko would later write a report saying that
Speaker 1: Eddie Love named Chris Parrish as a person who did this. So,
Speaker 1: whether they had already planned on doing this or not,
Speaker 1: they now have a reason to place Chris Parrish's photo
Speaker 1: in the lineup to be viewed by Michael Kirshner, Nona
Speaker 1: Canal and the other four robbery victims. Now, remember they
Speaker 1: only had a picture of Chris from when he was fourteen,
Speaker 1: even though Chris was twenty years old at the time
Speaker 1: of the crime, so the lineup was totally suspect. Plus
Speaker 1: they knew that he was in Chicago, you know, which
Speaker 1: is about two hours from Alcarda, Indiana, and he had
Speaker 1: somewhere around fifteen alibi witnesses who testified his criminal trial,
Speaker 1: including a minister, and Razuko would testify later on in
Speaker 1: Chris's civil case. This is like fifteen years later. I
Speaker 1: believed when the trial was over that Chris was going
Speaker 1: to be exonerated because I believed his alby witnesses. That's
Speaker 1: a quote from Razuko, and it really is a striking
Speaker 1: admission because if you believe Chris Parrish's aliby witnesses that
Speaker 1: Chris is innocent, then how does a police officer somehow
Speaker 1: get a half dozen people to make a positive identification
Speaker 1: of Chris Parrish? Right, both can't be true. Sure, maybe
Speaker 1: there's some statistical probability that one person could mistakenly pick
Speaker 1: Chris out of a photo ray, But how do you
Speaker 1: get a half dozen people to mistakenly pick Chris Parris?
Speaker 1: I have a photo ray? Well, you do it by
Speaker 1: putting a fourteen year old juvenile photo in an array
Speaker 1: with five adult men, knowing that they described the person
Speaker 1: as younger looking, and you lead your eye witnesses to
Speaker 1: misidentify somebody who's innocent. So they made this suggestive array
Speaker 1: with Chris's juvenile photo and led the six witnesses to idea.
Speaker 1: Chris was charged shortly after the actual incident, to later
Speaker 1: be taken to trial. But Keith, you were brand new
Speaker 1: in town. They didn't even know you, let alone have
Speaker 1: a photo of you. So how did you get pulled
Speaker 1: into this? Then all started from the they said, I
Speaker 1: wrapped this lated for a purse, So a person matching happened.
Speaker 1: But Keith was like literally walking on the street, his
Speaker 1: card broken down. He went to go get some like groceries,
Speaker 1: and the detective saw a tall black eye and was like, oh,
Speaker 1: there was a person match him with a tall black
Speaker 1: eyed Let me just bring this guy over. So he
Speaker 1: drove Keith over to the victim's house and I saw
Speaker 1: the later on the porch with the other officers, and
Speaker 1: I'm staying to myself, how's she gonna be at this
Speaker 1: identifying me when I'm sitting in the backseat and they
Speaker 1: square called these little gates around the window where you
Speaker 1: can't even really see inside. Was she white? She was white? Yes,
Speaker 1: she were Okay, so we have a cross racial identification
Speaker 1: from a distance through a window which is screened. As
Speaker 1: you said, you barely could see in at all. And
Speaker 1: the suggestive nature of it is extreme right in and
Speaker 1: there my life went to ships once she identified me
Speaker 1: as the person acttion. That was a line when I
Speaker 1: got to the police station. A lot of things they
Speaker 1: did at the police station, it went I'm told because
Speaker 1: see they had me to take a lot and take
Speaker 1: the test approved that I was innocent of DEBD case.
Speaker 1: But good because Zukos and other France with me. And
Speaker 1: this is like from Detective Razuko's own mouth. You know,
Speaker 1: he's testified to this Detective Rozuko sees Keith in there
Speaker 1: and he's like, oh, tall black guy, that must be
Speaker 1: the tall black guy I'm looking for in the Cursoner shooting.
Speaker 1: I mean like it literally could have been like any
Speaker 1: tall black eye in America who could again brought into
Speaker 1: that station and their life would have been ripped away
Speaker 1: because Rozuco just wanted to close the case and stead
Speaker 1: us all here. You have two separate incidents involving a
Speaker 1: tall black man, and then both the person matching detective
Speaker 1: and Razuko just picked out any old, tall black guy
Speaker 1: and it just happened to be Keith both times. So
Speaker 1: you were in jail for two months awaiting trial on
Speaker 1: the persona correct Well, how much was bail on that case? Uh?
Speaker 1: It was ten thousand thousand a goal to bound album
Speaker 1: and and not having access to that money like so
Speaker 1: many other people, You're stuck in his jail. I'm stuck.
Speaker 1: I'm sitting waiting trial. Right before I was getting ready
Speaker 1: to go to trial for the person not you, I
Speaker 1: get a visitor. The visitor was Detective Zooks. He had
Speaker 1: to come down to his office and sat down across
Speaker 1: from him. Told me, he said, hey, if you take
Speaker 1: this person not in case to trial, and if you
Speaker 1: do win it, I have another case for I said,
Speaker 1: I didn't commit this person. I said that I don't
Speaker 1: do anything else. I in their God. He said, I
Speaker 1: got six people to say the different. And he gave
Speaker 1: me a police report and I read and he tells
Speaker 1: me that you're the one who attempted to rob these
Speaker 1: people and shot with Michael Kursen. And at that time
Speaker 1: I'm like no, I said I didn't do it. He said,
Speaker 1: will you take this egg and you lay on because
Speaker 1: if you if you get found, I'll give to that battery.
Speaker 1: You will be faced with this hire. And as I'm
Speaker 1: sitting there waiting for trial, that he was on the
Speaker 1: visit I was getting into County jail. At this time.
Speaker 1: He was letting me know, hey, this is your baby.
Speaker 1: You're sitting on that egg. Yeah, you're gonna get found, gifted.
Speaker 1: He was threatening me. After a couple of months May passed,
Speaker 1: I went to trial. I was I was a quitter
Speaker 1: to that there. Like when they were processing me out,
Speaker 1: they came with a best warm and I asked him
Speaker 1: for what he said, chim robbed right there, and that
Speaker 1: I knew wasn't gonna let me go home. No, he
Speaker 1: was not, Like he had already explained to you, he
Speaker 1: had six people that are ready to identify you, and
Speaker 1: all of those ideas, with the exception of Eddie Luve,
Speaker 1: we're going to be cross racial, which I'll say it again,
Speaker 1: and study after study has been proven to be less
Speaker 1: accurate than guessing. So he had your picture now and
Speaker 1: he put it into another suggestive lineup. What's remarkable about
Speaker 1: our cart is even though they had the ability do
Speaker 1: live lineups back in the nineties, they declined to do it.
Speaker 1: All of the identifications in this case we're made on
Speaker 1: photo rays, and if you look at the photo rays,
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, canal idd Keith kurshioner ided keys and
Speaker 1: you're like, oh wow, these are positive identifications. You know,
Speaker 1: there's no reports about you know, confidence levels or whether
Speaker 1: they're done sequentially or together. And it took, frankly, about
Speaker 1: fifteen years for that story to really unravel and for
Speaker 1: us to learn how those identifications were manufactured. So, you know,
Speaker 1: once we began the investigation and what was really going on,
Speaker 1: the victims told us all this information about the identification process.
Speaker 1: They told us that they were telling Razuko the whole
Speaker 1: time they didn't know if Keith Cooper was really the person.
Speaker 1: They actually were like demanding a live lineup to Detective Razuko,
Speaker 1: saying like, we we want to live line up because
Speaker 1: we're not sure, you know, we don't want to misidentify somebody,
Speaker 1: and he just kept telling them, I got the right guy,
Speaker 1: I got the right guy. He also told him that
Speaker 1: he didn't have enough tall black people in Elkhart to
Speaker 1: do a live lineup, which is also a lie. It
Speaker 1: sounds like the basis for probable cause was a lie
Speaker 1: as well. These ideas were not positive ideas and the
Speaker 1: lead up to trial, but Rozuko was able to shore
Speaker 1: them up later in the meantime leading up to trial,
Speaker 1: they had the DNA from the sweat band and the
Speaker 1: results came back telling the state definitively that Keith was
Speaker 1: not and could not have been involved, which should have
Speaker 1: put an end to this crazy prosecution totally, but instead
Speaker 1: the state enters into this stipulation with this defense attorney
Speaker 1: that Keith had, saying that if the state lab analysts
Speaker 1: were to testify a trial, she would testify that the
Speaker 1: hat neither included nor excluded Keith Cooper from having worn it,
Speaker 1: and that is like the opposite of what the actual
Speaker 1: DNA results say, which is that like he's excluded from
Speaker 1: being a contributor to any of the DNA on the hat.
Speaker 1: I'm finding it hard to understand why his attorney would
Speaker 1: do something so stupid. I mean, did you know that
Speaker 1: your attorney was allowing this ship to go on? No? No, no.
Speaker 1: When the DNA, I felt confident that that's going to
Speaker 1: be the way I get out. But they used the stipulation,
Speaker 1: which I didn't understand at the time where they were met.
Speaker 1: My lawyer told me that when he agreed to that,
Speaker 1: they were going to be into my favor if I
Speaker 1: agreed to the stipulation, I said, okay, cool, what ended
Speaker 1: up having a trial? It's like, you know, is in
Speaker 1: many of these cases, right, you've got police misconduct, You've
Speaker 1: got over zealous prosecutors. You know, they just want to
Speaker 1: get a conviction. And he had a defense attorney who
Speaker 1: was checked out. Are we going to say his name? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Jack's meeting. He did not protect Keith Cooper had trial.
Speaker 1: And you know when I say trial, like that is
Speaker 1: like charitable. This was a half day bench proceeding that
Speaker 1: sent Keith to present wrongfully for a decade of his life.
Speaker 1: It's chilling to think that he said to you. He
Speaker 1: was actually being honest, but not in a good way,
Speaker 1: because he said, I'm gonna take a bench trial so
Speaker 1: we could get this over with, right, But he was
Speaker 1: he was not. I mean, any lawyer would know that
Speaker 1: you're better off with twelve jurors where you only need
Speaker 1: one to say, hey, this this doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: I thought that way too, but he kept on tim.
Speaker 1: He said, you you better facing the judge because the
Speaker 1: judge is familiar with the laws, and how better for
Speaker 1: you to do it with the judge and have to
Speaker 1: go through the Twitter people because the judge no more
Speaker 1: about your case than they do. And I, like, I said,
Speaker 1: I know about the system. So I went with what
Speaker 1: do you say? Because you know, hey, he represented me,
Speaker 1: but he wasn't. He was just getting He just wanted
Speaker 1: me to cop out. It seems like that's what the
Speaker 1: court was greased up to do. I don't even understand
Speaker 1: how the judge could have allowed that stipulation to come
Speaker 1: to pass, honestly, but everyone seemed on board with just
Speaker 1: ignoring the clear cut evidence of your innocence leading up
Speaker 1: to trial, except for the people who didn't know about
Speaker 1: the DNA evidence. The eyewitnesses who it seems to me,
Speaker 1: we're probably the only people trying to do the right
Speaker 1: thing here, canal Mike Kirshner. They like, we're so insistent
Speaker 1: regarding their doubts in this identification that Rozuka was like, fine,
Speaker 1: show up to the courthouse at this time and meet
Speaker 1: me in this location. And the date was Keiths Cooper's trial,
Speaker 1: the location was the hallway, and the time was before
Speaker 1: the trial started. And so Rozuko has these witnesses lined
Speaker 1: up in the hallway as Keith Cooper is walking up
Speaker 1: with his wife and children. And what the witnesses and
Speaker 1: the victims say is that Razuko turned to them and
Speaker 1: so that's the guy. That's the guy who're going to
Speaker 1: go in there and identify as the shooter. And they
Speaker 1: did what the cop told him to do. So they
Speaker 1: trusted the detective that he had the right guy. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: he knew otherwise all along. In fact, Razuko, win Biggler,
Speaker 1: and Ambrose knew that the case was so weak with
Speaker 1: the shaky I d S and DNA evidence exonerating Keith,
Speaker 1: that they had to come up with even more bullshit.
Speaker 1: So at some point prior to trial, Detective Razuko and
Speaker 1: Win Biggler get a jail house informant involved named Barry Coleman,
Speaker 1: and they promised the Barry Coleman is consideration and fedom
Speaker 1: information in order to fabricate a statement alleging that Keith
Speaker 1: confessed to him when they were incarcerated together and a trial.
Speaker 1: One of the remarkable things here to be Ry Coleman
Speaker 1: actually refused to testify there and the judge allowed for
Speaker 1: a detective to testify to the statement that he took
Speaker 1: from the jailha's informant without any defense having the ability
Speaker 1: to cross examine the informant who is refusing to testify.
Speaker 1: That is off the rails. Everybody who knows anything about
Speaker 1: the law or legal proceedings knows that there can be
Speaker 1: no testimony for either side unless the other side has
Speaker 1: an opportunity to counter it by cross examining the witness.
Speaker 1: I've seen wrongful convictions happen for that reason. But apparently
Speaker 1: like Razuka was like not convinced the Keith was going
Speaker 1: to get wrongfully convicted, and so like he goes out
Speaker 1: into the hall and gets us. Witness Jason Ackley, who
Speaker 1: was at the time of the shooting in the shower,
Speaker 1: is not in the living room when the shooting is
Speaker 1: going on, and he tells Actlee that he needs them
Speaker 1: to go in there and identify Cooper's voice as the
Speaker 1: voice that he heard through the walls. Well, he showery
Speaker 1: as the perfect who you know, fire the shot. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's the most absurd thing. And so they bring this
Speaker 1: guy out from the hallway and they have Keith, you know,
Speaker 1: say some ridiculous thing in court, and actually it's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the voice I heard. Not only is voice recognition
Speaker 1: totally unreliable, but for anyone who's ever taken a shower,
Speaker 1: we all know that identifying a strange voice over the water,
Speaker 1: through the wall and maybe the shower curtain or the
Speaker 1: glass door and whatever else is between you and whatever
Speaker 1: is going on, this guy actually is totally full of it. So, Keith,
Speaker 1: you had watched all this go down. The eyewitnesses gave
Speaker 1: positive by des in court to judge a lot of
Speaker 1: detectives to read in the jailhouse. Nitche statement After this,
Speaker 1: Nitche refused to testify, and your defense attorney entered into
Speaker 1: that DNA stipulation. Hell, this is a preconvench trial, and
Speaker 1: the judge went ahead and allowed that stipulation. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know how you could have held out any
Speaker 1: hope that you'd still be acquitted after that. No, something
Speaker 1: my body told me, Man, I was going to prison
Speaker 1: when they agreed to youth today and they when this
Speaker 1: when they proved that I was innocent, that minutes said
Speaker 1: inconclusive and they threw that to the side. I knew
Speaker 1: I was going to prison. The judge, man was already
Speaker 1: made up and we had recess. We came up to resess.
Speaker 1: I was found guilty. I looked at my turn I said,
Speaker 1: how you that this happened? When the d and they
Speaker 1: was there, and he said, but I did what I could.
Speaker 1: It's like a little groomiss grins about itself, you know, like, hey,
Speaker 1: I did what I can do. Wow. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is really devastating just to hear about it, and you
Speaker 1: had to live through it, and then you got taken
Speaker 1: off to prison facing forty years to life. During much
Speaker 1: my sentences, I had told my wife she had to
Speaker 1: get on with her life. Don't worry about being because
Speaker 1: I can't help her all my three babies. I have
Speaker 1: to now worry about how i'm'm surviving this prison, and
Speaker 1: you have to worry about how you and the kids
Speaker 1: gonna survive because I don't have no source of happy.
Speaker 1: I can better have myself now this time. So you know,
Speaker 1: I've lost the words and she lost the words too,
Speaker 1: because we both got a journey on our own now
Speaker 1: separate ways. Well, that's valley where they sent me to.
Speaker 1: It was to ride the long ride down and that
Speaker 1: uh it took his toll on me because I had
Speaker 1: to think about how I was going to vive in
Speaker 1: that prison and uh they thought of me not saying
Speaker 1: my babies again, that was taking the toll. Beclose. I
Speaker 1: got to that penitential. The more I would, I wasn't
Speaker 1: gonna see my kids. Then when I got inside the penitentious,
Speaker 1: I knew that was gonna be my home for the
Speaker 1: next for the years if I live. And that was
Speaker 1: scary because I was in a place where I know nobody, nobody,
Speaker 1: and uh then I had to deal with the lensality
Speaker 1: of the prison yard. Everybody in there is taking their
Speaker 1: frustration out on't one another, and no matter how you
Speaker 1: try to aboid it, you couldn't shake it. It came.
Speaker 1: It's always presented itself where you had to knuckle up,
Speaker 1: you had to throw your hands, you had to fight.
Speaker 1: I'm getting tired of people. Man. Every morning, Man, somebody's
Speaker 1: manhood is getting tested. It's like, I'm tired of fighting. Man.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna end up man actually committing a crime in
Speaker 1: this place because I know there was going to eventually
Speaker 1: and caill me up in the How did you survive
Speaker 1: and how did you maintain hope in a place that,
Speaker 1: I mean hope was lost. I got on my niece
Speaker 1: and I just prayed. Man, I ask God, I ask
Speaker 1: guys that guy had me get through this year. I
Speaker 1: wasn't really get a no help until I got the
Speaker 1: point in another lawyer really for Alaski, and he came
Speaker 1: into my life. That's when the hope and everything began
Speaker 1: range for me. After man year, it took me nine
Speaker 1: years to see that. They're like you said, Man, I
Speaker 1: look to your case, I see what the DNA here.
Speaker 1: I'm having to wed your DNA. So you know Keith's
Speaker 1: case in the early two thousands, there was more DNA
Speaker 1: testing don on the hat and they were able to
Speaker 1: run the profile from the sweat band through the code
Speaker 1: of database and they got a hit to a person
Speaker 1: named Jolanna Servant who was convicted of murder with a
Speaker 1: similar type weapon in a town that was less than
Speaker 1: thirty miles from Elkhart and to match the description that
Speaker 1: the witnesses really gave. So when the system fails and
Speaker 1: the wrong person goes in, it fails the victims family,
Speaker 1: Keith Cooper and his family. But here's the situation where like,
Speaker 1: because the detectives went so far out of their way
Speaker 1: to put an innocent guy in prison, the real perpetrator
Speaker 1: not only stayed free, but he actually committed another murder.
Speaker 1: They had actually done their job originally, maybe they could
Speaker 1: have prevented that. So when the hit happened, Keith was
Speaker 1: litigating a post conviction petition and the judge gave Keith's attorney,
Speaker 1: who is at the Public Defender's Office, and Keith a
Speaker 1: choice either he will grant a new trial. And at
Speaker 1: that point, the defense attorney who was representing Keith, you
Speaker 1: know these victims, you know, they were identifying Keith for
Speaker 1: all he knew you know, he didn't talk to them,
Speaker 1: and there was some fear by the attorney that Keith
Speaker 1: could get re wrongfully convicted or the offer that was
Speaker 1: presented is that the state would modify Keith's sentence on
Speaker 1: the wrongful conviction to time served so that he could
Speaker 1: go home to his family. I want to go home
Speaker 1: because I had got a letter from my sister telling
Speaker 1: me that my family was living in the shelter, and
Speaker 1: that was what made me really won't understand that papermans,
Speaker 1: I can come home because I didn't want more people
Speaker 1: living in the show, especially the door, because I was
Speaker 1: locked up with the perverted. As you hear they tell
Speaker 1: their stories how they finally get their victims, and that
Speaker 1: made me realize, now I need to get upbout it
Speaker 1: here so as fast as possible. That's a Sophie's choice.
Speaker 1: You know, Yes, you get to go home to your family,
Speaker 1: but you get to live for the rest of your
Speaker 1: life as a convicted violent felon, you know. Or of
Speaker 1: course you have to go back to jail await trial
Speaker 1: in a in a hellish place, which could take years
Speaker 1: to get back to another trial, and then you've already
Speaker 1: seen the worst of what the system has to offer,
Speaker 1: and you know they're capable of faming and they can
Speaker 1: just do it again. So who would want to have
Speaker 1: to make that choice? I think for someone in Keith's
Speaker 1: position in Elkhart, Indiana at that time, it was probably
Speaker 1: the only only rational choice to make. When I got
Speaker 1: out and two thousand and six, my kids didn't even
Speaker 1: know who I were, and I better recognized them because
Speaker 1: they had grew up. They were teenagers now. They was
Speaker 1: just little babies when i'ming into the you know, being
Speaker 1: raised without me and their life that he had some
Speaker 1: little resiments that I had to deal will. I had
Speaker 1: to let them know it one like, I just walked
Speaker 1: out your life. I was kidnapped. They took me out
Speaker 1: from y'all, you know, so there was a hard appear
Speaker 1: for all of us to swatter when we got to
Speaker 1: be reunited. This is something that will have a lasting
Speaker 1: impact on them for as long as they live. The
Speaker 1: children need their dad, they need their parents, and we
Speaker 1: all right now. I mean, I'm so happy I got
Speaker 1: my grandkids around me. They keep me motivated. You know,
Speaker 1: I might have missed out on raising my own kids,
Speaker 1: but at least my kids give me the luxury of
Speaker 1: raising their children. So I'm grateful. What do they call you?
Speaker 1: They call you Grandpa Grahams Pap Papa, they call you
Speaker 1: they called me Paul, Paul. They love they Pap Paul.
Speaker 1: That's great, And I understand you got remarried as well,
Speaker 1: to your wife, Nicole Slayton Cooper in two thousand ten. Oh.
Speaker 1: I love my wife. She's beautiful. She's been very supportive
Speaker 1: of me and the person. Now I gotta get a
Speaker 1: high honest to us God first. Then my my lawyer,
Speaker 1: fly Brothers last friend. Yeah, when he stepped to come
Speaker 1: to my life, I was given. Man. I knew I
Speaker 1: had a chance man to make things right. So, you know,
Speaker 1: I learned about Keith Cooper when I was investigating the
Speaker 1: case of his co defendant, Christopher Parish, who had already
Speaker 1: been exonerated. You know, he was in the middle of
Speaker 1: a civil lawsuit. I was like, not even in law
Speaker 1: school yet. When I was working on that as an investigator,
Speaker 1: and when I talked to the victims and they told
Speaker 1: me what Detective Razuka really did to get these false identifications.
Speaker 1: You know, I went back to the firm to my
Speaker 1: boss and I was like, Chad Keith Cooper is super
Speaker 1: innocent and these people all feel terrible that they ripped
Speaker 1: his life away. We've got to We've got to tell him.
Speaker 1: So I met Keith that way and ended up, you know,
Speaker 1: promising him, you know that we would do everything that
Speaker 1: we can to help him get his name back. Since
Speaker 1: your investigation of Keith case really began with Chris Parrish's case,
Speaker 1: we need to revisit what that investigation and the civil
Speaker 1: suit uncovered. Now he filed the wrongful conviction lawsuit in
Speaker 1: so take us through that. During Parish's civil lawsuit, Keith
Speaker 1: Cooper's wrongful conviction unraveled, the eyewitnesses revealed that they were
Speaker 1: manipulated into misidentifying Keith Cooper. Did Joehus informant to Barry Coleman,
Speaker 1: You know he refused to testify trial, right, So Coleman,
Speaker 1: you revealed like, Hey, yeah, I didn't testify trial because
Speaker 1: A it was false and B they didn't satisfy their
Speaker 1: promises to me, and I wasn't going through with it.
Speaker 1: I wasn't gonna let them give me up there to
Speaker 1: put an instant guy in prison. Jason Actley, the guy
Speaker 1: in the shower, testified that Detective Razuko was out in
Speaker 1: the hallway and just told him what to do, and
Speaker 1: he would do anything to help Detective Razuko and you know,
Speaker 1: the family get a conviction. So he was just doing
Speaker 1: what Razuko said. Parrish presented evidence that a Kirshner was
Speaker 1: shot in the parking lot outside the building, and lot
Speaker 1: it about it because he said it was in the
Speaker 1: apartment because he was on home detention for a gun charge.
Speaker 1: So that's a botmobshell right there. Okay, then love testify
Speaker 1: the police coerced him to identify Parrish. DNA tests conducted
Speaker 1: after the trial, and the hat showed not Keith Cooper,
Speaker 1: of course, but as you said, DNA of a man
Speaker 1: named Jolana's Irvine who was later convicted of murder. It
Speaker 1: would later be proven Detective Razuko, the same guy who
Speaker 1: was telling the eyewitnesses who to select in the hallway
Speaker 1: with Keith Cooper, was using a child photo of Chris Farrish,
Speaker 1: yet that they knew who to identify in his arrays.
Speaker 1: And then Razuko would later admit under oath that when
Speaker 1: he watched Chris Parris's trial, this frame job that he
Speaker 1: had like orchestrated, and he admitted in the deposition, like
Speaker 1: they convinced me. I thought they were going to find
Speaker 1: him not guilty, right, I mean, the state's case had
Speaker 1: been laid to waste. Right, it was just laying there
Speaker 1: in tatters. And there's still so much more that was revealed,
Speaker 1: and we'll get to that in a minute. But Keith's
Speaker 1: best shot at elexna ration was an actual innocence pardon
Speaker 1: from the governor. And this was Governor Pence at the time,
Speaker 1: and it was filed in like two thousand thirteen. Right,
Speaker 1: wasn't he released in two thousand six? In Indiana? They
Speaker 1: had this real antiquated rule at the time where if
Speaker 1: you had been released from prison, then you had to
Speaker 1: wait five years to file a part in or prole application.
Speaker 1: So all of this information had already been accumulated. No
Speaker 1: one could deny his innocence. They couldn't have back in
Speaker 1: two thousand six, even though they would have tried. But
Speaker 1: now he's out and ready for the fight. So this
Speaker 1: goes in front of the pardoning parole Board and there's
Speaker 1: an even better case made for then Governor Pennce to
Speaker 1: do the right thing here. What's remarkable is that the
Speaker 1: part of parle board did a unanimous recommendation. They recommended
Speaker 1: the actual innocence pardon. The victim Michael Kershner testified on
Speaker 1: Keith Cooper's behalf, apologized to him, told him what Detective
Speaker 1: Razuko did, you know? Begged the pardon Pearle board to
Speaker 1: do the right thing, beg the governor to do the
Speaker 1: right thing. A number of other people gave statements, and
Speaker 1: probably you know, the most critical thing was a letter
Speaker 1: from the trial prosecutor who's now a judge and car
Speaker 1: Judge Christofino. It was a letter directed from the trial
Speaker 1: prosecutor to Governor Pence, and in the letter, Mr Christofino
Speaker 1: admitted that the evidence available to the State of Indiana
Speaker 1: at this time exonerates Keith Cooper, and justice demands that
Speaker 1: Mr Cooper be pardoned. As an attorney, he begged the
Speaker 1: governor to undo Keith Cooper's tragic, wrongful conviction. And then
Speaker 1: Pence sat on this thing for years and instead, once
Speaker 1: he got nominated by Trump, they wrote a public letter
Speaker 1: that they submitted to the press saying that the governor
Speaker 1: wasn't going to act on the actual and instance pardon
Speaker 1: even though his board unanimously recommended that it be granted.
Speaker 1: And telling Keith Cooper to go back to court and
Speaker 1: file a post fiction petition. And we went back to court,
Speaker 1: we filed the post conviction petition. We were going to
Speaker 1: call the bluff. What ended up happening is Keith's case
Speaker 1: became a political issue and a civil rights issue in Indiana.
Speaker 1: During the gubernatorial election, there was even a debate where
Speaker 1: the candidates were each asked the question, will you parton
Speaker 1: Keith Cooper in your first three days in office? That
Speaker 1: is how like Biges Scott answer. The momentum could not
Speaker 1: be stopped. I felt like a celebrity. I'll tell you
Speaker 1: that God is good. Hey he put me out there
Speaker 1: when I heard that part. And I was at work
Speaker 1: on the forklift truck loading the FedEx up and one
Speaker 1: of my guys ran on the back of the truck.
Speaker 1: He said, Keith, you've just been pawned. I didn't know,
Speaker 1: he said, man, you didn't part. I thought it was
Speaker 1: a game. He was just on the playoffs. The man
Speaker 1: got time for them. I'm going this TI let me work,
Speaker 1: he said, come and look now look And there were
Speaker 1: ever hoping part of Pith Coop and I could do nothing, man,
Speaker 1: but as a man, I tried to hold back my feelings,
Speaker 1: but the chierd just just flooded, and uh, every better
Speaker 1: my job. It was all happened because they had the
Speaker 1: word that got out and on I had to leave work.
Speaker 1: I was so excited. I was free. I went home
Speaker 1: and and just yell know my knees Admitte just let
Speaker 1: it all. I just cheers are just overwhelm them. And
Speaker 1: they were just flooding the webs of my eyes. Man,
Speaker 1: I couldn't stop. And I was thankful because it was
Speaker 1: like a dream had just come true for me. The burden,
Speaker 1: all that weight there was all my chest and just
Speaker 1: a thousand pounds were just lifted off my chest, man,
Speaker 1: and I was free. My name was clear, and I
Speaker 1: made history in the state of in the The person
Speaker 1: who ultimately won that election, Governor Eric Holcomb, who was
Speaker 1: the lieutenant governor two pence. Like this is somebody who
Speaker 1: was on Pences ticket previously, and within his first thirty
Speaker 1: days in office, he granted Keith Cooper the state of
Speaker 1: Indiana's only ever actual innocence part. It's incredible. Finally now
Speaker 1: comes to good stuff, right now you get to take
Speaker 1: these people to task. So of course in November two thousand, nineteen,
Speaker 1: Keith filed the federal lawsuit against the City of el
Speaker 1: cart and four of its police officers. What did you
Speaker 1: learn during the civil proceedings because this is this is deep. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we ended up filing the civil lawsuit, you know, as
Speaker 1: a federal lawsuit on behalf of Keith Cooper. We sue
Speaker 1: Detective Razuko andwin Biggler Ambrose in the City of Elkhart,
Speaker 1: and that civil lawsuit unraveled what is going to be
Speaker 1: decades of exonerations people who are wrongfully convicted, just like
Speaker 1: Keith was. We ended up uncovering these internal affairs files
Speaker 1: that were never disclosed to Keith Cooper prior to his
Speaker 1: child in a parishes civil lawsuit. So like, not only
Speaker 1: was this stuff withheld on the criminal side from both
Speaker 1: of them, but like the City of Elkhart literally litigated
Speaker 1: an entire lawsuit without turning it over, which is shocking.
Speaker 1: But those internal affairs files showed two different internal affairs
Speaker 1: investigations into Detective Razuko, one before Keith Cooper was ever
Speaker 1: wrongfully convicted and another one in two thousand one. And
Speaker 1: the investigation Detective Razuko admitted to paying an informant for
Speaker 1: sexual acts and she was used as a witness in
Speaker 1: a homicide investigation. Admitted to that, and the only thing
Speaker 1: that the department did was take away three of his
Speaker 1: vacation days. And in two thousand one, Detective Razuko was
Speaker 1: caught in another internal affairs investigation prompted by other law
Speaker 1: enforcement agent. He's coming into Elkhart and saying, we have
Speaker 1: evidence showing what your detective is doing paying and informants
Speaker 1: and prostitutes for sexual interactions dating back to like, we
Speaker 1: have affidavits from these women who he was sexually assaulting, right, Like,
Speaker 1: there's no actual consent here when it's a law enforcement
Speaker 1: officer with a badge and a gun, Like, they don't
Speaker 1: really have a choice. But he was not only paying
Speaker 1: them for sexual interactions, but he was then fabricating statements
Speaker 1: for them to falsely implicate people in crimes including murder.
Speaker 1: These people were going on the stand and testifying to
Speaker 1: frame innocent people like Keith Cooper. They ultimately sustained an
Speaker 1: allegation of malfeasance against him, which by definition is a
Speaker 1: criminal act, and he was allowed to resign and then
Speaker 1: get this between the time that the malfeasance finding happened
Speaker 1: and his resignation, a supervisor of his at the car
Speaker 1: Police Department and a supervisor in the ochre Canny Prosecutor
Speaker 1: Office literally wrote letters of recommendation on letterhead to a
Speaker 1: different law enforcement agency soys that he could get hired.
Speaker 1: And then the chief of Police went to the Board
Speaker 1: of Public Safety and thanked Razuko for his years of
Speaker 1: public service. Like nobody knew about it. They buried it.
Speaker 1: All these people that he helped frame for crimes, commit
Speaker 1: a lot of clients and ours who are still wrongfully
Speaker 1: in prison, and then they buried it. And then Elkhart
Speaker 1: allowed Rosuko even after he resigned with this malfeasance funny.
Speaker 1: They were allowing him to testify in criminal cases like
Speaker 1: even murder trials without ever disclosing it to the defense
Speaker 1: for years. And we uncovered that, we uncovered a ton
Speaker 1: of other misconduct and exculpatory information that was withheld, and
Speaker 1: we ultimately filed emotion for sanctions against Detective Razuko for
Speaker 1: committing perjury and withholding evidence, including dating back to the
Speaker 1: Paris lawsuit. And we sent him written discovery request that
Speaker 1: was like maybe every informant you ever had tell us
Speaker 1: any of every informant you ever had sexual interactions with.
Speaker 1: Tell Us, any of every informant you have sexual interactions
Speaker 1: with that you use as a witness in a criminal investigation.
Speaker 1: And the night before his response to the sanctions was due,
Speaker 1: and the night before his written discovery responses was due,
Speaker 1: he committed suicide. Wow. I mean, I'm sorry for his family,
Speaker 1: but the fact is that everyone safer with him not
Speaker 1: being in a position to hurt other people and abuse
Speaker 1: his power. You know, again, I wish it was the
Speaker 1: only time I'd heard a story like that. You know
Speaker 1: that the Pippo and Prevac case in Westchester had similar
Speaker 1: levels of police criminality. And then there's that horrible cop
Speaker 1: in in Kansas City from Lamont McEntire case and so
Speaker 1: many others. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah, Globski,
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ. There's one more wild thing, Jason, that are
Speaker 1: a law student uncovered. You know the detective who assisted
Speaker 1: Razuko and Fabricane at Joha's informant statement, bed Win Bickler.
Speaker 1: He would later rise to the ranks of chief of police,
Speaker 1: like he was chief of police in Elkhart through two eighteen. Like,
Speaker 1: this isn't even something that happened decades ago, and what
Speaker 1: we uncovered in Keith Cooper's civil lawsuit was that in
Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties there was a group of white officers
Speaker 1: in the Elkhart Police Department who refer to themselves as
Speaker 1: the Wolverines. Like people in the department have testified about this.
Speaker 1: Everybody up to the mayor has testified that they knew
Speaker 1: about the existence of this group existing within the department,
Speaker 1: and people have testified that the Wolverines originated. The name
Speaker 1: originated from this movie called Red Don from the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 1: which is real timely given what's going on with Russia
Speaker 1: and read Don was premised on this theme that a
Speaker 1: group of white suburban teenagers would resort to guerrilla war
Speaker 1: fair in order to keep invaders out of their community.
Speaker 1: And these officers apparently saw people of color as invaders
Speaker 1: of their community and resorted to police abuse, police misconduct,
Speaker 1: framing innocent people. And Mr Winbigler actually has admitted under
Speaker 1: oath to being associated with this group. And so the
Speaker 1: existence of the Wolverines is going to further unravel Elkhart's
Speaker 1: epidemic with wrongful convictions because those officers, time and time
Speaker 1: again have been implicated in framing other innocent people for crimes.
Speaker 1: A incomment. I hate to say, but it's almost like
Speaker 1: the Catholic church. You know, you go to whichever city
Speaker 1: you go to, and you hear stories like this. We
Speaker 1: hear it day in and day out here as we
Speaker 1: interview people like Keith who have been through this. So,
Speaker 1: since you pursued civil litigation Indiana, that means you've forfeited
Speaker 1: the right to state compensation. But aren't you glad you
Speaker 1: did because after hearing all the things that Elliott has
Speaker 1: been able to uncover here, which is nothing short of
Speaker 1: incredible by the way, you were able to win your
Speaker 1: civil suit. I mean, he really drew out the truth
Speaker 1: here and no one could hide from it. The truth
Speaker 1: never changed no matter how long it takes. The truth
Speaker 1: always remained the same. Favorite my truth and God for Bill.
Speaker 1: They could say whatever they want to say, and then
Speaker 1: God for Bill. And he's not done without card either,
Speaker 1: A whole lot of truth for to come out of
Speaker 1: our car. Yes, sir man. So we have a tradition
Speaker 1: here wrongful conviction. It's called closing arguments. It's how we
Speaker 1: close the show, and it works like this. First of all,
Speaker 1: I thank each of you guys for being here and
Speaker 1: sharing this truly incredible story. And then I'm gonna turn
Speaker 1: my microphone off and kick back in my chair with
Speaker 1: my headphones on and just listen to anything else you
Speaker 1: want to share with me and our incredible audience. Elliott,
Speaker 1: let's let you go first, tell us what's on your mind,
Speaker 1: and then Keith can take us out the epidemic and
Speaker 1: Elkhart is only beginning to unravel. Yeah, there are so
Speaker 1: many other Keith Coopers who continue to be wrong play incarcerated,
Speaker 1: whether they were framed by Detective Razuko or other members
Speaker 1: of the All Car Police Department. But one thing that
Speaker 1: Keith did through his fight over the past six years,
Speaker 1: it shine a light on a community that was riddled
Speaker 1: with police and prosecutorial misconduct. And Keith, through shining that life,
Speaker 1: will be the main reason why so many other wrongfully
Speaker 1: convicted people will be set free. Recently, in seven point
Speaker 1: five million different ways, the city of Elkhart acknowledge the
Speaker 1: egregious wrong and suffering that happened to Keith Cooper. And
Speaker 1: it's no coincidence that Keith received the largest wrongful conviction
Speaker 1: settlement in the state of Indiana that settlement is a
Speaker 1: result of everything that Keith on earth, and that the
Speaker 1: city of Elkhart did not want a jury to hear.
Speaker 1: So while keith story is heartbreaking and tragic and so preventable,
Speaker 1: you'll be hearing about a lot of other Keith Cooper's
Speaker 1: being set free from Elkhart in the years to come.
Speaker 1: I just want to let people know, man, that the
Speaker 1: justice system can be fixed, and there's people are here
Speaker 1: that's working every day to see the folks like myself,
Speaker 1: the frothy convicting, do have a chance to get out
Speaker 1: because there's people out here working and they're looking into
Speaker 1: cases and they're digging up the dirt on these wrongful,
Speaker 1: unlawful police prosecutors, even states attorneys and even the Georges.
Speaker 1: They're coming after them. As long as they keep their
Speaker 1: hope and staying their faith. Whenever their faith made to be,
Speaker 1: stay with it, because God are gonna send these folks
Speaker 1: who keeps out here to help. And I love it.
Speaker 1: That's about clothes. Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Cheff Clyver,
Speaker 1: and Kevin Wardis. With research by Lila Robinson music in
Speaker 1: this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer
Speaker 1: Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on
Speaker 1: Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good.
Speaker 1: On all three platforms, you can also follow me on
Speaker 1: both TikTok and Instagram at it's Jason flom Raleful Conviction
Speaker 1: is the production of Lava for Good podcasts and association
Speaker 1: with Signal Company Number one