WEBVTT - #112 Jason Flom with John Restivo 0:00:02.600 --> 0:00:05.400 On December fifth, nineteen eighty four, the naked body of 0:00:05.400 --> 0:00:07.520 a sixteen year old girl was found in a wooded 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:10.720 area of Lynbrook, Long Island. The victim had been last 0:00:10.760 --> 0:00:13.400 seen leaving her job at a local roller rink about 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:17.040 a month earlier. The medical examiner determined that the cause 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:19.959 of death was ligature strangulation and seamen found on her 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:23.400 Baginal swabs suggested that she had been raped. By March 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:26.360 nineteen eighty five, authorities believed that this rape and murder 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:30.280 were connected to similar disappearance as an investigator started focusing 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:33.519 on Dennis Halstead, who was believed to have been associated 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:37.159 with another young woman who had disappeared. John Restivo had 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:39.640 been interviewed as part of this investigation and mentioned that 0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:42.640 he was acquainted with John Cogut, an occasional employee of 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:46.080 his and his brother's moving business. After cogd was given 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:50.040 three polygraphs, police asserted that he lied when denying involvement 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:52.640 with the disappearance of the sixteen year old victim. He 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:56.639 endured twelve hours of aggressive interrogation and eventually he cracked 0:00:56.840 --> 0:00:59.400 and signed a confession that was handwritten by one of 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:02.800 the detectives. The sixth version of events given by Cogd, 0:01:03.040 --> 0:01:07.120 containing information all of which was previously known to investigators. 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:09.320 According to Kogo's false. 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:13.240 Confession, the victim voluntarily got into Restivo's van, where Cogd 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:16.920 and Halsted stripped her and Halsted raped her. Further into 0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:19.720 this coerce statement, he said that when they arrived at 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:23.440 a cemetery, Restivo also raped her and Cogit strangled her. 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:24.560 When she regained. 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:27.920 Consciousness and became frantic. With the false confession at a 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:30.679 number of hairs found in Restivo's band said to have 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:33.400 matched the victims. The three men were tried over the 0:01:33.400 --> 0:01:37.080 course of nineteen eighty six. John Cogo was tried separately 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:40.520 and convicted of rape and murder in March, then Is 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:44.800 Halsted and John Restivo in November. Through the concerted efforts 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:48.760 of Centurion Ministries, Paced Law School's Post Conviction Clinic, Private Council, 0:01:48.840 --> 0:01:52.280 and the Innocence Project, the defense used police department property 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:56.160 records to finally locate and test intact baginal swabs for 0:01:56.240 --> 0:02:00.400 DNA in two thousand and three, ultimately excluding the three 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:03.920 men as the perpetrators. John Restivo spoke with US at 0:02:03.920 --> 0:02:08.639 the Atlanta Innocis Network conference. To tell their horrifying story. Together, 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:12.160 they spent over half a century in prison for a 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:16.760 crime they did not commit. This is wrongful Conviction with 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:29.480 Jason plom Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. I'm especially excited 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:32.200 today because I've got a guest who I've wanted to 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:34.800 have on my podcast from long before I even had 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:38.440 a podcast. So ever since I read your story in 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:42.240 The New Yorker, John Restivo, I've been sort of in 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:46.320 awe of your story, your your case, your everything. So 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:48.600 I'm really I'm really happy you're here. 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:50.919 Yeah, what a long, strange trip it's been. 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:52.240 Yeah, how about it? 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:54.600 And like I always say, I'm sorry you're here, but 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:55.560 I'm happy you're here. 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:57.519 So and with you. 0:02:57.840 --> 0:03:00.320 Nina Morrison is a return guest on this year today. 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:03.920 Nina is the senior staff attorney at the Innocence Project 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:04.480 in New York. 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:06.359 Welcome back, Thank. 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:06.800 You, Jason. 0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:08.040 It's always so nice to be. 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:11.840 Here, and this is going to be an amazing experience 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:14.280 for me, I think for everyone who's listening as well, 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:17.480 mainly because of you, John. So let's get right into it. 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:20.600 So and Yours is a New York case, right, which 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:23.560 makes it personal to me as a New Yorker, a 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:26.800 lifelong New Yorker and just by way of background, John 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:30.520 was convicted of a rape murder along with two other 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:33.480 innocent men and sentenced to thirty three and a half 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:36.080 years of life. Could well have been executed if not 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:40.200 for Governor Mario Cuomo blocking repeatedly the death penalty in 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:42.800 New York State. I think that's an important thing to 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:45.400 touch on. But let's go back to it. All these 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:49.200 crimes we talk about are horrible. This one is particularly terrible, right. 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:51.240 This is the rape and murder of a young girl, 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:56.119 sixteen year old girl. And obviously everybody wants to see 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:58.480 those crimes solved, but they don't want to see it 0:03:58.560 --> 0:03:59.240 solved this way. 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:01.840 I mean, when we get the wrong people. 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:04.080 Locked up, whoever it is that did this was free 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:06.920 to commit other heinous crimes. But take us back to 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:10.000 the crime itself. And how did you first hear about it? 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:11.680 I mean you were at the time, you were in 0:04:11.720 --> 0:04:12.680 the moving business. 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:13.120 What were you doing? 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:16.480 Yeah, I was in a moving business with my brother, right, 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:19.680 And when young lady disappeared, we had seen articles in 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:25.279 the newspaper there was missing persons, flies on different store 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:29.799 windows or telephone polls, so people in the community knew 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:32.200 that the young lady who was missing, which town was 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:35.159 this just was in Limbrook, New York, in Nasall County 0:04:35.720 --> 0:04:39.160 all around. Yeah, And there was a couple of articles 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:44.440 in the newspaper. So approximately three weeks later, a body 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:49.200 is found and it's identified as being her body. And 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:52.479 now instead of it being a missing person's case, it's 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:53.599 a homicide. 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:57.680 And this case, it's got so many layers because you 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:02.760 have three guys with makes it really specially tragic because 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:04.640 the other two guys that were convicted of the same 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:06.360 time that you were convicted of were just as innocent 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:08.640 as you were. But one of them confessed, right, and 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:11.240 we know how that goes as well. But every one 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:14.800 of those even inside of that false confession, there's a 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:17.039 lot of nuance to those situations. 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:18.720 Do you want to talk about that? Because I was 0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:20.440 a guy named Kogut, right. 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:24.720 Well, part of the problem with the interrogation process that 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:28.640 he was put through is that the police lied to him. 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:31.080 And I understand, okay, the police are allowed to lie 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:34.760 to you, but he took a light detechnist and the 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:40.240 police told him he failed the light detecttists and we 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:46.320 had experts that actually viewed the you know, the polycharts, 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:50.760 and our experts said that, you know, he didn't lie, right, 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:54.240 that he was telling the truth, but the detectives used 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:57.760 that as a tool against him. You know, while this 0:05:57.839 --> 0:06:00.400 guy is being you know, he's in a small room 0:06:00.560 --> 0:06:03.000 with a couple of these let's call them thugs, because 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:05.080 it's that's what they are. Don't get me wrong. I'm 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:08.360 not calling all police thugs. We need the police, and 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:12.840 I'm not saying it. And that's yeah, so I'm not 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:16.640 calling all police bad. But so they held that over 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:21.000 his head, saying that, okay, you lied during the polygraph test, 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:24.040 which was an actual lie. I mean they were lying 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:30.520 to him, right, And their polygraph expert said, well, I 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:33.719 don't really go buy the charts. I go by the 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:37.040 person's demeanor while i'm giving them, well, i'm giving them 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:37.479 the test. 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:41.600 It's just a tool they're using to interrogate someone. It's 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:45.000 not and polygraphs are not you know, people can debate 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:48.120 whether they have any utility for determining if someone is 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:52.479 or is not telling the truth, but police have used 0:06:52.480 --> 0:06:56.359 them for decades as part of what they the experts 0:06:56.400 --> 0:06:59.520 now call a guilt presumptive interrogation where they bring somebody 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:03.160 in they've already decided based on these subjective factors, like 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:05.600 I get a feeling he's not telling me the truth, 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:08.280 or they think they have other evidence the person did it, 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:11.440 and once they decide that the person is guilty, the 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:13.480 interrogation is not a search for the truth, it's a 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:14.520 search for a confession. 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:20.640 In the false confession, right, everything that the police had known, right, 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:27.880 every fact that they knew, right, was incorporated into this confession. Right, 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:33.320 the young lady disappears in early November of nineteen eighty four. 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:39.720 They're interrogating COVID in early March of nineteen eighty five. 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:44.880 And according to the police, in this false confession, this 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:50.240 fact's coming out of color of pokabook, color of sneakies. 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:54.880 I mean things that no normal person could ever remember. 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:57.440 You know, last week? What did you have a breakfast 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:01.440 last Monday? I mean, like every fact was known, even 0:08:01.600 --> 0:08:04.320 like the piece of jewelry that they recovered that she 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:10.360 had been wearing. Right, he supposedly remembers the type of jewelry. 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:14.120 And since it was all fictitious to begin with, right, 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:20.520 every fact that they knew was incorporated into the false 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:25.600 confession except one thing. The police didn't know the colored 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:28.200 blouse or shirt that she was wearing on the night 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:32.199 she disappeared. And that's the only thing that wasn't incorporated 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:36.480 into this false confession. So, according to all of the experts, 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:41.840 they considered as a classic false confession because no normal 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:45.040 person would be able to actually remember all of these facts. 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:48.200 There were just too many facts incorporated into this confession 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:49.400 for it to be reliable. 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:54.280 Okay, now we know that COVID confessed, but how did 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:58.520 that lead to your case being brought to where it 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:01.800 went and ultimately you being con and almost executed. 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:05.839 The police they incorporate my name and Dennis's name into 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:10.480 the false confession because in a way, the police had 0:09:10.520 --> 0:09:14.640 us labeled as suspects. I don't believe that we were 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:18.880 labeled as targets. I personally believed that they were going 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:22.760 to frame us one way to the other. Right, Dennis, 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:25.400 I wouldn't have a clue. I wouldn't have a clue 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:30.800 after COVID confessed falsely confessed. Now my family retained a 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:34.840 private investigator. We're trying to figure out where I was 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:38.120 on the night this younger lady disappeared. We figured out 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:40.720 where I was through receipts because I had just purchased 0:09:40.720 --> 0:09:43.240 the house, and that weekend I was standing the floors. 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:45.760 I was an ouse all night. That evening, I was 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:47.920 on the phone with my girlfriend who was pregnant. We 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:50.320 were putting pollutane on the floor, so she was pregnant. 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:52.240 She couldn't be in an house. She was out of mother. 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:54.320 So we had phone right kids, We had receipts, so 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:57.320 we knew exactly where we were. Where I was right 0:09:57.640 --> 0:10:01.560 and Dennis was with his kids another town, and Kovid 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:04.280 was at a birthday party in another town. We didn't 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:07.559 even lay eyes on each other that whole weekend. And 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:10.880 beyond that, the three of us were never together in 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:15.920 that van as a threesome ever, and we all had 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:19.160 independent alibis, And by the time we got the trial, 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:22.240 they took my independent alibi witness because the guy who 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:24.120 was helping me, he was a friend at the time. 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:27.080 He was helping me stand the floors, right, he was 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:30.640 at the house all night. The cops picked him up 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:33.280 up the street. They bring him in for ten or 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:36.600 twelve hours and they tell him that, well, if you 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:39.480 don't tell us what we want to hear right, you're 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:42.320 gonna end up in jail with them. So they've actually 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:47.720 flipped my independent alibi witness from my witness to their witness. 0:10:48.040 --> 0:10:52.439 And he actually gave damage and testimony against me a trial, 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:57.679 and at the civil trial during his testimony, the judge 0:10:58.080 --> 0:11:03.640 actually stopped the proceedings, had the jury removed and told 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:07.000 him that you're on the borderline of being charged with 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:11.800 perjury here because he had changed his testimony so many times, right, 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:16.760 and when he testified at the criminal trial, he lied, right, 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:19.840 but they wouldn't give us his original grand jury testimony. 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:24.040 So it was always my opinion that his testimony was 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:26.959 different from what he testified at the grand jury to 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:30.200 what he testified two years later at the criminal trial, 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:33.080 because during that time span, the cops put so much 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:35.240 pressure on his dude and flipped them. 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:37.800 Yeah, I mean, he was in an impossible situation. It 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:39.080 doesn't excuse what he did. 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:41.760 No, you're right. In a way, I felt bad for 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:45.000 him because he was stuck in the middle of this, right, 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:49.960 and he's under this tremendous amount of pressure by the police, 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:52.800 and he's being told, well, if you don't tell us 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:54.800 what we want to hear you're gonna end up in 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:58.520 jail with him, and he sees innocent people in jail, right, 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:00.960 and he sees how easy it was for the police 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:01.480 to do that. 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:02.040 Exactly. 0:12:02.080 --> 0:12:04.120 He knows what they're capable of because he already knows 0:12:04.160 --> 0:12:06.160 you're innocent, and he knows what they're doing, So there's 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:07.640 no reason to not believe that they would do the. 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:11.120 Same thing, right. And then we had the other problem 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:16.000 with the police planting evidence in the van and the judge. 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:19.199 That was a bench trial, so the judge concluded that 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:22.200 the heads that they intimated that were found in my 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:25.840 van were never in the band, right. 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:27.840 And you know, let's talk about that because that is 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:31.880 even by the standards of some of the crazy shit 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:35.360 that we see in this line of work. That's going 0:12:35.840 --> 0:12:39.160 even beyond some of the misconducts. 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:41.880 You know, this is so far. They were literally. 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:45.560 Pulling hairs from the corpse and then taking those hairs 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:46.800 and putting them in the van. 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:49.559 Like who does a thing like that, Well. 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:52.400 Who does it or police who are desperate to solve 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:56.320 a crime that has the community absolutely terrified and up 0:12:56.360 --> 0:12:58.280 in arms. So what John talked about earlier about the 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:01.080 flyers around town, I mean, this was the mid eighties, 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:05.439 you know, bedroom community, suburban Long Island. The young woman 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:08.000 who was killed in the case that John was falsely convicted, 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:11.600 and her name is Teresa Fusco, was actually one of 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:14.440 three young women that went missing around that time, and 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:16.240 the other two to this day, those crimes have never 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:18.840 been solved, and for all we know, it may have 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:22.040 been the same killer or killers in those cases. But 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:24.960 by the time Teresa disappeared, she was missing for what 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:27.960 was it John three weeks week, about three weeks before 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:31.400 her body was found. So the terror and the paranoia 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:34.000 that they're feeling in this town is only heightening. And 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:37.280 the parents, the elected officials, the teachers are saying, solve 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:40.360 this crime, solve this crime. And after she was found naked, 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:42.880 brutalized in the woods, just a horrible way to go, 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:46.720 you know. The police spent months basically bringing in every 0:13:47.040 --> 0:13:50.040 working class guy between the ages of eighteen and twenty 0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:52.760 nine in town in and working them over, trying to 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:55.120 see if they could find a weak spot until they 0:13:55.120 --> 0:13:57.040 get poor John Kogd who had had a really rough 0:13:57.080 --> 0:14:00.200 life grown up in foster care. Nobody to fight for him, 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:02.560 and even he held out for hours and hours until 0:14:02.600 --> 0:14:04.800 he finally confessed, you know, and gave a false confession that, 0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:08.080 as John said, was a classic false confession and that 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:12.360 it had no information that the police didn't already know, 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:16.120 so he couldn't point them to clothing or jewelry or 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:19.040 fruits of the crime or anything about her that wasn't 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:22.080 part of the police's knowledge. But everything they did know 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:25.120 almost too perfectly. But when it came to the hair. 0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:27.440 As part of what was wrong with this case when 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:29.360 they decided they were going to pin it on John 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:32.480 and his two friends, is that they had no physical evidence. 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:36.240 There was no evidence against them, no DNA, no blood typing, 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:39.760 nothing of hers that was ever found with them, no 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:42.400 eyewitnesses as far as anybody knew at the time, who 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:44.880 had seen what vehicles she'd gotten into, and she was 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:48.480 leaving her job at a roller skating rink. And you know, 0:14:48.520 --> 0:14:51.200 we don't say lightly that police frame people. I mean 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:53.440 a lot of times police will make bad mistakes, they 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:56.440 will cut corners, they will interview witnesses in a way 0:14:56.480 --> 0:14:59.760 that's not ethical or permissible. But in this case, there 0:14:59.800 --> 0:15:02.800 is actual scientific evidence that John and his co defendants 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:07.479 got fnamed, namely Detective Vulty, the lead homicide detective, claimed 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:10.800 that he found several hairs when he finally got a 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:13.640 search warrant for John's van when he used for his 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:18.360 moving jobs. He claimed that he found several hairs that 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:22.800 were long hairs, looked just like Teresa's and microscopically appeared 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:24.720 to be the same as Teresa's hairs. We later did 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:26.680 DNA and confirmed that they were in fact her hairs. 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:27.920 So that would be pretty bad. 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:29.840 Evidence, and normally you'd think, well, that makes John guilty. 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:32.520 The problem was those hairs would have had to be 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:35.720 deposited in the van during this period when John and 0:15:35.760 --> 0:15:38.440 his friends were alleged to have abducted her for just 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:40.600 a few minutes. According to the confession, they had given 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:42.720 her a ride and then raped her, and she was 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:44.600 in the van for not longer, certainly no more than 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:47.000 an hour, and then she was missing for several weeks. 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:50.160 But the hairs came from a corpse. They had this 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:54.120 decomposition at the roots of the hairs, called post mortem 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:57.400 root banding, which basically happens when hairs are attached to 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:00.520 a corpse that's decomposing, and so detective Vult he takes 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:02.480 these hairs and whether he planted them in the van 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:04.840 or just put them in an envelope marked hairs from 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:06.720 van that was back at the lab, we don't know 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:09.840 and doesn't really matter, but he lied under oath and 0:16:09.880 --> 0:16:11.960 said that these hairs came from the van, and it's 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:16.320 physically impossible because she had been decomposing for several weeks 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:19.080 when these when these hairs were collected, they were from 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:20.280 her autopsy, not from the van. 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:22.840 I do believe that most people that are doing those 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:26.040 jobs are doing the best they can, and we need 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:28.640 police to keep us safe. But when you get somebody 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:32.000 like this volpee character who does the type of damage 0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:34.080 that he did, they have to be held to account. 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:38.960 I mean, these detectives actually created a fictitious scenario after 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:43.800 they actually watched what we think was the actual crime scene. 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:48.800 And unbeknownst to us, the night she disappeared, a car 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:52.560 within approximately a mile of where she was last seen 0:16:52.960 --> 0:16:58.160 was stolen, and when this car was recovered approximately a 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:03.720 weak later, they found a pair of blue striped jeans 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:07.399 with one of the legs inside out in the back, 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:10.560 but the stuff underneath the see and on a missing 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:14.280 persons report when she was last seen. That's what she 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:18.600 was wearing blue stripe jeans. So the homicide cops grabbed 0:17:18.600 --> 0:17:22.359 this car, right, which was already cleaned by the owner, 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:25.919 and the blue stripe jeans were thrown out by the 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:30.720 Limberth Police department. So there was police reports regarding the 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:35.280 stolen car and the blue striped jeans, right. And then 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:37.400 there was a piece of rope missing from the car. 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:40.960 And according to theme, right, there was a piece of 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:46.280 rope similar used as what would you say, the murder weapon, right, 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:49.960 and this was missing from the car. When they brought 0:17:49.960 --> 0:17:52.800 the owner back to the area where the car was recovered, 0:17:53.200 --> 0:17:55.840 they found the piece of rope. But they took a 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:59.000 picture of the piece of rope. And one would think 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:02.680 that given the significance of that this piece of rope 0:18:02.760 --> 0:18:06.040 would be taken into evidence and vouched, and the police 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:09.680 say it never was. So this is information that should 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:12.720 have been turned over to the defense, and it never was. 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:17.080 And we never found out about this information till we 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:19.320 were in the civil litigation. 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:21.080 Stage twenty something years later. 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:24.959 Correct, I was John's innocence project lawyer. We didn't know 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:26.040 about this information. 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:26.439 You know. 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:28.520 A lot of times, as you know, and a lot 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:32.080 of your guests have talked about there's evidence pointing to 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:35.960 someone's innocence, and you know, certainly in this case, this 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:39.240 is evidence about where the crime occurred and what type 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:42.359 of vehicle was used, which is a huge objective lead. 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:45.520 That's different than the entire case that was against John 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:49.439 and his co defendants, but that is evidence. Often we 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:52.000 learn about that when we're in post conviction, meaning the 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:54.760 person's been convicted and we're litigating their appeals and we're 0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:57.720 trying to exonerate them. In John's case, as I'll tell you, 0:18:58.280 --> 0:19:01.560 we cleared him with DNA and other evidence that we 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:04.680 gathered as part of the Innocence Project and Centurion Ministry's 0:19:04.720 --> 0:19:08.960 investigation of the case. But we didn't even know about 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:11.240 this other evidence the police had of his innocence until 0:19:11.280 --> 0:19:13.879 after he was exonerated. It only came out when he 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:16.399 had lawyers representing him in his lawsuit against the police 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:18.800 department in the county that this all came to light. 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:21.520 So it's a really stunning fact that you can have 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:25.480 evidence of innocence that's hidden, possibly even from the DA's 0:19:25.560 --> 0:19:28.000 because it was in the police file, and only come 0:19:28.040 --> 0:19:30.720 out after someone's exonerated. And so his case is a 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:33.800 DNA exoneration case, but as with so many, there's other 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:35.720 evidence that could have cleared him even before he went 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:36.160 to trial. 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:52.399 As the son of a police officer, this must have 0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:55.679 been totally surreal to you because as much as we 0:19:55.720 --> 0:19:57.199 all grew up and when I was a son, I 0:19:57.240 --> 0:19:59.439 had the ideas that I would become a policeman, right. 0:19:59.520 --> 0:20:01.680 I mean, you know, we all look up to firemen 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:04.679 and cops. I think most boys do, especially growing up 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:07.639 right in the year that we grew up in. But 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:09.680 for you, it was a very personal thing, right. You 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:11.439 must have been very proud to have a dad who 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:13.680 was a cop. I would think, right, right, I mean 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:16.240 I would be. But then at the same time I 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:20.199 would expect that you must have thought that, because of 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:24.399 the fact that your dad was in blue, that this 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:27.280 wouldn't happen to you, right, And was your dad around? 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:28.240 Was he alive at this time? 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:31.719 My father passed away in January of eighty four, so 0:20:31.800 --> 0:20:35.800 he wasn't around. But my father said something to me 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:38.239 at one time while he was on the job, and 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:40.560 he told me, if you ever have a problem with 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:46.800 a top, call oil. And when the police brought me 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:52.919 in and interrogated me for twenty plus hours. Once I 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:55.240 was released, I immediately called al. 0:20:55.600 --> 0:20:56.520 Why didn't you call oil? 0:20:56.800 --> 0:20:59.119 At first, they wouldn't let me leave, they took my 0:20:59.200 --> 0:21:01.320 clock keys, they would let me hold the lawyer. You 0:21:01.320 --> 0:21:03.439 know I was there. I mean, they weren't letting me 0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:07.760 go anywhere. And finally they let me go, and after 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:09.639 twenty hours, I was so out of it. They wouldn't 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:12.280 even let me drive home. They drove me home and 0:21:12.359 --> 0:21:13.000 drove my car. 0:21:14.440 --> 0:21:17.200 There's so many things wrong with this that I'm just like, no. 0:21:17.520 --> 0:21:20.480 This is a complicated case. There's no doubt about it, 0:21:20.600 --> 0:21:32.119 and I'm just glad it's over it. But what the 0:21:32.160 --> 0:21:37.080 cops did to me, right, it's unfortunate that they can 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:39.639 do to whoever they please. I mean, they could, they 0:21:39.640 --> 0:21:43.080 could pick somebody out of a group, right and make 0:21:43.119 --> 0:21:46.520