WEBVTT - #117 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Dixmoor 5 0:00:01.560 --> 0:00:05.160 Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura and I writer. 0:00:05.160 --> 0:00:06.280 And I'm Steve Drusen. 0:00:07.520 --> 0:00:09.840 Last week, we told you the story of Robert Davis, 0:00:10.080 --> 0:00:13.520 a false confession case that happened in Virginia. Today, we're 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:15.600 going to tell you about a case out of Chicago, 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:18.599 the story of a violent and tragic crime that took 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:21.200 the life of a young girl. But there's a larger 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:23.880 reason why we want to talk about this case because 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:26.840 of what it also took from not one, but five 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:31.800 innocent teenage boys and from their families and communities. This 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:35.160 case happened during what we now call the super Predator era, 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:38.760 the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties. The news media was 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:42.680 saturated with stories of urban crime, drugs and gangs, and 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:48.000 in particular, sensationalized stories about black and brown youth committing 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:52.199 violent crimes in groups. This narrative is often associated with 0:00:52.240 --> 0:00:55.120 New York City. It drove the wrongful prosecution of the 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:58.920 so called Central Park five wolf Pack, but it didn't 0:00:58.920 --> 0:01:01.800 stop there. Today we're going to tell you about a 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:05.760 group of teenage boys whose false confessions transformed them into 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:10.000 Chicago's own wolf pack. They're known as the Dixmore five. 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:21.600 You know, Chicago may be called the second City, but 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:24.560 in when it comes to false confessions, we don't take 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:27.640 a back seat to anybody, not New York or any 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:31.320 other jurisdiction for that matter. We're home to more false 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:34.559 confessions than any other city in the United States. We're 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:37.920 home to more juvenile false confessions, and we're also the 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:41.920 home of more cases in which there are multiple false confessions. 0:01:42.640 --> 0:01:45.880 And over the years, the Center on Wrongful Convictions has 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:50.360 obtained exonerations in many of these cases, all of which 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:54.520 were from African American teenagers in the Chicago area. 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:58.880 Marquette Park four, Uptown seven, Englewood four, Dix Moore five. 0:01:58.960 --> 0:02:01.520 These numbers start to add up, and the thing is 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:05.440 each one of these cases involves innocent African American teenagers 0:02:05.480 --> 0:02:08.400 in groups confessing to crimes they didn't commit. 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:11.000 Of course, the most famous case like this was New 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:15.960 York's Central Park five case. In April of nineteen eighty nine, 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:21.600 five teenage boys were charged with the sexual assault and 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:25.360 the attempted murder of a female jogger in New York's 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:30.400 Central Park. The boys falsely confessed to beating this woman 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:33.120 within an inch of her life and leaving her in 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:38.079 the woods to die. The Central Park five confessions were 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:45.200 driven by race wolfpacks. Wilding was a whole new language 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:49.600 to describe groups of African American and Latino teenagers, and 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:52.720 it created a level of fear in New York City 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:55.680 and around the country that I had never seen before. 0:02:55.960 --> 0:02:58.840 So when we began to look at the Dixmore case, 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:03.080 the case of the Central Part five was ringing in 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:06.120 my years. 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:09.680 It was November of nineteen ninety one and fourteen year 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:12.760 old Kateresa Matthews was in the eighth grade. She lived 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:14.720 with her mom in Dixmore, a suburb on the south 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:18.080 side of Chicago, surrounded by a tight knit extended family 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:23.000 and community. Every day, after school, Kateresa followed the same routine. 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:25.560 She'd walk to her great grandmother's house, where she'd do 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:28.400 her homework, talk on the phone, and do whatever fourteen 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:31.280 year old girls do after school, she was waiting until 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:33.480 her mom came home from work to go back to 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:39.440 her own house. Kateresa followed this routine religiously until November nineteenth, 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:42.120 nineteen ninety one. When she doesn't show up at her 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:46.080 great grandmother's house after school, her family panics, They call 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:50.000 the police and a search begins, but for three weeks 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:54.280 there's no sign of Kateresa until December eighth, nineteen ninety one. 0:03:55.640 --> 0:03:59.000 That's when Kateresa's body is found lying in a wooded 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:01.720 field next to the Inner Highway that runs through Dixmore. 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:05.760 She's on her back, partially undressed, with her pants draped 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:09.040 across her lower body. On her chest is a spent 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:13.160 casing from a twenty five caliber bullet. She's been shot 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:17.200 once in the mouth. Even though Katse had been missing 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:20.600 for three weeks, the medical examiner concludes that she's been 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:23.720 killed recently, right around the time her body's found. There 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:27.560 are several reasons for this. For one thing, rigor mortis 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:30.679 is present when she's found. That usually disappears about twenty 0:04:30.680 --> 0:04:34.039 four to forty eight hours after death. Her body is 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:37.599 also still bleeding when she's discovered, which she wouldn't expect 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:40.720 if she'd been killed much earlier. And also, when a 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:43.320 body's been lying outside for a long time, there are 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:46.800 usually signs like animal or insect bites. There's nothing like 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:50.880 that here, and the medical examiner finds something else too, 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:54.320 seamen on Katse's body. She's been raped. 0:04:54.960 --> 0:04:57.080 This was an awful crime. It's the worst. 0:04:57.120 --> 0:04:59.080 I mean, it's every parent's nightmare to have this happen 0:04:59.120 --> 0:04:59.719 to their child. 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:01.680 You know, when you think of a crime like this, 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:05.960 you don't think of it as something the teenagers would do. Typically, 0:05:06.000 --> 0:05:10.159 teenage crimes are impulsive crimes. There's not a lot of 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:13.880 planning or premeditation. They happen in the spur of the moment. 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:17.960 But this crime clearly required some forethought. 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:22.160 For eleven long months, the investigation into Kateresa's death goes 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:25.600 nowhere until fall nineteen ninety two, when a teenage boy 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:28.760 tells police that he saw Kateresa getting into a car 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:32.440 with some friends around the time of her disappearance. Police 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:36.360 decide to question those friends, starting with Robert Veil on 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:40.440 October twenty ninth, nineteen ninety two. Now, Robert's fourteen years old, 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:43.680 but he has pretty severe intellectual limitations that make him 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:46.800 think more like a five year old. He's questioned for 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:49.839 hours without a parent or a lawyer present, off camera, 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:53.720 and in the end he signs a confession prepared by 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:57.800 his interrogator, and the story in this confession is brutal. 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:06.640 Robert says he and four other African American teenage boys 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:10.239 kidnapped a girl they knew from school. They gang raped 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:12.600 her as she pleaded with them to stop, and then 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:15.640 they shot her once in the mouth. It was a 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:20.160 story of an animalistic group of black teenagers attacking their 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:21.800 classmate for sport. 0:06:24.560 --> 0:06:27.960 The level of depravity in this story was so out 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:31.960 of bounds that it made me question whether it was true. 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:35.400 But it also had an eerily familiar ring to it, 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:38.000 and for me, the significance was as I was seeing 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:43.760 the same explanations in different cases, which made me begin 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:46.080 to feel it like maybe there was a script that 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:49.520 was getting passed around among Chicago police officers. 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:53.560 Only hours after Robert Veale confesses, police bring in one 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:57.320 of his supposed co perpetrators, fifteen year old Robert Taylor. 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:00.520 He's a kid from a loving and protective family, but 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:02.600 his parents didn't know he was at the police station 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:07.400 being interrogated. Hours later, his signature appears on a confession too, 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:12.119 and that confession tells a similarly vicious story. The same 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:16.920 five African American teenagers lured Katsa into a car, then 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:18.800 raped her and shot her in a field. 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:23.560 The super Predator era was a period of pronounced moral 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:29.040 panic in the United States that focused on young people, 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:31.040 race and crime. 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:34.680 That's our colleague and friend, Perry Moriarty. She's a professor 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:37.440 of law at the University of Minnesota and an expert 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:40.360 on juvenile justice and the era of the super predator. 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:44.680 The front end marker is more than likely the Central 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:47.680 Park five case that was April of nineteen eighty nine, 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:52.200 and that began an era when, in the name of 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:55.080 public safety, in the name of being tough on crime, 0:07:55.840 --> 0:07:59.480 law enforcement authorities dropped any pretense of treating children as 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:04.360 children and prosecuted them as adults. If they were black 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:08.480 and brown children, they were adultified, either by law or 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:12.440 by connotation, and certainly by the media. A jogger murdered 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:14.800 in New York Central Park. A little girl gunned down 0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:15.680 in her family's car. 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:16.720 In Los Angeles. 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:19.920 A judge has sentenced two boys for killing another child 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:22.560 who refused to steal candy for them. There's a tidal 0:08:22.600 --> 0:08:26.160 wave of juvenile violent crime right over the horizon, and 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:28.400 some who study it say the worst is. 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:29.080 Yet to come. 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:35.720 Terms like wilding, beast chill, predatory. In New York City 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:39.720 newspapers alone, the term wilding appeared one hundred and fifty 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:43.120 six times in articles over the eight years following the 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:47.480 Central Park five arrests. To put it in perspective, just 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:50.880 a few months after the Central Park five case, a 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:56.120 large group of Italian and Irish, predominantly teenagers in benson Hurst, Brooklyn, 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:59.920 chased down and killed a young black teenager named you 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:04.600 Seph Hawkins. And the headlines did not say wilding. They 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:07.560 did not say beastschill. They did not even say gang. 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:11.160 They said a group of white teenagers. 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:23.400 Now the police have two confessions that implicate the same 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:27.240 five teenagers, but they're not done yet. Next up is 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:31.719 Cheyenne Sharp, seventeen years old, the third supposed co perpetrator. 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:35.880 He's questioned for nearly twenty four hours before he also 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:39.520 confesses and implicates the other four. And it's the same 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:44.120 brutal story, a group of African American teenage boys terrorizing 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:45.400 their classmate for fun. 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:50.480 Now you have to understand how these confessions are taken. 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:56.560 These confessions are scripted, usually by a prosecutor from the 0:09:56.640 --> 0:10:01.200 State Attorney's office. Sometimes they're written by police, and these 0:10:01.240 --> 0:10:07.920 scripts contain a narrative, including character development. Kids are described 0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:13.360 as thugs. There's usually references to gang membership. Women are 0:10:13.360 --> 0:10:17.880 called bitches and hoes. The scriptwriter in these cases is 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:21.240 doing two things. He's painting the suspects in a way 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:25.560 that nobody can ever think of them as teenagers. And 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:29.760 he's also painting them in a way that nobody and 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:33.520 that means nobody in the public and nobody on the 0:10:33.720 --> 0:10:38.920 jury can have an ounce of sympathy for them. And 0:10:38.920 --> 0:10:42.160 in doing so, he's making a script that is about 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:45.920 as rock solid as a roote to conviction as one 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:46.760 can imagine. 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:51.560 So far, the police have confessions from three of the 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:54.360 Dixmore five, and within days they bring in the two 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:58.839 remaining teenagers for questioning two brothers, seventeen year old James 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:02.480 Harden and fifteen year old Jonathan Barr. The boys are 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:05.640 interrogated for hours, but their father had always told them 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:10.920 never sign anything prepared by the police. Somehow a miracle 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:15.320 they remember these words and they don't confess, but they're 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:18.280 still named in the other three teenagers' statements. So all 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:19.240 five are on the. 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:23.160 Hook, in part because they were arresting and prosecuting kids 0:11:23.200 --> 0:11:27.800 in mass in groups. Law enforcement became very adept in 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:30.959 that period at pitting kids against each other. During the 0:11:31.000 --> 0:11:36.640 interrogation process and using kids against each other to extract 0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:38.000 false confessions. 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:41.440 When you look at these cases of multiple false confessions, 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:45.080 you see a similar pattern. First of all, the police 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:49.760 usually start with the most vulnerable, most naive, most gullible 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:52.920 of the suspects, and they focused in this case on 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:56.360 Robert Field. He was the weak link. Then they get 0:11:56.360 --> 0:11:59.720 a confession from Robert Veel and what do they do 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:03.400 with that confession They use it as a battering ram 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:07.520 to plow over all of the other defendants. This is 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:10.960 how it works. The first suspect comes in and the 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:13.880 police officers tell them that they know that he was 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:17.760 involved in this crime and nothing that suspect can say 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:21.000 is going to change their mind. But they don't think 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:25.000 he was the one who actually raped anybody or killed anybody. 0:12:25.240 --> 0:12:28.920 He was just a follower. The suspect is pressured into 0:12:29.120 --> 0:12:33.240 adopting a story in which he is a passive participant 0:12:33.440 --> 0:12:37.720 to the crime and which he fingers his co defendants 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:43.480 as the more active participants. Then, once that suspect confesses, 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:46.840 they bring that confession to the next in line and 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:50.839 they go over the same thing again. We don't think 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:54.520 you committed the crime. He's telling us that you committed 0:12:54.520 --> 0:12:57.599 the crime. We know you were there, but maybe you 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:01.080 just held down her arm while they were raping and 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:07.000 killing her. Each suspect is vying for the least culpable role, 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:09.240 and at the end of the day, this is a 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:14.040 very effective way to get confessions from multiple suspects. 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:17.199 In this case, the dominoes are falling and each one 0:13:17.200 --> 0:13:20.120 of them eventually agrees to a story in which James 0:13:20.160 --> 0:13:23.360 Harden is the one who actually places the gun inside 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:26.760 Kateresa's mouth and pulls the trigger. It's no coincidence that 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:29.320 James is one of the last ones questioned. 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:31.320 Here, That's right. And at the end of the day, 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:36.040 police got confessions from Robert Field, Robert Taylor, and Cheyenne's Sharp, 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:41.000 but they couldn't get James Harden and Jonathan Barr to confess. 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:47.040 Based on the confessions, all five teenagers are charged with 0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:51.080 the assault and murder of Katsa Matthews and That Dixmore 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:58.480 five are transformed into Chicago's own Wolfback. Pretty soon, though, 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:02.280 it becomes apparent that this case has major problems for starters. 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:06.679 The teenager's versions of what happened are wildly inconsistent. They 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:09.240 can't agree on how they met up with Katrisa, what 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:11.760 the group did before they ended up in that field, 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:15.360 by the interstate, or who assaulted Katsa, and in what order. 0:14:16.120 --> 0:14:18.240 In fact, one of the only things they do agree 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:20.400 on was that Katsa had been murdered the day she 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:25.120 disappeared November nineteenth. But remember this was contradicted by the 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:29.080 medical examiner, who determined that she'd been killed three weeks later, 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:32.560 around the time her body was found. And then here 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:36.680 comes the biggest problem. After all five teenagers were charged 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:40.520 but before trial, DNA testing from the seaman left on 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:47.000 Kateresa's body excludes all five suspects. Instead, this DNA belongs 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:48.920 to a single, unidentified male. 0:14:49.600 --> 0:14:52.600 This is might drop evidence, the kind of evidence that 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:57.600 should have resulted in these cases being dismissed before trial. 0:14:57.400 --> 0:15:00.840 Exactly these confessions had been proven false. But instead of 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:04.080 dropping its case, the state offers deals to two members 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:08.160 of the Dixmore Five, Cheyenne Sharp and Robert Viel. If 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:11.360 the boys agree to testify against their co defendants, they'll 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:15.360 receive much shorter sentences. Yanna and Robert decide to take 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:18.120 the deal, while the state moves forward with trials for 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:21.360 the other three, and those trials, of course, are based 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:24.720 on the stories told in the confessions despite the DNA. 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:28.240 You talk here about tunnel vision. This is what happens. 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:32.840 The police officers lock into a story. They become invested 0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:35.920 in this notion of a gang rape, and they can't 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:39.000 get out of that box exactly. 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:40.640 And you see this when they have to deal with 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:43.680 the DNA and the prosecutor addresses it during closing arguments. 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:47.400 And what does the prosecutor say. He explains the presence 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:50.560 of DNA as the work of a necrophiliac. 0:15:50.600 --> 0:15:52.840 Now see if this isn't exactly a household term. What 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:54.640 is a necrophiliac? 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:57.600 It's someone who has sex with dead bodies. 0:15:57.760 --> 0:16:00.000 I knew you know that. This is officially the most 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:02.160 batchet theory I think I've ever heard, By the way. 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:03.960 I couldn't agree more So, let's get this straight. 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:06.960 The theory here at the Dixmore five trial was that 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:10.760 five teenage boys sexually assault this victim. They don't leave 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:14.720 a trace of themselves behind. Then here comes this wandering 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:19.000 necrophiliac who comes across the body and decides to defile it. 0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:21.320 I mean, we've heard a lot of excuses for DNA 0:16:21.360 --> 0:16:23.640 in our time, but this one may take the prize. 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:28.320 It's unbelievable that they would even present this to a jury. 0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:32.680 It's that insane. But you have to understand in the 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:39.760 context of a climate of fear, the irrational becomes rational. Now, 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:43.120 in the opening statement in this case, the prosecutor said 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:47.920 that these men, pointing at the five teenagers, these men 0:16:48.200 --> 0:16:51.520 came from a world where so called friends were turned 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:55.240 into a pack of jackals hunting down their prey, and 0:16:55.280 --> 0:16:58.880 then they were done with it, killing it for sport jackals. 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:01.560 Can you believe that this really is Chicago's own wolf pack? 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:10.359 Again, it's a lot easier to fathom locking up a young, beastial, 0:17:10.520 --> 0:17:14.280 feral thing than it is a child, which is in 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:15.359 fact what we were doing. 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:19.240 And when you talk about children as if they were animals, 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:24.080 it becomes so much easier to throw away their lives. 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:26.199 To just not worry about doing that last bit of 0:17:26.280 --> 0:17:28.960 DNA testing figure out whose DNA it was actually left 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:30.320 on Katriza Matthew's body. 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:33.360 It becomes easier to try them as adults. It becomes 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:36.960 easier to sentence them to life sentences or even the 0:17:37.040 --> 0:17:42.320 death penalty. It becomes easier to just lock them up 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:48.520 and throw away the key. 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:59.160 The dehumanizing story embedded in these boys confessions. While it works, 0:17:59.520 --> 0:18:02.760 each that dix Moore five is convicted and the three 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:05.919 who don't cut deals, Robert Taylor, Jonathan Barr, and James 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:09.760 Harden are sentenced to life in prison. Cheyenne Sharp and 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:12.879 Robert Veale serve their time and are eventually released with 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:16.640 murder convictions on the records, But the other three languish 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:18.720 behind bars forgotten people. 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:24.240 But they were not forgotten by their parents or their 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:28.280 loved ones. You know, I'll never forget learning that Jonathan 0:18:28.359 --> 0:18:32.560 Barr and James Hardin's dad would literally drive around with 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:36.639 boxes full of files regarding their cases in his trunk, 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:41.960 trying to get lawyers interested in taking his son's cases. 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:45.320 And Robert Taylor's family did similar things. They would write 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:51.040 letters and letters and letters to lawyers begging them for help. Finally, 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:54.399 in twenty ten, we learned about the case of the 0:18:54.440 --> 0:18:59.760 Dixmore five. Our colleague Josh tepfer knew a public defender 0:18:59.840 --> 0:19:03.760 name named Jennifer Blagg who had represented Robert Taylor on appeal. 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:07.719 She referred the case to Josh and we agreed to 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:08.840 take Robert's case. 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:11.480 By this time, Robert was in his early thirties. 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:15.640 That's right, he had served over fifteen years of his sentence. 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:18.920 Robert Taylor grew up with his parents, sister, and brother 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:22.600 in Harvey, Illinois, right next to Dixmore. From day one, 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:27.080 Robert's dad, a Navy vet, was his strongest defender. Robert 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:29.439 Senior refused to be broken by the fact that his 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:31.720 son had gone to prison because of the words he'd 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:34.960 signed his name to. When the Center on Wrongful Convictions 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:37.840 agreed to take Robert's case, his dad became a major 0:19:37.880 --> 0:19:40.600 presence in our lives. I can still remember the smell 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:43.320 of his leather jacket when he hugged us and welcomed 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:47.200 us to his family's struggle. Around the same time, organizations 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:50.600 like the Innocence Project and Exoneration Project got involved in 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:54.399 representing other members of the Dixmore five. Our collective first 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:58.119 priority was identifying whose DNA had been left at the 0:19:58.119 --> 0:19:58.920 crime scene. 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:02.040 We had a new tool called CODIS, the Combined DNA 0:20:02.119 --> 0:20:05.919 Index System, and over the timeframe since the advent of 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:10.879 DNA testing in the late nineteen eighties, that database had grown, 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:15.239 and so the chances of finding the identity of the 0:20:15.280 --> 0:20:17.920 person who raped and killed Kateresa. 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:20.280 Matthews had grown exactly. I mean, let's remember for a 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:23.040 moment that we're talking here about DNA that was taken 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:25.440 from the semen left on a rape victim. You cannot 0:20:25.520 --> 0:20:28.719 ask for better evidence than that, and it's just sitting 0:20:28.760 --> 0:20:31.119 there forgotten. How can you not want to know whose 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:34.080 DNA that was? Isn't that the most important question in 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:37.959 this case had been sitting there unanswered for fifteen years? 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:42.879 But where was it sitting? That was their first challenge. 0:20:42.920 --> 0:20:47.359 And after a year of searching, we found the DNA 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:51.040 in some warehouse or in some trailer, and we then 0:20:51.119 --> 0:20:54.360 had to get permission from the court to test the DNA. 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:58.240 We then sent the DNA off for testing to a lab, 0:20:58.800 --> 0:21:02.919 and we waited and the lab extracted a profile, and 0:21:02.960 --> 0:21:05.560 when that profile was extracted, it was run through the 0:21:05.600 --> 0:21:10.840 CODA database. A miracle of miracles. In March of twenty eleven, 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:15.200 we got a hit and the hit was to a man, 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:19.600 not a boy, a man named Willie Randolph. 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:24.000 Now Willie Randolph was a troubled guy. He was much 0:21:24.040 --> 0:21:28.000 older than Kateresa or the dixmore five. When Kateresa disappeared. 0:21:28.280 --> 0:21:31.560 He was thirty three years old, more than twice her age. 0:21:32.160 --> 0:21:34.280 Willy had been in and out of prison his entire 0:21:34.359 --> 0:21:37.879 adult life for all sorts of different offenses. In fact, 0:21:37.920 --> 0:21:41.000 he'd been paroled only a few months before Kateresa was 0:21:41.080 --> 0:21:44.240 killed to a house within a mile of where she lived, 0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:48.000 and Willie Randolph had previously been accused of rape in 0:21:48.080 --> 0:21:51.840 that very same field by the interstate where Kateresa's body 0:21:51.960 --> 0:21:55.160 was found. This is a person with a history of 0:21:55.200 --> 0:21:58.640 these kinds of attacks, and his DNA and no one 0:21:58.680 --> 0:22:02.760 else's was present at the crime scene. Finally, it all 0:22:02.880 --> 0:22:03.880 made sense. 0:22:04.280 --> 0:22:06.959 When we learned the identity of Willy Randolph, when we 0:22:07.040 --> 0:22:11.840 investigated his background, when we learned the history of abusing 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:17.800 and sexually assaulting women, including young women teenagers, we thought 0:22:17.840 --> 0:22:20.440 this case was over. We thought we are going to 0:22:20.520 --> 0:22:23.280 get these boys out tomorrow. 0:22:23.440 --> 0:22:26.359 Exactly, there's no relationship at all between Willy Randolph and 0:22:26.440 --> 0:22:29.120 any of the Dixmore five. He's not mentioned in any 0:22:29.119 --> 0:22:30.199 of their confessions. 0:22:30.440 --> 0:22:33.000 And why would there be a relationship. This is a 0:22:33.040 --> 0:22:36.919 man with a long history of violence in his record, 0:22:36.960 --> 0:22:39.480 and none of these boys had a history of violence. 0:22:39.640 --> 0:22:41.960 Right, He's twice their age when they were growing up 0:22:42.000 --> 0:22:43.439 in the neighborhood. He was in prison. 0:22:43.760 --> 0:22:47.040 Willie Randolph is the guy who did this to Katrisa Matthews. 0:22:47.440 --> 0:22:50.119 The DNA proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt. 0:22:50.680 --> 0:22:53.639 Now we had to convince the prosecutors to do the 0:22:53.720 --> 0:22:54.200 right thing. 0:22:54.720 --> 0:22:57.719 But as incredible as it sounds, the state wouldn't let 0:22:57.800 --> 0:23:01.399 go of their necrophilia theory, and the case dragged on 0:23:01.640 --> 0:23:02.400 for months. 0:23:02.680 --> 0:23:06.840 You know, old habits die hard. The state actually suggested 0:23:06.960 --> 0:23:11.800 again and maybe Willie Randolph was their mystery necrophiliac. 0:23:12.040 --> 0:23:14.520 This is an unbelievable thing. Still, they're clinging to this 0:23:14.600 --> 0:23:18.199 theory that five teenage boys assaulted Kateresa Matthews, left no 0:23:18.320 --> 0:23:21.640 trace of their DNA behind, and here comes Willy Randolph, 0:23:21.760 --> 0:23:24.560 the older man, the man of the history of assaults 0:23:24.560 --> 0:23:27.440 and violent crime and rape in that very field, and 0:23:27.560 --> 0:23:30.600 just happens to defile her body. It beggars belief. 0:23:30.880 --> 0:23:35.040 It still took six to seven months to investigate whether 0:23:35.119 --> 0:23:38.600 there was any link between Willie Randolph and any of 0:23:38.640 --> 0:23:41.280 the Dix More five, there wasn't one. 0:23:41.520 --> 0:23:44.719 Meanwhile, we were coming back to court every few weeks 0:23:44.720 --> 0:23:47.560 to get an update on the state's investigation and to 0:23:47.720 --> 0:23:51.199 ask the judge is today the day of exoneration? And 0:23:51.320 --> 0:23:55.040 for six long months we were disappointed. I remember coming 0:23:55.040 --> 0:23:58.639 home after those court dates and crying with frustration that 0:23:58.760 --> 0:24:01.320 I was able to go home. Robert Taylor, our clients 0:24:01.359 --> 0:24:02.600 had to go back to a prison cell. 0:24:03.359 --> 0:24:06.160 Yeah. I remember pulling out my hair and I had 0:24:06.200 --> 0:24:06.880 hair back there. 0:24:07.840 --> 0:24:08.560 That's where it all went. 0:24:08.680 --> 0:24:11.280 That's where it all went because we had the best 0:24:11.520 --> 0:24:17.320 possible evidence of their innocence. And not only were they 0:24:17.359 --> 0:24:22.200