Speaker 1: Hither. It's Steve Fishman with Orbit Media. We're back with
Speaker 1: another episode of Death and Deceit in Alliance. I hope
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Speaker 2: Previously on Death and Deceit in Alliance.
Speaker 3: Found in a pool of her own blood, she said
Speaker 3: she was murdered.
Speaker 4: And I I mean, you could have just knocked me
Speaker 4: over right now.
Speaker 5: They tell me these pretty body seene in there so
Speaker 5: gloves end boys on this one. That's I mean, there's
Speaker 5: just a massive amount of blood around her face, like
Speaker 5: shock and awe.
Speaker 6: It's like as if it's not even real, like something
Speaker 6: has to be wrong.
Speaker 7: And then one.
Speaker 8: Day I just lost everything and I didn't care about
Speaker 8: life no more.
Speaker 9: And David knew about it, even took advantage of me.
Speaker 2: This is Death and Deceit and Alliance, a real time
Speaker 2: investigation into whether David Thorne killed Yvonne Lane. I'm Maggie Freeling.
Speaker 2: Joe Wilkes. Is the entire case against David Thorn. Police
Speaker 2: prosecutors and David all agree David was not the actual
Speaker 2: murderer because he was towns away at a martial arts class.
Speaker 2: But to police and prosecutors, this didn't mean David was innocent.
Speaker 2: It simply meant there must have been an accomplice, someone
Speaker 2: David hired to have Yvonne Lane killed, and that person,
Speaker 2: they said was his friend. Joe Wilkes. The man known
Speaker 2: as Joseph Isaac Wilkes grew up in a small Ohio
Speaker 2: town called Dover, about eighty five miles south of Cleveland.
Speaker 2: He was born Joseph Isaac Brown June fifth, nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: to Dorothy and Isaac Brown. It was a terrible upbringing,
Speaker 2: as Joe explained in his trial testimony. Joe had two siblings,
Speaker 2: Jennifer and Jason. Joe said that he only lived with
Speaker 2: his biological parents for a year and a half because
Speaker 2: his father threw his little brother down the stairs, breaking
Speaker 2: both of his wrists, arm and fracturing his skull. All
Speaker 2: three kids were put into foster homes. In kindergarten, Joe
Speaker 2: was psychologically evaluated and labeled as quote behaviorally handicapped and
Speaker 2: emotionally disturbed, and thus he was placed in special education classes.
Speaker 2: Around this time, at five years old, Joe was able
Speaker 2: to go back and live with his biological mother again,
Speaker 2: but things didn't improve. At nine, Joe was put back
Speaker 2: into foster care. He said he was taken out of
Speaker 2: his mother's home because quote, they were abusive physically, emotionally,
Speaker 2: and sexual. It's unclear who Joe meant by they. He
Speaker 2: and his biological siblings were eventually adopted when Joe was
Speaker 2: twelve by Sterling and Brenda Wilkes from Atwater. Atwater is
Speaker 2: just fifteen minutes from Alliance. Joe's life seemed better with
Speaker 2: the Wilkeses, but the damage from his past was severe.
Speaker 2: In ninth grade, Joe was evaluated again. A report on
Speaker 2: the evaluation says Joe had an inability to maintain interpersonal relationships,
Speaker 2: show's inappropriate behavior or feelings under normal circumstances, pervasive feelings
Speaker 2: of unhappiness or depression, and a tendency to develop physical
Speaker 2: symptoms or fear associated with personal or school problems. The
Speaker 2: reportless behaviors such as nervousness, twitching, lying, cheating, and mood changes.
Speaker 2: It says Joe was secretive and felt worthless, that he
Speaker 2: got lonely and could be clingy. It also says he
Speaker 2: has a reoccurring fear of doing bad and often acted
Speaker 2: to please other people. Joe had motor skill problems too,
Speaker 2: and was reportedly shaky even when he wasn't nervous. Doctors
Speaker 2: also noted that Joe often had negative feelings towards himself
Speaker 2: and would say things like I'm stupid and you must
Speaker 2: have me confused with someone smart. At fourteen, the shaky, twitchy,
Speaker 2: traumatized teen entered high school and was a target of
Speaker 2: bullies and the butt of jokes.
Speaker 8: Here's kind of a loner, didn't really have a lot
Speaker 8: of friends. I kind of felt bad for him, kind
Speaker 8: of like a I don't know, I have a soft
Speaker 8: spot for people.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 8: He didn't want to have your best home life.
Speaker 2: This is Josh McComb, who you heard last episode, one
Speaker 2: of the kids the police asked about Yvan's mur.
Speaker 8: He was a little smartest kid. He wasn't you know.
Speaker 8: She Mi Ka was all right, but he just didn't
Speaker 8: have a lot of friends.
Speaker 2: Joe testified that he became involved in drugs like acid
Speaker 2: and cocaine and eventually wound up homeless. This is when
Speaker 2: he met David. Joe said they met at a party
Speaker 2: through a friend and eventually they started hanging out. Josh
Speaker 2: McComb was friends with David and eventually started hanging around
Speaker 2: Joe too.
Speaker 8: I actually met Joe through my sister. They were he
Speaker 8: was in the younger grade, so my sister hung out
Speaker 8: at his house and at some point I don't remember
Speaker 8: when I ended up.
Speaker 9: Hanging out over there too.
Speaker 8: She didn't have, you know, good parents.
Speaker 7: He didn't.
Speaker 8: I don't remember ever seeing his dad around. His adopted dad,
Speaker 8: and he's fall back.
Speaker 2: Joe was younger than David by nearly a decade, so
Speaker 2: he was like a big brother figure. As David said
Speaker 2: in the last episode, he also felt bad for Joe
Speaker 2: and would try to help him in any way he could,
Speaker 2: from giving him rides to letting him sleep on his couch.
Speaker 2: David had his own place. David says he even bought
Speaker 2: Joe his first car in October nineteen ninety eight or seven,
Speaker 2: a Volkswagen Rabbit for three hundred dollars, So it's not
Speaker 2: surprising that Joe was said to idolize David. That was
Speaker 2: just the kind of person I've been told David was,
Speaker 2: even by Josh, who was also younger than David.
Speaker 8: David was kind of like a big brother to all
Speaker 8: of us.
Speaker 2: By this time, Joe was spending a lot of time
Speaker 2: around David, and David started teaching Joe martial arts. Joe
Speaker 2: was picked on his entire life, and it was probably empowering,
Speaker 2: like now he could fight back. Josh said, Joe was
Speaker 2: not a natural fighter.
Speaker 8: Didn't have guts, you know, he didn't have like I
Speaker 8: don't think the kid ever been in a fight in
Speaker 8: his life, and I don't, you know, he got in
Speaker 8: trouble and stuff, and I know that he just wasn't
Speaker 8: a violent kid.
Speaker 6: He wasn't.
Speaker 2: Although around this time Joe's behavior did start to turn
Speaker 2: to mischief. What I found to be a quiet, victimized,
Speaker 2: keep to himself kid pleaded guilty to stealing shoes on
Speaker 2: January twenty first, nineteen ninety nine, when he would have
Speaker 2: been eighteen. This is the first criminal record I can
Speaker 2: find for Joe. And of course Joe was poor fending
Speaker 2: for himself, and he probably just needed new shoes. Through
Speaker 2: this time, Joe was still attending public school, but he
Speaker 2: left in eleventh grade and joined a vocational school, the
Speaker 2: same one David and Yvonne attended, but the vocational school
Speaker 2: was short lived. Joe got in a fight with a
Speaker 2: boy named Chris Campbell, who is a huge, huge part
Speaker 2: of the story. We'll get to him later. After the fight,
Speaker 2: Joe was sent to a behavioral school. Finally, in the
Speaker 2: spring of nineteen ninety eight, Joe's senior year, he dropped
Speaker 2: out of vocational school and he was done with school altogether.
Speaker 2: And I just want to say that all of this
Speaker 2: breaks my heart. Joe doesn't seem like a particularly bad kid,
Speaker 2: just troubled. Joe was also a good looking kid, handsome,
Speaker 2: six foot four, athletic. He seems like he had a
Speaker 2: lot of potential. After he dropped out of school, Joe
Speaker 2: wasn't working. In fact, it doesn't seem like he ever
Speaker 2: worked much. He said he worked at a restaurant for
Speaker 2: a month when he was sixteen, and then after that
Speaker 2: he'd done random construction jobs with his grandpa. At the
Speaker 2: time he was arrested, he said he was supporting himself
Speaker 2: through his girlfriends and the kindness of people like David
Speaker 2: and Josh. After a bad breakup Joe, Joe moved in
Speaker 2: with his friend Summer Enoch and her parents, Karen and Brent.
Speaker 2: Karen testified they were okay helping Joe get on his feet,
Speaker 2: but if he was going to stay with them, he
Speaker 2: needed to get a job and follow their rules, like
Speaker 2: letting them know he'd be home for dinner if he
Speaker 2: was working, stuff like that. But he didn't follow any
Speaker 2: of the rules or get a job, and Joe wound
Speaker 2: up on the street again. Yvonne's body was discovered on
Speaker 2: April first, nineteen ninety nine. Joe was kicked out of
Speaker 2: Karen's house in May. In July, Joe was arrested for
Speaker 2: criminal mischief. He was convicted in order to pay a
Speaker 2: three thousand dollars fine and released just a week later.
Speaker 2: Joe says he was out partying, drinking, doing coke, and
Speaker 2: dropping acid. He was having a typical Joe night and
Speaker 2: it would be the last one he'd ever have. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: the police had received a tip which led to a
Speaker 2: young woman named Rose Moore.
Speaker 6: I de kepted William Lucklow interviewing Rose More also president
Speaker 6: in Sorry protecting Buck Sampson. If you just go ahead
Speaker 6: and tell me what you what transpired several months ago
Speaker 6: along with your boyfriend Chris Campbell.
Speaker 7: Okay.
Speaker 2: Twenty three year old Rose told officers that she and
Speaker 2: her boyfriend Chris Campbell were in the food court at
Speaker 2: the Carnation Mall on April thirty.
Speaker 10: First went in the Cathay court waiting on my dad
Speaker 10: and you got something to eat? I think its be
Speaker 10: French fried or something.
Speaker 2: Rose says they bumped into Joe Wilkes. She didn't remember
Speaker 2: the time, but it was dark out and likely after work.
Speaker 2: Rose and Chris worked at a telemarketing center in the
Speaker 2: Carnation Mall. Chris Campbell knew Joe from school and the
Speaker 2: three of them started talking. Remember Chris was the kid
Speaker 2: Joe got into a fight with just a few months earlier,
Speaker 2: the fight that got Joe kicked out a vocational school.
Speaker 2: Since Joe was from Atwater, Chris asked him what he
Speaker 2: was doing in Alliance.
Speaker 10: Joe said that he had a job to do that
Speaker 10: some guys telling him to stay at the Tyeford in
Speaker 10: for the weekend, and he said, you know, well, he
Speaker 10: really got off the subject because Chrits kept trying to
Speaker 10: get it out of him what he was there for.
Speaker 10: And I think he went to say and Chris, you know,
Speaker 10: kept saying, well, I'm your friend, you know you can
Speaker 10: trust me, And then he got off the subject started
Speaker 10: talking about like the next Joe did, and then Chris
Speaker 10: started up again and next and you know, well, what
Speaker 10: what okay job are you here to do? And they said, well,
Speaker 10: some guy paid me to kills some girl an Alliance.
Speaker 10: And he didn't say anything. You're making a prince and around.
Speaker 2: I'm not glad to Joe responded that some guy paid
Speaker 2: him to kill a girl in Alliance and was paid
Speaker 2: three hundred dollars up front. He said the guy who
Speaker 2: was paying him also paid for his room at the
Speaker 2: Comfort in that night to stay in Alliance. The Comfort
Speaker 2: Inn was inside the mall. Rose told police that then
Speaker 2: Joe pulled out a knife from a sheath and showed
Speaker 2: it to.
Speaker 10: Them, and he showed it the knife that he had
Speaker 10: on it. I think he was the next clocket and
Speaker 10: it was it looked like a honey knife.
Speaker 7: To me.
Speaker 10: It wasn't an clock at night. It was bigger than that.
Speaker 10: And he showed it and he said it that that
Speaker 10: he was basically killer d it was. It was better
Speaker 10: than a clock at knife. It looked like honey knife
Speaker 10: to me.
Speaker 9: A letter sheet, but it.
Speaker 10: Might have been. I'm not really like tig, but it
Speaker 10: could have been. I think it was because when he
Speaker 10: told it outthing went like that, how long do you
Speaker 10: think it?
Speaker 7: Like? Well, I got that bag.
Speaker 2: About eight inches is remember that because Joe later said
Speaker 2: he had a pocket knife. Then Rose said, after a
Speaker 2: few more minutes of conversation with Joe, he wrote his
Speaker 2: name and page your number on a card for Chris
Speaker 2: to have for the future. Rose told police that's when
Speaker 2: her dad showed up to pick them up and they left.
Speaker 2: Rose also described what Joe was wearing well.
Speaker 10: At the moment after from he had the Nike y
Speaker 10: app been on it as it was like a light
Speaker 10: try white, black and blue. I'm not clogging on the
Speaker 10: colors that I know. It was white for sure. It
Speaker 10: was like a white jacket and he had like a
Speaker 10: white paint top underneath that I think, and she had
Speaker 10: white pants and white pants things like Nike. You can't
Speaker 10: why you haven't come forward because I've been scared for
Speaker 10: my life because Chris Campbell told me if I said anything,
Speaker 10: and he didn't come after me. And that's why I've
Speaker 10: been scared, because I don't want to die. Sure, I'm
Speaker 10: children to raise.
Speaker 2: They ended the conversation shortly after that. Two days later,
Speaker 2: police were looking for Joe and found him hungover at
Speaker 2: a friend's house after the night of partying and brought
Speaker 2: him in for questioning. Joe said the police drove him
Speaker 2: to the station and read him his miranda rights, although
Speaker 2: he was not under arrest at the time. The detectives
Speaker 2: in the room with Joe were Bud Samson, William Mucklow,
Speaker 2: and John Leech. In a deposition, Joe was asked whether
Speaker 2: he remembered being interviewed by the police, and Joe responded, quote,
Speaker 2: they never interviewed me. They interrogated me the whole time
Speaker 2: they were interrogating me before they pushed the play button.
Speaker 2: Joe's statement was recorded over two days.
Speaker 11: Today date of July fourteenth, nineteen ninety nine, Wednesday. It's
Speaker 11: thirteen or nine hours. My namely Detective Bug Sampson where
Speaker 11: they were bent a police department interview room. I want
Speaker 11: me to Detective William Mucklow and Detective John Leah of
Speaker 11: the Alliance Police Department.
Speaker 9: Also in the room is Joseph Isaac Books.
Speaker 2: In the recording, police read Joe his Miranda writes on
Speaker 2: record and then got right to the point, can.
Speaker 9: You tell us your part in this.
Speaker 7: Damn Roddie all did about four years now he's been
Speaker 7: training me in shoot fighting, and he's always been talking
Speaker 7: to me like how long she was since that one
Speaker 7: of the ones out of his life and then he
Speaker 7: can have his little boy.
Speaker 9: And then.
Speaker 12: For years I told him to cheat me out then
Speaker 12: want nothing to do with it, and then what wng
Speaker 12: was that Juba way okay? And then one day about
Speaker 12: the twils everything and I didn't care about life.
Speaker 7: No more, didn't just do about it to any of
Speaker 7: me and we hadn't smart time.
Speaker 12: Faddy fourball brother, oh fair?
Speaker 9: What did David.
Speaker 7: Thing was like, well be you and you wants to
Speaker 7: be better to be? If I can make it that way,
Speaker 7: I'll tell you to do something for me.
Speaker 2: Joe said that David asked him to kill y Vaughan,
Speaker 2: and Joe, with nothing to lose, agreed, what did he
Speaker 2: approach you to do that?
Speaker 9: To always say about a month before it hated.
Speaker 7: And he told me if they didn't make sure I
Speaker 7: was okay and then a fine stay out of it.
Speaker 9: And so did he take me up? What morning to
Speaker 9: me to Alian.
Speaker 7: Swall at the culture did and Alpy day for a
Speaker 7: room without a dollar below and then he sent me
Speaker 7: to get a knife and so baseball gloves.
Speaker 2: Jo said. David gave him money for a knife and
Speaker 2: baseball gloves and paid for the hotel room for him
Speaker 2: at the Alliance Carnation Mall.
Speaker 9: How much money did David tell you?
Speaker 12: I told me what's gonna get me out of it?
Speaker 12: He got to give our life.
Speaker 2: Better, josephs. The day of the murder, they drove around
Speaker 2: and discussed the plan.
Speaker 7: Thanks all me, how to do any told every by
Speaker 7: waiting the story little all about nine nine thirty insurance
Speaker 7: study by ten o'clock.
Speaker 9: Because it's done to me and he'll be leaving.
Speaker 12: They'll have jobs for them in the in the chest, okay,
Speaker 12: God and.
Speaker 2: Joe says that since David would be at his class
Speaker 2: with Josh and the Lion Cub that night, he'd have
Speaker 2: an alibi, so to make sure the murder happened in
Speaker 2: that timeframe by ten pm. Then, he says, David dropped
Speaker 2: him at the mall a comfort in receipt shows Joe
Speaker 2: rented a room at one forty six and paid cash
Speaker 2: with one hundred dollars bill. Then he went to Kmart
Speaker 2: to get the gloves, and he went back to David's car.
Speaker 2: David drove him around and eventually he wound up back
Speaker 2: at the Enox. The Enox are the people who'd taken
Speaker 2: Joe in for a while, but he wasn't following their rules.
Speaker 2: Joe was back on good terms with them and doing
Speaker 2: a job with Brent Enoch that evening. The Enox testified
Speaker 2: that David stopped by with the cub for about a
Speaker 2: half an hour and then he left around five pm
Speaker 2: for class. The Enox and Joe then ate dinner and
Speaker 2: after Brent took Joe to a carpentry job. On the
Speaker 2: way to the job, Joe asked Brent if he'd drop
Speaker 2: him at the Carnation Mall. After Brent testified that Joe
Speaker 2: told him he was meeting David there and then spending
Speaker 2: the night at David's to clean David's garage. Instead, Joe
Speaker 2: says he stayed at the mall, where he allegedly bumped
Speaker 2: into Rose and Chris and allegedly told them he was
Speaker 2: in town to kill a girl.
Speaker 12: And how did you get to the house from the mall?
Speaker 12: I went from the mall to the house, and.
Speaker 7: I was walking down and I walked to her house
Speaker 7: and the door was unwalked up.
Speaker 2: And did remember Yvonne Son Preston said he never locked
Speaker 2: the door when his mom asked him to.
Speaker 7: I was screamed your name, and I was walking up
Speaker 7: the first slightly stand when she was coming down to
Speaker 7: the bedroom, did she and she met me one okay,
Speaker 7: what did you make him?
Speaker 9: But she was like, hey, what are you doing.
Speaker 7: To hear the shields? I ain't seen you a whole time.
Speaker 7: I was like, yo, Dad just wanted me to stop
Speaker 7: and see how things were. And yeah, and then where
Speaker 7: instead the talking.
Speaker 3: For about three or five minutes and then okay, I
Speaker 3: know this is to be hard, but we got to
Speaker 3: go through and you tell me what happened. Yet, where
Speaker 3: were you sitting? Were you're sitting upstairs, you're downstairs.
Speaker 7: We're on the second, the third one, okay, and we're
Speaker 7: still the job starting then Stormer.
Speaker 2: What Joe said is that they were sitting on the
Speaker 2: couch and he reached his arm around her body, pulled
Speaker 2: her hair back, and slit her throat and then she
Speaker 2: got up, tried to run, went to the sliding glass door,
Speaker 2: turned around and asked him why. Joe answered, because David
Speaker 2: wanted me to. Then Yvonne collapsed. Joe says he went
Speaker 2: to the hotel and sat up all night thinking about it.
Speaker 2: An employee for the phone company Ameriatech testified at trial
Speaker 2: that the next morning, April first, someone called David at
Speaker 2: eight twenty eight am from a mall payphone. Prosecutors pointed
Speaker 2: to that as proof that David left work to pick
Speaker 2: up Joe. The morning after the murder was committed. Now,
Speaker 2: at nine am, David did take a break from work.
Speaker 2: His coworker testified that David left for about an hour
Speaker 2: and a half and returned with McDonald's. The sandwiches were hot,
Speaker 2: the prosecution said. During this time, David picked up Joe
Speaker 2: at the hotel and took him back to the Enoch residence.
Speaker 12: Why do you pick you upout offs on the way?
Speaker 2: Joe says he put his clothes in a bag and
Speaker 2: gave the bag to David, but forgot about his pants,
Speaker 2: so he threw them in the woods and he doesn't
Speaker 2: remember where his shoes went.
Speaker 9: What did you do with your shoes?
Speaker 13: Oh, I don't remote yourself, Okay, Why did you throw
Speaker 13: the phoenix thing on the pfio and show really.
Speaker 9: The gloves were the gloves off? Don't worried as you want.
Speaker 12: Dump street. Mcdoud's up by your house.
Speaker 9: The house, and you ran back in a month. Now
Speaker 9: that you run down State Street?
Speaker 2: Is State Street is the main road in Alliance. It's
Speaker 2: really more like a highway. Joe said he ran down
Speaker 2: State Street nearly four miles back to the hotel, presumably
Speaker 2: covered in blood on the way. He says he ditched
Speaker 2: the knife on a side street.
Speaker 7: So why did David want to star David when you
Speaker 7: want to have to pay so much money from Charles?
Speaker 2: Yes, he told you this, he says, So David didn't
Speaker 2: have to pay so much in child support.
Speaker 9: Are you sorry for what you did?
Speaker 12: Because I can't believe I did it?
Speaker 9: Hey?
Speaker 12: Well, and are you willing to.
Speaker 9: Stand up for yourself?
Speaker 6: No antutifying art against the Dave thorny.
Speaker 9: Hey anything else?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 11: Okay, that's going to conclude this interview. It's one day,
Speaker 11: July fourteenth, nineteen ninety nine. Time now is thirteen twenty
Speaker 11: six hours.
Speaker 5: What did you go?
Speaker 2: After Joe finished his statement, he was charged with aggravated murder.
Speaker 2: Twenty six year old David Thorn was also arrested and
Speaker 2: charged with complicity to murder for hiring Joe to kill
Speaker 2: Yvonne Lane. David went to trials six months later on
Speaker 2: January eighteenth, two thousand, Joe took a plea to take
Speaker 2: the death penalty off the table and was given thirty
Speaker 2: years to life for his testimony against David. Prosecutors forcefully
Speaker 2: argued that David hired Joe to kill Vaughan and that
Speaker 2: Joe was the perfect person to do it. He was
Speaker 2: broke and idolized David. Witness testimony, person after person described
Speaker 2: Joe's conversations about David and his seeming obsception with David.
Speaker 2: The friendless teen would do anything for him, witnesses said,
Speaker 2: and the motive David was upset that he had to
Speaker 2: pay child support. Remember, in the months leading up to
Speaker 2: the trial, David was court ordered to pay three hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty one dollars per month starting January nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 2: But at trial, the coroner was unable to pin down
Speaker 2: an exact time of death. He testified that Ivonne's time
Speaker 2: of death was within a seventeen hour window sometime after
Speaker 2: seven pm, so from seven pm to when she was
Speaker 2: found around noon the next day am. He did not
Speaker 2: remember if he did a sexual assault kit, and he
Speaker 2: did not take body temperature. He testified that despite a
Speaker 2: four x eight inch slice to her throat, which cut
Speaker 2: her trachea, an internal and external left side carotid arteries,
Speaker 2: and left her nearly decapitated, he said, Yvonne was likely
Speaker 2: capable of some movement, and it's possible she could have
Speaker 2: said one to two words. That fits with Joe's story
Speaker 2: that Yvonne got up, walked to the sliding glass doors,
Speaker 2: turned around, asked him why, and collapsed. David's team did
Speaker 2: not present an expert to refute any of this. You
Speaker 2: know that the gaping wound that had severed her vocal
Speaker 2: cords may not have left her able to speak or move,
Speaker 2: and that it seems unlikely that such a small knife,
Speaker 2: remember Joe said it was his pocket knife, a three
Speaker 2: point one inch blade, to have made this injury, or
Speaker 2: the fact that such a bloody wound would likely leave
Speaker 2: evidence in the crevices of the folding knife and Joe's clothes.
Speaker 2: No blood or other evidence was found on the clothes
Speaker 2: the police recovered, or the knife Joe led the cops to,
Speaker 2: and no one questioned why the coroner couldn't be more
Speaker 2: precise in his time of death estimate, and if he
Speaker 2: can't establish a precise time of death, then the list
Speaker 2: of possible suspects is even longer. David said he felt
Speaker 2: like his counsel was inadequate. Over All, the prosecution called
Speaker 2: eighteen witnesses and the defense only called three. David also
Speaker 2: said that his lawyer often smelled of alcohol.
Speaker 5: I don't know. I guess it was like a high
Speaker 5: out like it almost like if you walk into a
Speaker 5: cheap bar where you just had that key cigarettes. Now
Speaker 5: that's that's the only way I can really describe it.
Speaker 5: And was disheveled again the same suit and drink all
Speaker 5: the diff He's weapon it and acap afkan my grandparents
Speaker 5: for gum and candy. I mean, even the judge picked
Speaker 5: up on it to a certain extent, because the judge
Speaker 5: told him to swow it down and to speak clearly,
Speaker 5: and then other times even told him to speak up,
Speaker 5: and even just my mind along.
Speaker 2: I'm going to note here that the years after David's case,
Speaker 2: Hoppt died outside of his home from hypothermia due to
Speaker 2: or as a consequence of acute alcohol intoxication. Now, in fairness,
Speaker 2: it doesn't seem the defense was all bad. For example,
Speaker 2: on cross examination of the coroner, the defense was able
Speaker 2: to get him to say it's unlikely the pocket knife,
Speaker 2: the alleged murder weapon, made Yvonne's injury, and Joe, who
Speaker 2: supposedly killed Ivan David. His story was all over the place.
Speaker 2: He told multiple versions of who drove him, where and when,
Speaker 2: who picked him up, what happened to his clothes, the knife,
Speaker 2: the gloves. The defense pointed out his differing statements, and
Speaker 2: to me it was clear that Joe was less than
Speaker 2: a reliable witness. But in the end it took the
Speaker 2: jury only three hours to decide that they believed the
Speaker 2: prosecution's evidence and Joe's confession was the truth that David
Speaker 2: hired Joe to Killy Vaughan. On January twenty fifth, two thousand,
Speaker 2: the jury found David guilty in complicity to murder. At
Speaker 2: the sentencing, the jury was deadlocked at the appropriate sentence.
Speaker 2: They didn't know whether to sentence David to death or not.
Speaker 2: At the time, he would have been executed by Old Sparky,
Speaker 2: a macabre nickname for Ohio's electric chair. David made an
Speaker 2: impassioned plea for his life to the jury, and he
Speaker 2: read it to me.
Speaker 5: I respect you the jury, I respect the job that
Speaker 5: you have done. I also respect that it was a
Speaker 5: hard job. I did not do this, and although you
Speaker 5: thought that the evidence proved it, I know in my
Speaker 5: heart and soul I did not do this. I need
Speaker 5: to tell you Yvonne's family, I'm sorry that Yvonne had died.
Speaker 5: She was your daughter and the mother of my son Brandon.
Speaker 5: Go my love very much. I'm here asking you that
Speaker 5: you commit me to write my son from prison and
Speaker 5: be his father, because I know what it meant to
Speaker 5: lose mind at such a young age, and I wouldn't
Speaker 5: wish this on anyone. I just want to thank my
Speaker 5: family and friends, especially my grandparents, for all of the
Speaker 5: support they had given me throughout this whole case, and
Speaker 5: I wouldn't trade any one of you for the world.
Speaker 2: After almost two days of deliberation, the jury still couldn't
Speaker 2: agree on a sentence, so the judge eventually sentenced David
Speaker 2: to life in prison without the possibility of parole, where
Speaker 2: David still sits today, dead in the water. But for
Speaker 2: a period hope was renewed and a woman named Sue
Speaker 2: came into his life. She was a family friend, though
Speaker 2: not a close one. She was a humble post office
Speaker 2: worker who'd follow the case like just about everyone in
Speaker 2: the county. A lot of people were satisfied with the verdict,
Speaker 2: but Sue felt like something wasn't right. She'd known David
Speaker 2: from the post office and he was always the sweetest guy.
Speaker 2: She told me something was wrong. She felt it in
Speaker 2: her gut.
Speaker 10: The guy I knew that came into the post office,
Speaker 10: that threw up his fan away and granned all the time,
Speaker 10: and he's just the nicest guy ever.
Speaker 7: I thought, no, this can't be.
Speaker 2: Sue had no background in investigations, no law enforcement experience,
Speaker 2: but she was driven and had time since she was retired,
Speaker 2: and she started to dig and talk to David about
Speaker 2: his case. She was a couple decades older than David,
Speaker 2: but over the years they became friends. She became his ally,
Speaker 2: his connection to the outside, his shot at freedom, and
Speaker 2: later in a ceremony at the prison, his wife. At first,
Speaker 2: though she was just a woman poking around.
Speaker 9: I just went around knocking on doors because I was
Speaker 9: green at this I didn't know what I was doing.
Speaker 7: I was just wanted to talk to everybody and get
Speaker 7: some information.
Speaker 2: Sue was convinced David didn't hire Joe to kill Yvaughan.
Speaker 2: She wrote to Joe too, I said, this is this
Speaker 2: is who I am. I know these people.
Speaker 4: I'd like to know your story.
Speaker 7: And he ignored me.
Speaker 9: He'd been screwed over.
Speaker 4: By so many people by that time. He wasn't about
Speaker 4: to play the game again. And then I got the
Speaker 4: documents at that point, and I read him and I
Speaker 4: wrote him again and I said, I don't think you
Speaker 4: did this because your statement isn't lining up.
Speaker 2: And that's when Joe agreed to talk to her, coming
Speaker 2: up on death and deceit in alliance.
Speaker 3: To me, from what I understand of the case, stuff
Speaker 3: just didn't make sense.
Speaker 2: The guy I knew that.
Speaker 4: Came into the post office that threw up his hand
Speaker 4: away and grinned all the time, and he's just the
Speaker 4: nicest guy ever. I thought, no, this can't be Where
Speaker 4: he said that, they put him in a room and
Speaker 4: they changed him to the wall by his arm and
Speaker 4: spit on him, and they told him that they wanted
Speaker 4: him to confess.
Speaker 3: Bred Turvey, a nationally non criminal forensics expert, pipped apart
Speaker 3: what he calls a botched cake.
Speaker 4: Simpthing's missing, can't I can't understand.
Speaker 12: There's got to be more.
Speaker 10: He could have paid off his entire eighteen years of
Speaker 10: child support with a check.
Speaker 9: Why didn't the prosecution turn this over on?
Speaker 7: What is going on here? So it makes you feel
Speaker 7: like there's more to the story.
Speaker 2: Death and deceit In Allancience is produced and reported by
Speaker 2: me Maggie Freeling, with editorial consulting from Amber Hunt. Aaron
Speaker 2: Case is our legal researcher. Our executive producer is Steve Fishman.
Speaker 2: Our engineer and production coordinator is Austin Smith. Eric Axelrod
Speaker 2: is our assistant producer.