Speaker 1: On a hot day in June, I drove to a
Speaker 1: quiet residential neighborhood just outside of Austin, Texas to visit
Speaker 1: Andre Causey. Although the house is large and spacious, Andrea
Speaker 1: doesn't need much to be happy. He enjoys the little
Speaker 1: things in life, like his fish aquarium.
Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, I got that fish aquaria
Speaker 2: off side road.
Speaker 1: The aquarium sits right at the entrance of his house.
Speaker 1: You'll probably hear it bubbling throughout our interview. It's adorned
Speaker 1: with artificial plants and a little sign that says no fishing.
Speaker 2: The big one in that goldfish is the first one
Speaker 2: that I got there my wife. When it got they
Speaker 2: didn't want to set it to her because she said
Speaker 2: I was going to try to see if they were
Speaker 2: going to live. And they say, oh, we can't see you,
Speaker 2: no fish if you can't kill them. But yeah, but
Speaker 2: I got damn And when we ended up going back
Speaker 2: and buying some more, I got some more. Allergy's my
Speaker 2: first fish to quid. So I think I'm doing pretty
Speaker 2: good today.
Speaker 1: Andre is doing pretty good. He takes pride in raising
Speaker 1: his fish. He's nicknamed them his grand babies. Since he
Speaker 1: doesn't have any of his own yet.
Speaker 2: Because a solid grand kids we have, yeah, you all
Speaker 2: the grand kids we have our tears and doesn't have
Speaker 2: any kids.
Speaker 1: Andre spent decades in prison for murder. He told me
Speaker 1: on beautiful days like today, he'd look outside and daydream
Speaker 1: about a life like this, one simple with the people
Speaker 1: and fish he loves.
Speaker 2: Yeah. My name is Alan Andre Causey, and I was
Speaker 2: convicted of fifty years for this crime. I end up
Speaker 2: doing thirty one years and four months before I released on.
Speaker 1: Parole from love of for Good. This is wrongful conviction
Speaker 1: with Maggie Freeling today, Andre Causey and Andre Cousey, who
Speaker 1: goes by Andre was born on March twenty sixth, nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty five.
Speaker 2: I got four brothers and a sister. I'm the third
Speaker 2: oldest out of six kids as five boys and one girl.
Speaker 1: At an early age, Andre's parents divorced and his mom
Speaker 1: moved the kids to Austin, Texas.
Speaker 2: We come up here in seventy three, so seventy three
Speaker 2: out by eight years old. Because I was born in
Speaker 2: sixty five, I used to go back home and stay
Speaker 2: a year six months and spend time down there with
Speaker 2: I was still one of my mama's sisters and spend
Speaker 2: time with my daddy and all them on that end
Speaker 2: down there. But you know, me and my dad and
Speaker 2: that we got along good. I don't actually know what
Speaker 2: happened between him and my mom because we were young,
Speaker 2: but we moved here and my mama moved us up
Speaker 2: here to give us a better life, get us out
Speaker 2: of the country because we country boy.
Speaker 1: You know, Austin was very different from his home in Louisiana.
Speaker 1: Not better or worse, just more to do well.
Speaker 2: I mean, if we were young, so you know, it
Speaker 2: was just it was all new, but you know, if
Speaker 2: we had a more wide and broad space to move around,
Speaker 2: you know, and we met friends and you.
Speaker 1: Know, Andre's mom was a beautician and worked hard to
Speaker 1: support five kids. Eventually she opened up her own shop,
Speaker 1: leaving Andre and his siblings exploring the new city on
Speaker 1: their own. Andre says they eventually made friends and met
Speaker 1: a particularly influential older lady.
Speaker 2: We met this old lady. Her name was missus Johnna,
Speaker 2: but we called a honey, but she told us a lot.
Speaker 1: Honey was sort of a stand in mom. What were
Speaker 1: some things that you remember her teaching you.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, she taught us to always work for
Speaker 2: what we want. You know, don't expect nobody to just
Speaker 2: give you in and you know, give you something, you
Speaker 2: know always, you know, work. You know, people gonna people
Speaker 2: gonna help you if you try to help yourself.
Speaker 1: Andre says that Honey initially hired him and his siblings
Speaker 1: to help her out with things like yardwork.
Speaker 2: She had a garage were she do garage sales, and
Speaker 2: she go around to other garage and buy stuff, and
Speaker 2: Brian to hers, and she taught us how to get
Speaker 2: around also and all that.
Speaker 1: And Honey treated the kids as her own.
Speaker 2: We would ever wear at her favorite place that heat
Speaker 2: was long John silbl So that's why I'm not crazy
Speaker 2: about lawn John Sila, because that's all she fed us. Wow.
Speaker 1: Andre was a hard worker from an early age. It
Speaker 1: was really all he knew. When Andre was in tenth grade,
Speaker 1: he dropped out of high school and started working a
Speaker 1: variety of jobs, he says, including at ut Austin in
Speaker 1: the kitchen as a dishwasher. He also did some construction work.
Speaker 1: Andres's life was simple, just how we liked it.
Speaker 2: You know, because I was just I having fun.
Speaker 1: What was having fun?
Speaker 2: I just like to go out and just enjoy people
Speaker 2: and have fun. You know people that I knew. You know,
Speaker 2: we sit around, drank beer and just have fun.
Speaker 1: No, were you getting in any kind of trouble, No, ma'am,
Speaker 1: No run into the law. Andre says, around eighteen or nineteen,
Speaker 1: he got a girl pregnant.
Speaker 2: At that time that we were doing our thing. It
Speaker 2: was just a lust thing on both our behalves, you know,
Speaker 2: So it wasn't any.
Speaker 1: Feelings, Andre says, because the relationship wasn't serious, you know,
Speaker 1: no feelings. He wasn't allowed in his son's life.
Speaker 2: Last time I seen him was like maybe two days
Speaker 2: before I got arrested, and he was like three or
Speaker 2: four years old. Then.
Speaker 1: Andre never had a relationship with his own son.
Speaker 2: I don't know if he knows me. I don't know
Speaker 2: what his mama told me about him.
Speaker 1: But a few years later he became a step dad
Speaker 1: to a baby girl with a woman he'd love for
Speaker 1: decades to come. How would you describe him?
Speaker 3: Sexy?
Speaker 4: He was sexy.
Speaker 3: This is DeLanda, DeLanda Harold Consey, and I'm the wife
Speaker 3: of Alan Andre Consey.
Speaker 1: How do y'all meet?
Speaker 3: We met in some apartment compact on the East Side
Speaker 3: I used to go be to Miami in the summertime
Speaker 3: and I met Andrew.
Speaker 2: Anna stayed next door to my mother, and that's how
Speaker 2: we met. As matter of fact, my little brother bandon
Speaker 2: Me is married to her first cousin, oh way Man.
Speaker 2: They used to come visit her. That's how we met.
Speaker 1: What stood out to you, like did you just see
Speaker 1: him across the college?
Speaker 4: Was cute.
Speaker 3: He was cute and he knew and I always told him,
Speaker 3: I know, you know, you're cute. He was just an
Speaker 3: outgoing person. He had some little bow legs, he was fine,
Speaker 3: had Woch's wet shorts, and he played basketball at the
Speaker 3: basketball court. So I would sit up there and watch him.
Speaker 2: On the steps.
Speaker 1: DeLanda watched Andre for years.
Speaker 3: When I first met him, I was like fifteen sixteen,
Speaker 3: Oh wow, Yeah, I was still in high school, you know,
Speaker 3: during the summer time, like when I would come home
Speaker 3: or go over to him see my aunt and visit her.
Speaker 3: I would always see him. But then I left him,
Speaker 3: went to college, and then I came back. And then
Speaker 3: when I actually graduated from college, I think that's when
Speaker 3: we really got seriously. I came out of the beauty
Speaker 3: shop one.
Speaker 1: Day Andre's mom was actually DeLanda's beautician. So she comes
Speaker 1: out of the beauty shop one day to Andrea and
Speaker 1: he's like.
Speaker 3: My wife, I'm not your wife. And then we just
Speaker 3: connected and been together ever since.
Speaker 1: DeLanda had just given birth to her daughter, Rhonesha, when
Speaker 1: they got serious, and.
Speaker 3: He came in and stepped in and was a father
Speaker 3: figure to my daughter. I say, he had my daughter
Speaker 3: more than I had her. And he just came in
Speaker 3: and it became a help meet to me.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. So he was a good dad.
Speaker 3: He's very good with kids.
Speaker 2: I always been a family type of person. I love
Speaker 2: being with family. I love spending time with my family.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, DeLanda and Andrea would never be able to have
Speaker 1: their own kid together. Just about a year after they
Speaker 1: officially started dating, Andrea would be arrested for murder. On
Speaker 1: Monday evening, August twelfth, nineteen ninety one, Andre was at
Speaker 1: home with his nine month old daughter and DeLanda was
Speaker 1: cooking dinner.
Speaker 2: She feel to fixed some talk I never we'll forget it.
Speaker 2: She fixed some tacos. That was my last meal. And
Speaker 2: I was sitting outside talking to some of the guys
Speaker 2: that stay while in the same apartments, and we were
Speaker 2: just talking and listening to music and two guys walk
Speaker 2: up in suits and we looking and they said, well
Speaker 2: they walk up, they look at the back of the
Speaker 2: car and we just looked at them. They said, well,
Speaker 2: whore driving this car? I said, I am sir.
Speaker 1: It was a maroon Oldsmobile Toronado.
Speaker 2: And he said, well, we need to talk to you.
Speaker 2: I said, okay, Well let me take my daughter in
Speaker 2: the house.
Speaker 1: DeLanda asked what was going on?
Speaker 2: She asked, he said, who is that? I say, it's
Speaker 2: the police. They wanted to talk to me, so they said, well,
Speaker 2: can you go down to the police station. I say yes.
Speaker 1: Officers Mike Huckabay and Bruce Boardman took Andre to the station.
Speaker 4: He was taken in for questioning and endured a seven
Speaker 4: hour coercive interrogation by a Huctor Polonko led Austin Police
Speaker 4: Department Homicide Unit.
Speaker 1: This is Jesse Freud, senior staff attorney at the Innocence
Speaker 1: Project of Texas.
Speaker 4: Forty five minutes into what they initially call an interview,
Speaker 4: two officers tell him that they don't believe this story
Speaker 4: he gives about why he's driving this car.
Speaker 1: Remember when the police showed up at Andre's house. They
Speaker 1: asked him about a car parked outside a maroon Oldsmobile Toronado.
Speaker 1: That's because at a taped up murder scene in Andre's
Speaker 1: apartment complex the day before, a bystander had told the
Speaker 1: police they'd seen the exact car rubbernecking or driving past
Speaker 1: the crime scene, apparently acting suspiciously. So the police tracked
Speaker 1: the car down and it led them to Andre.
Speaker 4: And pretty quickly they are asking him to retell the
Speaker 4: story over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: Over and over. Andre told the police he'd borrowed the
Speaker 1: car from a friend. He went out that night and
Speaker 1: on the drive home, he slowed down at the crime
Speaker 1: scene because he was curious. There were cops and bystanders,
Speaker 1: so he just looked and drove away. The police weren't
Speaker 1: having it, and every time he gives a version, they
Speaker 1: tell him, we don't like that version. We think you're lying.
Speaker 1: Tell it to us again, and were you You've never
Speaker 1: been in trouble with the law. I feel like that's
Speaker 1: like the Twilight Zone.
Speaker 5: It was.
Speaker 1: I could tell me I didn't do nothing, Andre insisted.
Speaker 1: The night they were asking about, he'd been with DeLanda's brother,
Speaker 1: Bobby Harold junior partying at a nearby apartment, but that
Speaker 1: same night someone had been brutally killed nearby. Twenty one
Speaker 1: year old Anita Buyington. So she was a college student.
Speaker 4: She lived in I believe San Marcus, which is just
Speaker 4: south of Austin, and she was in town with two
Speaker 4: of her girlfriends, one of whom was her cousin, and
Speaker 4: they met up with a group of three guys that
Speaker 4: they had recently met to go out on Sixth Street
Speaker 4: and go drinking, and she had called it a night
Speaker 4: a little bit earlier than the rest of the group, leaves.
Speaker 1: The bar, goes to her car, and from there we
Speaker 1: don't know for sure what happened, but in the early
Speaker 1: morning hours of Sunday, August eleventh, nineteen ninety one, Anita
Speaker 1: was found beaten to death with a heavy slab of concrete.
Speaker 1: Her car, a nineteen eighty nine brown Honda, was found
Speaker 1: parked five miles away. A day later, Andre was taken
Speaker 1: in for what was initially billed as a police interview.
Speaker 4: And then from there the interview when I'm using quotes,
Speaker 4: I don't nobody can see me, but I'm using quotes
Speaker 4: quickly transitions to an interrogation and that becomes a very extended,
Speaker 4: about six to six and a half hour overnight process
Speaker 4: of going in and having two officers eventually one officer
Speaker 4: interrogate him back and forth, then leave him alone for
Speaker 4: a long period of time, not letting him really sleep,
Speaker 4: though having somebody come back in and out.
Speaker 1: Often these are common tactics meant to break people down.
Speaker 1: They also brought in to Landa's brother who'd been hanging
Speaker 1: out with Andrea the day of the murder, and questioned
Speaker 1: him to.
Speaker 4: Their interviewing him in another room, coming back in and
Speaker 4: telling him, hey, your brother in law is saying the
Speaker 4: alibi that you're giving us isn't true. Your mom's denying it.
Speaker 4: We call that he wouldn't have known this at the time,
Speaker 4: but we call that in this field false evidence ploise.
Speaker 4: So that's making a suspect think that something is true
Speaker 4: when it's not, to gauge the reaction, and then of
Speaker 4: course to try and get them to confess to what
Speaker 4: they think is going on.
Speaker 1: But Andre kept saying he had no idea what was
Speaker 1: going on.
Speaker 4: And then as Andre testified to a trial, there was
Speaker 4: a really critical part of the interrogation where he is
Speaker 4: alone with one of the main officers who threatens him
Speaker 4: with the death penalty. Was that Polanco or that was Polanco?
Speaker 1: Hector Polanco. Hector Polanco was an Austin Police Department patrolman
Speaker 1: and homicide detective with a reputation for getting a confession.
Speaker 1: After more than six hours of interrogation at the hands
Speaker 1: of Hukkabe, Boardman and Polanco, they typed up a statement
Speaker 1: and handed it to Andre at the time. Did you
Speaker 1: know what that was?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 2: I didn't. They told me. They said, well, this is
Speaker 2: your alibi. You signed this, you can go on leave
Speaker 2: and go home. That's what I was, and that's what
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 1: He signed the document what he thought was his ticket home.
Speaker 4: He had been partying over the weekend, so he's exhausted
Speaker 4: and he just wanted to end the madness and get
Speaker 4: it over with.
Speaker 1: But the statement wasn't Andrea's alibi, as police had told him.
Speaker 1: What it actually said was that Andrea and DeLanda's brother
Speaker 1: had beaten Anita to death after a drug deal gone wrong.
Speaker 1: Did you ask them to read it to you?
Speaker 2: I didn't even think about it. No, I didn't.
Speaker 1: You just trusted them. So he signed without reading the document.
Speaker 2: Because my reason was poor at the time. There poor.
Speaker 2: I had to take special classes and reason was my worst.
Speaker 1: So you signed it and then you can't go home,
Speaker 1: and I.
Speaker 2: Can't go home. They locked me up tried me with
Speaker 2: a murder.
Speaker 1: Andre went to trial on July fourteenth, nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 4: There were two prosecutors. One was Terry Keel and the
Speaker 4: second was a gentleman by the name of Reuben Young,
Speaker 4: and their trial theory was that the victim had approached
Speaker 4: Andrea's brother in law for drugs and that they were
Speaker 4: about to trade drugs for sex before the victim quote
Speaker 4: unquote cheats him out of drugs and proceeds to get away,
Speaker 4: at which point, the statement says, Andre's brother in law
Speaker 4: tells him, Hey, she just tried to beat me for drugs,
Speaker 4: Let's go get her, and that Andrea subdues her, and
Speaker 4: that his brother law assaults her with the rain diverter
Speaker 4: to the point where it causes her death.
Speaker 1: Was there any evidence of this? There also wasn't any
Speaker 1: evidence that Anita Byington had any history of drug use.
Speaker 1: At trial, Andre testified that he'd been tricked into signing
Speaker 1: a false confession, but the prosecutor said he was a
Speaker 1: liar and a criminal, and they put law enforcement on
Speaker 1: the stand to back their theory up, cops who Andre
Speaker 1: says he'd never met before Anita's murder.
Speaker 2: It was crazy. It was really crazy. The picture they
Speaker 2: pleasure of me was really crazy. What was that picture?
Speaker 2: We had a police sauce center uniform that took the
Speaker 2: stands and so he stated my full name, and he'd asked, well,
Speaker 2: how did you know him? And he said, well, I
Speaker 2: know him from drug gang banging and all type of things.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, nah my, you look at me and
Speaker 2: said that's not true. I said, that's not true. I
Speaker 2: ain't never had no run in with the cops. No.
Speaker 1: The other witnesses for the prosecution were people who said
Speaker 1: they'd seen Andre at the crime scene, driving the oldsmobile suspiciously, rubbernecking.
Speaker 4: Driving by slowly looking interested.
Speaker 1: As a normal person probably would when there's police around.
Speaker 4: But literally every single person does in traffic when they
Speaker 4: see a car accident that causes you know, miles of
Speaker 4: backup for no reason, literally human nature. So he has
Speaker 4: a human reaction to seeing law enforcement and a big
Speaker 4: crowd of folks at a place that doesn't seem like
Speaker 4: that would be happening for any reason he's aware of, so.
Speaker 1: He looks that along with Andre's signature on a confession
Speaker 1: written by police. Sealed his conviction. Andre was sentenced to
Speaker 1: fifty years in prison for the murder of Anita Byington.
Speaker 1: He was shocked.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wouldn't do that. I'm the type of person
Speaker 2: that I don't believe and nobody hurt nobody, especially women.
Speaker 2: I'm not if i'm I'm not gonna let you. I'm
Speaker 2: not just gonna let you hurt no one. I'm not
Speaker 2: gonna do that. That's not right.
Speaker 1: His family and friends were too. DeLanda couldn't believe her
Speaker 1: Andre had been convicted of murder.
Speaker 3: Cause he didn't have an angry bone in his body.
Speaker 3: That couldn't be possible. I was like, how could that
Speaker 3: possibly happen? So, yeah, it was hard.
Speaker 1: Now, prosecutors didn't just charge Andre. Remember, they'd accused him
Speaker 1: and DeLanda's brother, Bobby Harold, of killing Anita Byington. But
Speaker 1: almost nine months after Andre's conviction, prosecutors dropped the chargers
Speaker 1: against Bobby because they didn't have the evidence to take
Speaker 1: him to trial. Yet there was Andre convicted of being
Speaker 1: Bobby's accomplice, staring down a natural life sentence for a
Speaker 1: crime he said from day one he didn't commit. When
Speaker 1: did it feel real?
Speaker 2: When I got the prison, When I got the prison,
Speaker 2: when I got off that bus in Midway, Texas?
Speaker 1: Yeah, what was that like?
Speaker 2: It was like, Man, I'm in I'm in a world
Speaker 2: that I know nothing about. I'm dying here for something
Speaker 2: I didn't do. I don't know what the outcome or
Speaker 2: what I'm faced with right now because I don't even
Speaker 2: know what I'm walking into. Most people, you got to
Speaker 2: be down with a gang. You gotta be down with this,
Speaker 2: you gotta be down with that, you gotta do this.
Speaker 1: But but Andre says he was lucky. He got sent
Speaker 1: to a unit with a lot of young people. At
Speaker 1: twenty seven, he was one of the oldest there.
Speaker 2: It was a relief because they looked they when they
Speaker 2: found out how old I was, they all respected me.
Speaker 2: They all start calling me on and all this said
Speaker 2: in that day, I'll respect me. I don't worry about that.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: We got you. You ain't got you, Just do you.
Speaker 1: Andre kept to himself and passed the time working and
Speaker 1: talking to DeLanda. How come you chose to stay with him?
Speaker 1: After the conviction. I mean, you could have moved on
Speaker 1: with your life and not dealt with any of this.
Speaker 3: Well, I know he was innocent, and I know he
Speaker 3: needed a support system, and I know I could give
Speaker 3: him that support. So I just stayed in that fight
Speaker 3: with him.
Speaker 2: I know he was innocent.
Speaker 1: In the years Andre was in prison, DeLanda had a
Speaker 1: child with another man, but her heart was always with Andrea,
Speaker 1: and just like he'd done with her daughter, Andre would
Speaker 1: go on to love her little boy as his own.
Speaker 1: In two thousand Andrea and DeLanda got married, and Andre
Speaker 1: eventually got his ge D. After teaching himself how to
Speaker 1: read and write.
Speaker 2: I would go to the to the library and get
Speaker 2: a palm books and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: He would copy love poem and send them to DeLanda,
Speaker 1: but I.
Speaker 2: Wouldn't cop them identical. I would try to make it
Speaker 2: my own. I would try it best I could.
Speaker 1: Andre also tried the best he could to be a
Speaker 1: dad to his kids.
Speaker 2: Every Christmas, we had this thing called Angil Tree down
Speaker 2: in prison, and as long as your kids was under sixteen,
Speaker 2: you can always you put the application in and a
Speaker 2: local church work supplme Christmas presents and stuff, and that's
Speaker 2: what I would do every year.
Speaker 1: As the years went on, Andre fought to get back
Speaker 1: home to his family, but he was denied parole at
Speaker 1: least fifteen times. And every time he'd think of DeLanda.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just had to be strong for her. Every
Speaker 2: time I got to set off, I'd tell her, it's
Speaker 2: gonna be alright. It's gonna be alright. You know, we
Speaker 2: just got to keep moving forward. You know, we're not
Speaker 2: in control. You know, eventually we're gonna get what we deserve.
Speaker 2: You know, we just got to keep going. No, but
Speaker 2: you know, it was rough. I wanted to be home,
Speaker 2: and you know, like days like this and I'd be
Speaker 2: looking outside of the grasses pridgeon Grien You're like, man,
Speaker 2: it's just beautiful. I need to be at home.
Speaker 1: I need to be at home.
Speaker 2: This is a beautiful day. You know. We all sit
Speaker 2: there and we'd be just sitting at the talking of
Speaker 2: my man. We said, what would you be doing if
Speaker 2: you was at home? I said, I'd be with my family.
Speaker 1: In twenty eighteen, Andre wrote the Innocence Project of Texas,
Speaker 1: and a year later they wrote him back, I got it.
Speaker 2: He got a lot of back, like the fourth or
Speaker 2: the fifth of twenty nineteen cent they had sept at
Speaker 2: the case and I just, you know, I like, thank
Speaker 2: you Lord.
Speaker 1: So what stood out to you guys?
Speaker 4: The fact that there was nothing else besides the confession,
Speaker 4: I think was the first really big thing. Secondly, also,
Speaker 4: a client with no criminal history that you know, just
Speaker 4: all of a sudden is accused of murder, convicted of murder,
Speaker 4: and has a true narrative of innocence. Of course, once
Speaker 4: we get into it, we also start to learn about
Speaker 4: the law enforcement actors involved. So that was probably the
Speaker 4: third thing, which is Andre's story in hindsight with what
Speaker 4: we know now, the red flags were just incredibly loud.
Speaker 1: Law enforcement officers like Hector Polanco, the detective I mentioned earlier.
Speaker 1: Polanco had been with the APD since the seventies and
Speaker 1: eventually became one of the department's star homicide investigators. But
Speaker 1: by the early nineties, several of his infamous case solving
Speaker 1: confessions were coming under scrutiny. They just seemed too good
Speaker 1: to be true, and city officials started asking, Hey.
Speaker 4: What's going on at APD homicide. They're getting some really
Speaker 4: inexplicable quote unquote confessions from people where it's the only evidence,
Speaker 4: and then we're going back to check them and they
Speaker 4: don't look right.
Speaker 1: In one case, Polonko interrogated a guy for two days
Speaker 1: and got him to confess to killing his girlfriend, except
Speaker 1: the woman showed up alive a few days later. She'd
Speaker 1: just been away. Two more of those infamous false confessions
Speaker 1: were elicited during the investigation of the quadruple homicide of
Speaker 1: four teenage girls in an Austin yogurt shop, the so
Speaker 1: called Yogurt Shop Murders of nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 4: One of the yogurt shop purported confessions is what ended
Speaker 4: up leading to the formation of the task force that
Speaker 4: ultimately revealed what was going on at the time. The
Speaker 4: thread between all of these are you have Polanco getting
Speaker 4: these confessions from murder suspects and there's no other evidence
Speaker 4: to support that this person's confession is a true confession.
Speaker 1: Jesse says that task force uncovered.
Speaker 4: Extended interrogations, false evidence, Ploise authorizing other officers to role
Speaker 4: play to confuse suspects and essentially trick suspects into thinking
Speaker 4: that they're circumstances are something different than they are. Threatening
Speaker 4: suspects with in custody sexual assault, saying also, when we
Speaker 4: throw you in prison for the rest of your life,
Speaker 4: we're going to make sure there's somebody there to turn
Speaker 4: you out. Making threats of the death penalty to suspects.
Speaker 1: This is one of those suspects, Chris Ochoa.
Speaker 5: That was if you know who did it and you
Speaker 5: don't tell us, you can get to death penalty. That
Speaker 5: was I mean, I was like, immediately within ten minutes
Speaker 5: the death penalty, You get the death penalty. If you
Speaker 5: know any scene you don't tell us, then we're going
Speaker 5: to go for the death penalty.
Speaker 1: He was interrogated by Polanco in nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 5: It was a good cop back cooper team. The bad
Speaker 5: cop came in and grabbed my arm and kept the bain.
Speaker 5: Oh my, so this is where the needle's going to
Speaker 5: go up.
Speaker 2: You don't cooperate and tell us like this is I'm
Speaker 2: going to make.
Speaker 5: Sure I'm there to watch.
Speaker 1: Ochoa spoke to the Innocence Project in twenty seventeen, and
Speaker 1: he'd eventually testify at one of Andre's evidentiary hearings. Jesse
Speaker 1: says most of what happened to suspects like Ochoa happened
Speaker 1: to Andre.
Speaker 4: We now know from the other cases that we now
Speaker 4: know about where innocent murder suspects were coerced by this
Speaker 4: unit to confess. We know that that was APD's pattern
Speaker 4: in practice at the time, which was Polanka would get
Speaker 4: a suspect alone and then magically, you know, after that
Speaker 4: person is alone with him quote unquote confess. In Andre's case,
Speaker 4: his confession is ultimately given by his signature.
Speaker 1: Believing in Andre's innocence, the team went back to the
Speaker 1: beginning the evidence. There were three prints in Anita's car
Speaker 1: and semen found on her shirt and underwear. It didn't
Speaker 1: match Andre, but there was one person who couldn't be eliminated, a.
Speaker 4: Member of the male group named Kevin Harris.
Speaker 1: Remember, Anita was with her girlfriends having fun on Sixth Street,
Speaker 1: one of Austin's known partying strips. They were also hanging
Speaker 1: with some guys. One of them was Kevin Harris, reportedly
Speaker 1: the last person to see her alive. Was he a
Speaker 1: person of interest from the beginning.
Speaker 4: So he was, but he was very very responsible in
Speaker 4: terms of he knew not to interact with law enforcement
Speaker 4: without a lawyer, so he went to the police department
Speaker 4: lawyered up, which was obviously very different from Andrea's circumstances.
Speaker 4: He goes in three lawyers deep and gives a narrative
Speaker 4: that essentially accounts for what would otherwise make him look
Speaker 4: like he is the person who did this. He gives
Speaker 4: an account eventually that they had consensual sex that night.
Speaker 4: He has a visible injury on his arm that he
Speaker 4: gives a I burned my arm making breakfast this morning story,
Speaker 4: all things that again absent coming in. Lawyered up that
Speaker 4: if he were to give those accounts, that everybody would
Speaker 4: think that this is just not true.
Speaker 1: We reached out to Kevin Harris through his attorney, who
Speaker 1: says Harris fully cooperated with the investigation thirty years ago,
Speaker 1: and he respectfully declines a request for comment. Jesse says,
Speaker 1: instead of doing the actual legwork and investigating such an
Speaker 1: obvious suspect in Anita's murder, the police honed in on
Speaker 1: the easiest target. What did you think about the police
Speaker 1: at the.
Speaker 2: Time, may I just thought they was there to help
Speaker 2: the people, you know, to do the right things. I
Speaker 2: just thought they was there to do what they supposed
Speaker 2: to do, you know, get the bag guys, you know,
Speaker 2: but they they are to just solve a case. In
Speaker 2: a way they can.
Speaker 1: While looking into Harris as the possible killer of Anita,
Speaker 1: Jesse and her team discovered that in nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 1: he had been arrested for burglary with the intent to
Speaker 1: commit assault against another woman, and in that file was
Speaker 1: the name of a witness his on and off again girlfriend,
Speaker 1: so they contacted her. They had a pretty toxic relationship
Speaker 1: that ultimately escalated to an abusive relationship, and during that
Speaker 1: period where she was trying to break it off but
Speaker 1: they were kind of coming back together, he had contacted
Speaker 1: her overnight and asked her for help moving a car,
Speaker 1: and she was able to identify the victim's car. Most
Speaker 1: and perhaps most importantly, though, she was also able to
Speaker 1: give a detail that law enforcement didn't know at the time,
Speaker 1: and that is also not accounted for in this statement,
Speaker 1: and it's that she saw a purse in the possession
Speaker 1: of the alternate suspect during the course of them moving
Speaker 1: this vehicle. And that was really important because the victim's
Speaker 1: purse was separated from her vehicle at some point and
Speaker 1: not recovered until months later by a good Samaritan. So
Speaker 1: she was credible, she was truthful, and again, most importantly,
Speaker 1: she had information that she could only have had or
Speaker 1: known had she actually done what she told us she did,
Speaker 1: which was helped the alternate suspect to move the vehicle.
Speaker 1: With all of this evidence pointing away from Andrea, a
Speaker 1: judge ordered an evidentiary hearing. One of the world's foremost
Speaker 1: experts on false confessions, Richard Leo, testified that Andre's confession
Speaker 1: was quote extremely likely a false confession. He also noted
Speaker 1: that Andrea has a low IQ, making him susceptible to manipulation.
Speaker 1: With that and the pattern of misconduct by the APD,
Speaker 1: particularly of Hector Polanco, Andre was released on parole in
Speaker 1: October of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: My first knew when I got out was it tacos
Speaker 2: begar was tacos, Yes, tacos. That's what I wanted, tacos.
Speaker 4: He just loved my touch and cook.
Speaker 2: And that's what it is.
Speaker 1: That's great. Although her husband is out, it's bittersweet for DeLanda,
Speaker 1: who has spent years defending Andre.
Speaker 3: People need to hear his side and the story because
Speaker 3: you've tried to scandalize his name and he's been innocent
Speaker 3: all the time.
Speaker 1: I imagine that doesn't feel great to have your husband's name.
Speaker 3: No, it doesn't and it doesn't, but you know what,
Speaker 3: we smile with grace and keep moving and you know,
Speaker 3: we do feel sorry for the bias and family, but
Speaker 3: they have the wrong person and at some point you're
Speaker 3: gonna have to accept it and move on. And I
Speaker 3: think they owe you an apology.
Speaker 1: But Andre just wants to focus on the things he's
Speaker 1: most cared about all along, his family. Andre tried to
Speaker 1: reach out to his biological son, who was four when
Speaker 1: he went to prison, but he hasn't heard back.
Speaker 2: So my wile said, we don't worry about it. Just
Speaker 2: gets yourself together and then time, you know, you'll try
Speaker 2: later on and reach out. Said, and that's what I've
Speaker 2: just been waiting for the right time.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, he puts his love in the family
Speaker 1: he has.
Speaker 3: June sixteenth, which was on a Friday, we renewed our
Speaker 3: vows our wedding valve because when we first got married,
Speaker 3: we got got married at the courthouse and I wanted
Speaker 3: to have my dream wedding and she did.
Speaker 2: Everybody, thank you so much for meeting here on the
Speaker 2: evening as we were coming together to witness the vale
Speaker 2: of this amazing color.
Speaker 1: On their twenty third wedding anniversary, Andre and DeLanda had
Speaker 1: their dream wedding.
Speaker 2: For where you go, I will go, where you live,
Speaker 2: I will live. Well, we just do a lot of
Speaker 2: family things, you know. We go to a lot of
Speaker 2: her family togetherers. We go to a lot of my
Speaker 2: family gatherings. And since we moved here, we start having
Speaker 2: family dinners and family days, you know, just enjoying the
Speaker 2: family and the fish firs, the grand.
Speaker 1: Babies, Yeah, and the grand babies. Because of people like Andre,
Speaker 1: the Texas Innocence Project helped pass a state law in
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen making sure the police always record interrogations for
Speaker 1: cases like murder. Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction
Speaker 1: with Maggie Freeling. Please support your local innocence organizations and
Speaker 1: go to the links in the episode description to see
Speaker 1: how you can help. This episode was written by me
Speaker 1: Maggie Freeling, with story editing and mixing by senior producer
Speaker 1: Rebecca Ibada. Our producer is Kathleen Fink. Our researcher is
Speaker 1: Halle Dolce, with additional mixing by Josh Allen and additional
Speaker 1: production help by Jeff Cleiburn. Executive producers are Jason Flam,
Speaker 1: Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Wurtis. The music is by three
Speaker 1: time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Make sure to follow
Speaker 1: us on all social media platforms at Lava for Good
Speaker 1: and at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on
Speaker 1: all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling
Speaker 1: is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association
Speaker 1: with Signal Company Number one