WEBVTT - #248 Jason Flom with Ken Middleton 0:00:02.560 --> 0:00:02.880 Canon. 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:05.840 Kathy Middleton had properties in Blue Springs, Missouri, as well 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:08.640 as Ken's family lay back in Arkansas, where they hoped 0:00:08.680 --> 0:00:12.240 to one day retire. On February twelfth, nineteen ninety, when 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:14.080 he planned to clean a gun that he had brought 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:17.200 back from Arkansas, Ken felt ill, laid the gun down 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:20.720 and took the nap. Meanwhile, Kathy returned early from work 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:23.560 to confront Ken about news of a regretful affair that 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:26.760 had ended three years earlier. After grabbing the gun from 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:29.160 where Ken had laid it down, Kathy made her way 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:32.479 to the phone to call the alleged mistress. When tragedy struck. 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:35.840 It is believed that it destroyed. Kathy mishandled the weapon 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:38.240 in her left hand and shot herself in the head. 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:41.760 Ken immediately called nine one one when first responders found 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:44.839 him without a drop of blood or gunshot residue on him. 0:00:44.880 --> 0:00:48.400 A positive gunshot residue test of Kathy's left hand would 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:51.680 have conclusively ruled her death as a tragic accident. However, 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:54.840 her left hand test results went missing and the crime 0:00:54.960 --> 0:00:57.920 lab document was altered in what clearly appears to be 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:01.320 evidence tampering, where a medical ex disaminur and blood spatter 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:04.840 expert willing to testify to an impossible scenario in which 0:01:04.920 --> 0:01:07.640 Ken was magically able to shoot Kathy from less than 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:10.760 a foot away while remaining free of blood and GSR. 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:14.720 Ken was sentenced to life plus two hundred years. Despite 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:17.720 the mishandling of the crime scene, ballistics testing was still 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:21.200 able to prove Ken's innocence. His conviction was overturned in 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:24.759 two thousand and four, but a jurisdictional technicality has held 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:28.720 him in legal limbo ever since. Canada's son Cliff Middleton 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:31.839 join us to ask, how is it that even though 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:36.040 a new statute remedies that technicality, the current prosecutor, Jean 0:01:36.120 --> 0:01:53.240 Peters Baker, refuses to act. This is raeful conviction. Welcome 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:55.920 back to Raful Conviction. I'm your host, Jason Faum. You know, 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:58.840 each week I have a pretty good idea of how 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:00.920 I'm going to start the show. You Know, usually there's 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:04.800 one main focus, one main problem that we can talk 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:08.880 about in any particular case. But this time I don't 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:12.560 even know where to start. When our friend Larry Garrison, 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:16.200 who's aptly known as the newsbreaker okay for his years 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:19.760 of investigative reporting and his work through Silver Creek Entertainment. 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:23.040 When he first told me and us here at Romful 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:25.600 Conviction about the case of Ken Middleton, he had lived 0:02:25.680 --> 0:02:28.560 up to his nickname once again, I mean the Newsbreaker. 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:30.920 So I'll start by saying that Ken Middleton has been 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:33.959 in prison for over thirty years for being present during 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:36.880 what they may well have known all along was just 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:39.800 a tragic accident. And there are so many problems in 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:41.799 this case that we could literally pick on any one 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:43.880 of them and make an entire episode of the show 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:47.880 just about that. I'm talking about ineffective assistance of counsel, 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:54.560 false expert testimony, evidence, tampering, incompetent investigator's official corruption, conflicts 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:58.799 of interest, Ken refusing freedom through at Alford play right, 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:01.120 something that you never catch he's a guilty person doing, 0:03:01.320 --> 0:03:06.120 and that's something that happened seventeen years ago, almost eighteen now. Plus. 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:09.760 There's this insane jurisdictional technicality that has kept this innocent 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:12.040 man in prison long past the time that I believe 0:03:12.120 --> 0:03:15.600 everyone knows that he should have ever been in there. So, 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:20.040 without further ado, at seventy seven years old, Ken is 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:23.959 calling in from inside the prison walls in Missouri. Ken 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:27.639 I'm so sorry you're here because of the reason why 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:30.320 you're here, but I'm very honored to have you on 0:03:30.360 --> 0:03:30.760 the show. 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:32.680 Thank you appreciate it. 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:38.720 And with Ken is his son and probably most passionate advocate, 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:41.360 Cliff Middleton. Thanks for joining us. 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:44.000 Thank you so much for having me on. Jason, I 0:03:44.080 --> 0:03:45.280 really really appreciate it. 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:47.280 And I know how hard this is going to be. 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:49.640 I mean, like any other son, you love your dad 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:52.960 and you just want this thing to end. Okay, let's 0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:56.720 go back in time and I'm gonna turn to you. Ken. 0:03:56.840 --> 0:04:00.920 This is early nineteen ninety in Blue Springs, missus, and 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:03.600 you're there with your wife, Kathy. So tell us what 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:06.600 was happening in your life? What were things like before 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:07.520 all this happened. 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:11.000 It was great. We had a great marriage for over 0:04:11.040 --> 0:04:14.880 sixteen years, had a farm in Arkansas, two different farms. 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:18.000 I had three hundred and fifty two acres of the land. 0:04:18.200 --> 0:04:21.040 I had drove a truck for over twenty years and 0:04:21.240 --> 0:04:24.120 had injured my back and I wasn't working right then. 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:27.279 So I was going to the farm and doing projects, 0:04:27.279 --> 0:04:30.400 working on the house and watching nice of the cattle 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:33.440 and stuff like that. Kathy worked at at and t 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:37.560 for twenty eight years and two years he'd have her 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:40.520 time in horse she could retire regardless of age. And 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:44.200 that's what was waiting on and was moving back to targets 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:44.800 all for good. 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:49.080 And let's get into how this came to pass. So 0:04:49.200 --> 0:04:51.920 let's go back to February twelfth, nineteen ninety and just 0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:54.720 to set the stage here, you had been at your 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:59.159 place at Arkansas and you brought a handgun that you 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:02.560 owned back to Missouri with you. But meanwhile you had 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:06.000 been feeling sick, but no one knew at the time 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:08.920 that you or anybody that you were really seriously ill 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:10.040 at this point, is that right? 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:14.440 Right? And I was sick for left Arkansas, and when 0:05:14.440 --> 0:05:18.520 I got back Sunday afternoon, I didn't sleep much all night. 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:21.560 So the next morning, Kathy had went to work at 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:24.960 at and T, and I unloaded the rest of my 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:28.720 truck and brought the gun in the house. It had 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:31.880 been in Arkansas since i'd went to Colorado Elcott in 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:35.080 the fall before, and there's a big snow and rain 0:05:35.160 --> 0:05:37.919 and stuff in Colorado and it got wet, so I 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:41.200 picked it up and brought it back to Missouri. I 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:43.159 was aim to clean it and when I got it 0:05:43.160 --> 0:05:45.440 out of the truck, I went in the house and 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:48.719 sat down. I called Kathy at work, and she asked 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:51.559 me how I was feeling. I said about the same. 0:05:51.680 --> 0:05:54.800 I wasn't feeling good, and I sat in a recliner 0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:57.320 and I went to sleep. And I'd never cleaned the gun. 0:05:57.839 --> 0:06:01.800 So the next thing I knew, she was already home, 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:04.080 and she had picked up the gun out of the 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:07.400 towel and had the gun lean on and she was 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:11.200 upset that somebody had told her that I was having 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:15.120 an affair with a woman, which was true, but it 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:18.560 had been over for three years. And she walked over 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:21.720 to the phone in the dining room to call the woman. 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:25.680 So I got up and Daisy, and next thing I know, 0:06:25.880 --> 0:06:27.479 the tragedy had happened. 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:31.560 And the tragedy that had happened is the matter of 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:34.560 this dispute between the Middletons and the state. Now, Ken 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:37.240 maintained his innocence in the matter, that this was a 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:40.960 tragic accident in which Kathy visibly upset about the news 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:43.280 of this affair, and on her way to the phone 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:47.400 to confront your alleged mistress, Kathy was holding the gun 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:51.400 in her left hand. And accidentally shot herself on the 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:55.039 left side of her forehead, splattering blood all over the wall. 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:59.200 This version of events is supported by the ballistics and 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:01.640 all the other physical evidence. And then there's what the 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:04.400 state wants everyone to believe. Right, bear with me, because 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:07.440 this is nuts. That Ken had somehow held Kathy up 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:10.960 against the wall and shot her in the face, but 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:16.560 somehow miraculously was able to be completely clear of blood 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:20.080 spatter or gunshot residue, not a trace on him. And 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:22.600 we'll get into all of that a bit later. So 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:27.240 back to this terrible tragedy. A gunshot rang out and 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:30.320 Kathy was on the floor in a pool of blood. 0:07:30.320 --> 0:07:32.880 What a nightmare? Ken? What happened next? 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:35.440 I'd seen her on the floor and grabbed a gun 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:38.200 and put it on the table and call nine one 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:42.200 one immediately. I asked for the paramedics, and I'd called 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:44.960 him three times within a short period of time, and 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:48.000 wanting to know who the paramedics was. And the third time, 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:53.120 the operator told me to go outside, that the paramedics 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:56.400 were there. And I looked out, and I told her 0:07:56.440 --> 0:07:58.680 that I'd looked out and there wasn't nobody out there, 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:01.520 and she convinced me to go outside that they were there. 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:04.559 So I went out and the first thing I seen 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:08.640 was a coppole behind the wall, screaming at me to 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:11.520 get my hands in the air and turn around with 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:14.480 my back to him at his gun pointed at me. 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:17.560 And I'd done as he said, and he'd come up 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:20.880 behind me and searched me. I wanted to know where 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:24.760 the paramedics were, and he ordered me back in the house, 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:27.880 and we went back in the house and he went 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:31.440 in and checked on my wife, and I was just hysterical, 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:34.040 and I guess I was down on my knees, and 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:37.320 he jerked me up, and when he'd done that fast, 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:40.840 I become dizzy, real dizzy, and I thought I was 0:08:40.840 --> 0:08:43.880 ain't a blackout, So I said it was AMD be six, 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:46.679 and I went down the hall to the bathroom and 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:49.320 I went in and splashed water on my face, and 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:51.800 then he took me outside and I had a real 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:54.360 bad hurting in my left arm and chest. 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:58.920 Now, when the paramedics arrived, they determined, Kenny, you would 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:02.040 have been hyperventilating, complaining of chess planes and blood pressure 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:05.560 was going crazy, and they convinced you to go to 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:07.160 the hospital for an examination. 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:10.200 They taught me to go into the hospital, and they 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:12.920 took me to three medical hospitals, and then on the 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:15.719 third one, I was forced in a mental hospital till 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:16.360 the next day. 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:19.240 They later tried to say that you had checked into 0:09:19.280 --> 0:09:21.679 that mental hospital to try to get away with murder 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:24.319 claim by claiming insanity defense. But we're getting ahead of 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:27.600 ourselves here, and let's not leave out the fact that 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:29.720 your dad was in and out of consciousness on his 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:32.280 way to the hospital. And they took an EKG at 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:34.320 the hospital and it showed that Ken, that you had 0:09:34.360 --> 0:09:37.960 recently suffered from a heart attack. Now here's another thing 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:43.559 that I have trouble understanding or processing. The officers didn't 0:09:43.720 --> 0:09:47.640 write their statements until days later, and they did it 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:50.760 by memory, right, And these statements that were taken from 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:52.320 a hysterical man who had to be rushed to the 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:54.720 hospital talking about you, of course, Ken, who was just 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:58.000 trying to help figure out what happened, So the officers 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:00.079 didn't bother to write it down. 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:04.400 There were a couple police reports that were handwritten out 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:09.800 that day, but the official reports that I have reviewed 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:15.160 were written on I believe it was February twenty first, 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:17.480 and Kathy died on the twelfth. 0:10:17.720 --> 0:10:22.120 Now, in researching this case, I saw in the police 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:25.240 reports where they kept on documenting instances in which Ken 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:28.200 allegedly had done something with his hands, Like he mentioned 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:32.040 splashing water on its face, right, They wrote down another 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:35.480 instance where they said he wiped his hands on a door, 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:39.840 touched dirt in a potted plant, and the implication is 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:44.640 that Ken was trying to somehow wash away the gunshot residue. 0:10:44.840 --> 0:10:49.240 There's a picture the Independence News Examiner paper took of 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:53.720 my father out there on the front stoop, leaning over 0:10:53.800 --> 0:11:00.000 that potter plant, sobbing, and the two paramedics are consoling him. 0:11:00.200 --> 0:11:04.560 It's very obvious that he was in a state of 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:08.840 shock and hysteria. First of all, you already claimed he 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:12.000 was washing his hands when he splashed water on his face. 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:15.160 It's crazy to think that somebody's trying to wash their 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:18.280 hands in the dirt. Unless you've been involved in something 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:21.280 like this, How would you even know what a gunshot 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:25.840 residue test is, especially in nineteen ninety Jayson, maybe today 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:29.160 with crime shows and things, but he didn't know what 0:11:29.240 --> 0:11:30.760 they were testing him for. 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:34.680 They took my shirt, undershirt and clothes and shoes and all, 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:37.480 and they did test it and to come back negative. 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:40.640 No blood or nothing on my lone sleeve shirt. And 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:43.120 that picture in the front high of a house when 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:45.920 I was over the stoop shows the long sleeve shirt 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:49.360 down to my risk, there was no blood, no gunshots 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:49.920 on it. 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:53.160 Right, and as the evidence clearly shows, she was shot 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:56.240 from very close range, less than a foot away, and 0:11:56.440 --> 0:11:59.160 there's no way you can do that without being covered 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:03.640 in blood and gunshot residue. But you weren't because you 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:07.960 didn't kill her. And Kathy's gunshot residue test would likely 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:10.920 have corroborated Ken's version of events and shown that this 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:14.920 was a tragic accident, not a homicide. Cliff, can you 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:16.760 explain what I mean by that? 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:21.280 They swabbed both of her hands that day four gunshot 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:26.439 residue and the prime document that they fill out shows 0:12:26.679 --> 0:12:31.200 that they swabbed both hands, right and left hands, and 0:12:31.240 --> 0:12:34.520 it shows they used two different kits to do that, 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:37.640 one for the right hand and one for the left hand. Well, 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:41.760 the next day when the coroner did the autopsy, the 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:45.280 corner ruled it a homicide based on what the police 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:51.439 were telling him, unless other information come forward to prove otherwise. 0:12:52.120 --> 0:12:57.640 Now that gunshot residue was important information and took him 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:02.560 nine days to turn the gunshot residue samples into the 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:06.400 crime lab. And when they turned them into the crime lab, 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:12.200 the document was altered to show only one kit and 0:13:12.600 --> 0:13:15.760 the left hand was wided out to show they only 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:19.880 tested the right hand when she was shot from eight 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:22.559 to twelve inches away on the left side of her head. 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:25.360 You really have to see this to believe it. And 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:27.600 we're going to link pictures of this in our episode 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:31.520 filed because I'm looking at it right now and i 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:34.760 still can't believe that I'm actually looking at what I'm 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:38.920 looking at. Okay. So, the test of Kathy's left hand, 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:41.720 the one in which she would have held the gun 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:44.840 in order to shoot herself, the test of that hand 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:52.360 disappeared or it wasn't tested on purpose. There's only two possibilities. 0:13:52.480 --> 0:13:55.840 The crime lab document that should have been for both 0:13:55.840 --> 0:14:01.120 of her hands was altered with whiteout. Okay, remember white out, 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:04.960 it's unreal. This is like to show that only her 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:08.520 right hand had been tested, and this is reinforced when 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:11.640 you compare it with the GSR test document for Ken 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:14.960 in the same handwriting okay, get ready for this, it 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:20.120 states quote number of articles two GSR test kits for 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:24.120 right and left hands end quote. But then on Kathy's 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:28.240 GSR test document, in the same exact handwriting, it says, 0:14:28.440 --> 0:14:32.960 quote number of articles and whatever was there is white 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:37.640 it out right, just white it out, and the number 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:40.680 one is at its place, and then it reads quote 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:45.480 gunshot residue for right end quote, followed by another gob 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:48.800 of white out and the word hand. So in all 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:52.920 likelihood the white out is simply covering the words and left, 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:55.720 as it would have been in a request for testing 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:59.680 of both right and left hands, where now only one 0:14:59.800 --> 0:15:03.560 test for her right hand exists and the one that 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:07.040 really matters the left hand is missing. 0:15:07.840 --> 0:15:10.920 Later on, after us convicted years later, we took their 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:15.360 deposition and Jeff Rodgers that wrote the report out, he 0:15:15.480 --> 0:15:17.720 swore that he didn't put the white out on that 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:21.520 because it's on green paper, and he said that he 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:23.920 wouldn't have whited it out, he'd have just filled out 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:26.720 a new report. And we got Dave Link, the one 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:29.680 that took it to the lab nine days later. He 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:32.680 swore up and down that he didn't do it, and 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:36.680 he was asked did he always take both hands of 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:41.840 a close gunshot residue test. He said yes. My attorney 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:46.080 asking years later in ninety seven, always, and he said absolutely. 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:50.080 They whited out the left hand, and they whited out 0:15:50.280 --> 0:15:54.040 the number of articles. I mean, somebody literally just took 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:54.840 white out. 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:58.280 Yeah, the left hand. If it would have come back positive, 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:02.960 it would have been powerful, full evidence that she accidentally 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:07.240 fired the gun herself. Our attorney told us that if 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:10.000 that left hand come back positive, the coroner would have 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:13.480 changed his findings and they wouldn't have had a case 0:16:13.480 --> 0:16:16.440 against my father. It all would have ended right there. 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:33.080 This episode is underwritten by AIG, a leading global insurance company. 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:36.880 AIG is committed to corporate social responsibility and is making 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:39.720 a positive difference in the lives of its employees and 0:16:39.760 --> 0:16:42.440 in the communities where we work and live. In light 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:45.280 of the compelling need for pro bono legal assistance, and 0:16:45.320 --> 0:16:49.359 in recognition of AIG's commitment to criminal and social justice reform, 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:53.360 the AIG pro Bono Program provides free legal services and 0:16:53.520 --> 0:17:03.400 other support to underrepresented communities and individuals. Now, this is 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:06.720 a small town police department. My understanding is there hadn't 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:10.760 been a homicide investigation in almost a decade. These people 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:14.240 were not up to the task, and they started making 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:16.560 mistakes more or less as soon as they walked into 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:17.080 the house. 0:17:17.359 --> 0:17:19.920 Yes, yes, And like so many other cases, I believe 0:17:20.000 --> 0:17:24.640 the police immediately focused on my father and had tunnel 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:29.840 vision as they began to investigate this case. I'll start 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:34.119 with the fact that they took photos that day of 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:40.080 the alleged crime scene, and the photos allegedly did not 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:46.720 come out, and after Kathy's body was removed, they went 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:51.199 back and restaged the crime scene and took new photos. 0:17:51.720 --> 0:17:54.520 By the time they'd done this, my stepmother had already 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:58.320 been taken out of the house, and the fire department 0:17:58.359 --> 0:18:01.600 had actually been called in to cut sheet rock out 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:05.159 of the wall with blood spatter and things, and so 0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:08.840 the new pictures they took the sheet rock was already 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:13.320 cut out, and they had drawn a diagram of the 0:18:13.400 --> 0:18:18.320 dining room where this happened, and the diagram didn't match 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:22.240 the pictures. They had moved the dining room table all 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:25.520 the way up against the wall to make it appear 0:18:25.640 --> 0:18:29.880 that there was a bigger area there when she was shot. 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:33.200 Right to make room for this alleged struggle that never 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:35.840 even happened. When she went to use the phone. 0:18:36.119 --> 0:18:38.840 In every picture they took of this small dining room, 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:42.560 they missed that phone, Jason by a quarter of an inch. 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:47.560 Another mistake that was made that day at the crime scene. 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:53.360 According to the police reports, they unclothed my stepmother naked 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:58.120 right there on the dining room floor and folded her 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:01.560 clothes up and put them in bags and transported her 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:06.679 to the morgue naked for them to unclothe her and 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:11.000 alter any evidence that could have been gathered from that. Now, 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:15.800 that goes against every protocol of any police department anywhere. 0:19:16.320 --> 0:19:19.439 Best I remember, the medical examiner said she'd come in 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:23.880 fully clothing, So what they actually done was recloser before 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:26.080 the medical examiner. 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:31.000 Examiner, that's exactly right. What the medical examiner reported didn't 0:19:31.080 --> 0:19:34.639 match the police reports. They unclothed her and at some 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:37.080 point reclothed her. 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:40.959 So they mishandled the scene, and the evidence altered or disappeared. 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:43.959 The key gunshot resident detest to Kathy's left hand. And 0:19:44.000 --> 0:19:47.720 then they arrested you, and eventually you got out un bond, 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:50.280 And even that was kind of odd, right. 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:54.800 Prosecutor Peters agreed to ten thousand, and he put a 0:19:54.920 --> 0:19:59.639 restriction on my bond. It says not to dispose of 0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:03.840 any marital or jointly held property without the permission of 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:06.600 the prosecute attorney in the probate court. 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:09.639 You got the State of Missouri coming after you with 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:14.920 unlimited resources, and your life and liberty is on the line. 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:18.800 My dad should have had access to every dime he 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:21.200 had to save his life. 0:20:21.080 --> 0:20:23.640 Right, And this also gets us to a crazy part 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:27.520 of this whole story. So while you're facing Prosecutor Patrick 0:20:27.560 --> 0:20:30.760 Peters in this criminal trial against you, there's also a 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:35.119 wrongful death civil suit filed against you by Kathy's sisters. 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:42.760 And get this, Prosecutor Peters's father is part of the 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:48.480 law firm behind that civil suit, so stands to benefit 0:20:48.960 --> 0:20:51.840 from the outcome. And of course you didn't even know 0:20:51.880 --> 0:20:52.639 that at the time. 0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:55.600 They had concealed it, and they had said that he 0:20:55.760 --> 0:20:59.040 had convinced them and he would convict me, and the 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:01.479 law firm would help keep me in prison. 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:06.320 I'd like to point out that the Blue Springs Police Department, 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:10.760 city attorney for Blue Springs was also in the same 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:14.479 law firm as the prosecutor's father, So you had a 0:21:14.600 --> 0:21:18.879 triangle of a conflict of interest here that was hidden 0:21:18.920 --> 0:21:20.000 from everyone. 0:21:20.359 --> 0:21:22.200 Every time we do an episode, I always think I've 0:21:22.200 --> 0:21:24.159 heard it all, I could say, even after doing two 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:27.320 hundred and fifty episodes of this show, I've never heard 0:21:27.320 --> 0:21:32.280 of that the prosecutor refers the family of the woman 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:38.200 who died to his own father's law firm. Now everybody's compromised, right, 0:21:38.320 --> 0:21:41.080 because now there's a whole nother motive for them to 0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:44.200 want to convict you of this crime so that everybody 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:45.040 can make money. 0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:48.920 And they ultimately got a one point three five million 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:52.520 dollar default wrongful debt judgment against my father. 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:58.240 So now there's been this litany of errors, misconduct, malfeasans 0:21:58.240 --> 0:22:00.840 straight up insanity. I'm going to call it what it is, 0:22:00.880 --> 0:22:04.520 it's insanity. And now finally it's time for the trial. 0:22:05.320 --> 0:22:08.960 It's February nineteen ninety one, a year after the incident. 0:22:09.320 --> 0:22:12.959 Basically, the cross of the States case against my dad 0:22:13.200 --> 0:22:16.119 was that he held her up against the wall and 0:22:16.240 --> 0:22:18.760 shot her from a foot away from her face. 0:22:19.200 --> 0:22:23.000 The prosecutor put on his so called experts, saying that 0:22:23.040 --> 0:22:26.840 she was two inches away from the wall and that 0:22:26.960 --> 0:22:29.959 I had my arm across her chest and held her 0:22:30.000 --> 0:22:33.120 up against the wall and shot her and blood experts 0:22:33.200 --> 0:22:36.159 admitted that he had a week's training and he. 0:22:36.280 --> 0:22:40.320 Self taught he had taken a forty hour course on 0:22:40.440 --> 0:22:45.040 blood spatter evidence. That's all the training that their expert had. 0:22:45.160 --> 0:22:48.440 These quote unquote experts had a forty hour training course 0:22:48.600 --> 0:22:50.840 that doesn't actually teach you anything except how to act 0:22:50.880 --> 0:22:53.520 like you know what you're talking about in court pretty much, right. 0:22:53.440 --> 0:22:56.359 But he didn't tell that there was no gun shot 0:22:56.440 --> 0:22:59.639 residue on my hands or long sleeve shirt, or blood 0:22:59.720 --> 0:23:02.040 or not the nails on my lone sleeve shirt. 0:23:02.359 --> 0:23:05.240 And they said he put a bootprint on the wall, 0:23:05.600 --> 0:23:09.800 which was false. It had been there weeks prior, and 0:23:09.840 --> 0:23:13.160 in order for that bootprint to get there, his leg 0:23:13.200 --> 0:23:15.600 would have had to have bent backwards at the knee 0:23:15.840 --> 0:23:19.600 and hyper extended in order to put that bootprint there. 0:23:19.960 --> 0:23:22.960 Right, you have this bootprint that was physically impossible to 0:23:23.080 --> 0:23:25.600 have been made in this scenario. But you know what, 0:23:26.640 --> 0:23:30.440 none of it freaking matters. Why they could have produced 0:23:30.680 --> 0:23:33.919 any other made up nonsense to try to support their theory. 0:23:34.000 --> 0:23:38.400