WEBVTT - #085 Jason Flom, John Grisham and Chip Harding with Jens Soering 0:00:02.759 --> 0:00:05.600 This call is from a correction facility, and it's subject 0:00:05.640 --> 0:00:07.119 to monitoring and recording. 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:09.880 I can tell you. 0:00:10.000 --> 0:00:20.720 Fathlet eleven, and it hasn't been easy. 0:00:20.800 --> 0:00:23.560 One hundred years, I said, man, I'm a kid. 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:27.040 I didn't do anything, you know, and uh, you know that. 0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:30.280 Was a that was real painful, man, you. 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:34.080 Know, because my life was discarded as if you know, 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:36.040 like I was a piece of trash or something, you. 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:38.879 Know, one hundred years and I had dreams and I 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:39.720 wanted to do things. 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:42.960 I wasn't committing crimes, you know. I was a very 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:43.680 good young man. 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:46.919 That is what happened in so many cases. The cops 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:50.120 have a hunch, because they're so smart at the scene, 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:53.720 they have a hunch, and once they act on that hunch, 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:57.200 they sort of developed tunnel vision and they take off 0:00:57.280 --> 0:00:59.760 march in the wrong direction, and that happens in some 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:01.480 any of these wrongful convictions. 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:05.960 They open the cell door and I walk down stiff, 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:10.559 and I actually walked downstairs to be outside. It felt 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:13.640 very strange to be, like I said, to be walking 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:16.040 without no chackles on my feet. I thought it was 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:18.200 a dream. But then again, it wasn't a dream. 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:36.600 This is wrongful conviction. So we all we all hooked up. 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:37.520 Here are we here? 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:43.560 We're here Test one two three. Sheriff Chip Harding, Albamarle County, Virginia. 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:44.200 MS. 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:46.920 Paul is from a correction facility and it's subject to 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:48.360 monitoring and recording. 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:52.400 Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. It's me. 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:55.480 I'm your host, and today we have an episode that 0:01:55.720 --> 0:02:00.600 is h going to rock your world. We have three 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:03.880 guests today. I'm gonna save the best for last, but 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:06.640 we have John Grisham in the studio with us. John welcome, 0:02:06.960 --> 0:02:11.239 delighted to be here, and Sheriff Chip Harding of Albemarle County. Yes, sir, 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:14.240 good to be here Virginia. And on the phone is 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:18.560 Yen Surring, one of the most remarkable people I know 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:22.760 and one of the most extraordinary cases of injustice that 0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:26.760 we've ever covered on this show. So Yen's I always say, 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:29.040 I'm happy you're here, but I'm sorry you're here. 0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:33.040 Thank you for having me. I really appreciate the student 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:35.440 and I'm thanks to Chip in John as well. 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:39.680 So this is a case that takes us back to 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:43.799 the eighties, believe it or not, a case that has 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:48.840 all the makings of a John Grisham novel, actually, because 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:53.280 this goes back to Yen's when you were first an 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:56.760 exchange student from Germany, a brilliant young scholar. From everything 0:02:56.840 --> 0:02:59.520 I'm told, this is a Jefferson scholar, a freshman at 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:03.240 the Universe of Virginia. And yeah, and do you want 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:05.080 to do you want to take us back there and 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:07.360 tell us how this started? 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:13.200 Sure, this was in nineteen eighty four in the fall. 0:03:14.520 --> 0:03:18.560 I arrived at the University of Virginia as a freshman, 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:23.359 be called christ new students there, and I met a 0:03:23.400 --> 0:03:25.880 young woman there who was two and a half years 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:31.600 older than I was Elizabeth Hasen, and we were both 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:34.880 in the same dormitory. She had entered the university late 0:03:34.960 --> 0:03:40.200 because she had had an adventurous youth. She had gone 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:42.720 to an English boarding school and run away with her 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:46.400 girlfriend to Europe, things like that, And so she came 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:49.720 to UVA quite a bit older than the rest of 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:55.840 us in that dormitory. And I was not an American citizen. 0:03:56.520 --> 0:03:59.320 My father was a German diplomat. That's why I was 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:03.200 living in a United States. And her family came from 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:09.440 South Africa and from Canada. So we were drawn to 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:10.160 each other. 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:17.039 As being foreigners, not Americans, and the parts of. 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:20.360 That false semester. In nineteen eighty four, we fell in love, 0:04:22.320 --> 0:04:25.679 and you know, it was quite a surprise to everybody 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:29.640 else in the dormitory because she was very experienced but 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:35.080 very mature. And I was, I guess, a nerd, an 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:40.400 uber nerd and virgin to boot. So she was my 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:41.480 very first girlfriend. 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:45.520 You were a German uber version nerd. It's quite a combination, Yen. 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:49.960 And she was a beautiful young woman, a striking woman 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:53.599 who you know, anyone in your situation would have probably 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:59.760 fallen head over heels for considering the circumstances. But the 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:03.560 you know, it was of course a faithful star across 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:04.400 love affair. 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:08.480 Yes, and yeah, it was a very short lived love 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:12.520 affair as well. Three months after we started dating, or 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:18.400 maybe four months after we started dating, we went to Washington, 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:21.520 d C. Spend a weekend together, and in the course 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:27.200 of that weekend, she told me that she was still 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:31.040 using drugs, which she had previously told me she had 0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:34.200 to stop doing, and that she needed to use our 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:38.120 rental car to run some drugs from Washington, d C. 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:42.120 To her dealer, who was also the university student back 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:47.800 in Charlottesville, and I wanted to come along, but she 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:50.159 wouldn't let me because she said that I was such 0:05:50.160 --> 0:05:53.320 a nerd. Nobody would no drug dealer would want to 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:57.200 do business around me. So she drove off in the 0:05:57.200 --> 0:06:03.000 car by herself and came back eight hours later until 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:08.240 she had killed her parents. And she said that you know, 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:10.960 the drugs had made her do it, and they had 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:16.600 deserved it anyway, and if I didn't help her, she 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:19.640 would be executed. She would be back then they used 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:24.240 the lecture too, She said that they would fry her. 0:06:24.800 --> 0:06:27.800 She said that I should be her alibi and tell 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:31.560 the police she was with me in Washington. And I 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:34.120 told her that that would never ever work, because the 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:37.880 police never believed boyfriends or husbands or wives people like that. 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:45.920 So I came up with this brilliant idea based on 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:50.080 Charles Dickens, a Tale of two Cities, of all things. 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:52.800 But I would take the blame for her. 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:58.800 I would take the rap for her and save her life. 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:02.839 Was based on a character in the Charles Dickens's novel 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:08.120 Sydney Carton, who did that in this novel. The difference 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:11.480 was that in the novel that particular character actually did 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:17.520 get fixed. Whereas my father was a German diplomat, I 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:22.720 thought I had diplomatic community. I thought that I could 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:26.840 take the blame for her crime, and all that would 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:30.680 happen with me was about be sent back to Germany 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:36.520 and put in prison there, and a trevenile prison for 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:40.200 about ten years. And I thought that given ten years 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:44.840 of my life, was worth saving her life from the 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:45.520 electric too. 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:53.560 Yeah, it's sort of a twisted nobility. It's you know, 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:58.880 it's sort of very hard to imagine. But at the 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:02.600 same time, people do crazy things for love all the time. 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:04.640 And you know, as you and I have spoken on 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:07.120 the phone at lengthy ends about this and the fact 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:11.160 his wars have been started over love affairs, so you know, 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:13.400 you're not the only person by far that's ever done 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:16.440 something so crazy, but this is certainly an extreme example. 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:21.960 And then yeah, go ahead, Jensory, not just. 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:24.800 Say it's a bit like at the end of the 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:29.560 movie Titanic, right when Leonardo DiCaprio lifts Kate Winslet onto 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:32.559 that door to save her life and then he sort 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:36.600 of sinks away and gives his life for her, you know, 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:39.200 except I didn't lift Kate winslet up on that door. 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:42.760 I looked at Sharon Stone from basic instinct upon that door, 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:47.480 and then, you know, sacrifice myself for her. 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:51.040 Yes, we were talking about this earlier and I said 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:54.200 that it's such a strange fate that you happen to 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:56.600 have only been with one woman and she turned out 0:08:56.640 --> 0:09:02.599 to be the devil. It's really something that is unimaginable. 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:08.120 You know, It's calling her the devil is a little oversimplified. 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:13.880 She was later diagnosed with a very severe personality disorder, 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:18.520 so you know, she actually had serious mental health issues. 0:09:19.280 --> 0:09:23.600 And and of course she claimed that her mother had 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:28.640 sexually abused her with the knowledge and cooperation of her father, 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:32.679 and you know, there's there's some indications that that may 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:36.240 have actually been true. Of course, we'll never know for 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:39.800 sure now, but you know, she she was a troubled 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:40.360 young woman. 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:43.160 This I want to fast forward a little bit because 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:45.959 I want to get into the current circumstance and how 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:49.520 we can hopefully make a difference and get you home 0:09:49.559 --> 0:09:55.199 where you belong. But as things developed, you initially were 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:59.680 not suspects and but then at some point you decided 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:02.679 to to make a getaway. And this is back in 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:05.680 the days when for people don't remember in the eighties, 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:07.720 you can sort of travel the world under a different name. 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:10.320 And it wasn't all these different It wasn't you know, 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:14.679 so tightly monitored or regulated. And so you guys went 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:18.080 around the world and ultimately ended up in England, which 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:21.160 is also sort of a crazy adventure to think about 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:24.600 these two lovers running away from the authorities, traveling the 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:28.120 world with a suitcase, and you know, it's you know, 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:30.959 sort of a it sounds sounds kind of romantic and 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:36.040 adventurous and you know, cinematic at the same time. And 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:38.480 you ended up in England, and that's when things began 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:41.600 began to go wrong, right because you were ultimately arrested 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:45.160 for passing bad checks, as I understand it. And then 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:49.240 and then we get to the point where the false 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:51.360 confessions come in, or your false confession. 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:56.959 So the police both Elizabeth and me back from the 0:10:57.080 --> 0:11:01.720 jail to the police station and they actually wrote into 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:04.720 the police station lab book that I was to be 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:07.280 held in Kaninocado. In other words, I was to be 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:11.040 isolated from the outside world and not given access to 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:15.400 my lawyer. And that's exactly what they did. For four days. 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:20.240 They interrogated me for four days, many many hours, at 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:23.720 dozens and dozens and dozens of hours, and then finally, 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:28.600 on the fourth day, I decided to keep my promise 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:33.960 to Elizabeth that I had made fifteen months earlier, and 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:38.000 I decided to take the blame for what she did. 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:41.800 And that's what I did. I told them the story 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:45.040 that she and I had cooked up. And of course 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:50.720 that false confession contained many mistakes that the real killer 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:55.240 would not have made. I described the clothing of one 0:11:55.440 --> 0:12:01.080 victim incorrectly, and I placed the other in the wrong room, 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:07.480 and there were numerous mistakes like that which you should 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:12.080 have learned the police to the fact that I might 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:16.720 not be telling the truth. In addition to that, of course, 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:21.640 at that time the police who were interrogating me were 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:28.839 in possession of an FBI crime scene profile by one 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:33.640 of the people invented crime scene profiling, one of the 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:38.520 leading special agents, and that profile said that the crime 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:42.959 had been committed by a woman in a close relationship 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:45.880 to the victims. And of course I was a man, 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:48.560 and I didn't know the victims like the one time 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:52.160 for twenty minutes, so they should have known that what 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:57.520 the story I was telling them was not true nevertheless. 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:00.080 And then, of course, the other thing that happened is 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:04.240 that just a couple of hours after I told the 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:08.320 police that I did it, Elizabeth told the police that 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:12.000 she did it. She said, I did it myself. I 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:15.280 got off on it. But by that space the police 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:18.200 had decided that I was a guilty one. So they 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:23.240 actually let her withdraw that confession, which is hilarious in 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:27.120 a way because they found hosting the prince at the 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:34.240 crime scene and not mine. And you know, it's quite 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:37.480 incredible that they let her with god that confession, but 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:41.520 they did. And so they ended up charging me with 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:46.400 being the killer, and they charged her with being the accomplice. 0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:51.640 You have one minute remaining. They charged me with being 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:54.920 the killer, and they charged her with being an accomplice. 0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:59.040 And in nineteen ninety they put me on trial and 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:02.040 convicted me of something that I did not do. But 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:04.680 we get back. I could talk about the blood which 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:06.960 they used at the trial and look changed later on. 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:09.200 So let me hang up and call back. 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:11.200 We're back. 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:11.920 Hey, we're back. 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:16.199 So there's there's a lot of things wrong with this case. 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:18.920 There's so many it's hard to even fit them into 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:23.280 an episode of the show, but one of them that 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:25.800 I talk about, and as you know, you know, we've 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:28.360 known each other quite some time, been advocating alongside this 0:14:28.440 --> 0:14:32.040 amazing team of people that you have. And what I 0:14:32.080 --> 0:14:34.160 say to anyone that will listen to me is this 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:37.640 is an unusual situation because normally in false confession cases 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:39.920 you have people who are trying not to implicate themselves 0:14:40.160 --> 0:14:43.520 and who may be of limited mental abilities as well 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:47.560 in some cases. In your case, you were trying to 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:50.080 implicate yourself, right, so there would have been no reason 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:52.040 for you not to tell the truth if in fact 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:55.000 you knew what it was. But the reason that you 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:58.000 were wrong about these details is because you just didn't know. 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:00.280 So here you had a guy who were stually the 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:03.320 smartest guy in the room, and you were trying the 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:05.600 best to save your the love of what you thought 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:07.520 was the love of your life, and yet you were 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:10.720 unable to get almost anything right because of the fact 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:13.800 that you weren't there. So that makes it hard. And 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:16.880 I do want to bring John and Chip into the 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:23.120 conversation too, just to talk about this scenario that took 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:28.080 place in England and the immediate aftermath of it. John, 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:29.000 you want to jump in here. 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:34.280 Yeah, it goes back to a confession, false confession, because 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:41.160 there there's no other proof to convict ends of the murder, 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:44.239 so you've got all they have is a false a confession, 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:48.400 And with any false confession case, what you would hope 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:52.640 that the authorities do is once they managed to extract 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:56.400 the confession and whatever technics they used to do that 0:15:57.040 --> 0:15:58.640 is that they will match it up to the physical 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:01.840 events to see if it in fact matches and false 0:16:01.840 --> 0:16:06.760 confessions virtually never match up because there are too many details. 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:11.040 There are too many uh, specifics in the murder, the 0:16:12.800 --> 0:16:16.360 method of murder, the place, the blood, the blood splatter, 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:21.360 the clothing, the room, whatever. There's a whole fingerprints, footprints, 0:16:21.400 --> 0:16:23.720 and there's a long list of items that you know. 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:28.800 The police go through any investigation, and with a false confession, 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:34.040 it's usually fairly simple to uh to realize once you 0:16:34.080 --> 0:16:38.160 start matching the confession given by somebody who wasn't there, 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:41.000 it's impossible for them to remember all the details that 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:43.840 the real killer would actually know, where he left the bodies, 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:46.960 how he killed them, Well you know who who did what, 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:48.960 what was on the kitchen table, what was knocked over, 0:16:49.040 --> 0:16:51.400 what was spilt these are all, you know, it's fairly 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:55.680 common common sense. And then in Yen's case, you know 0:16:55.720 --> 0:17:00.160 there were so many discrepancies between his confession and the 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:05.720 actual physical crime scene. You just want to scream and say, 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:10.879 why didn't somebody put these together, match them up? And somebody, 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:14.320 whether the cops and the local boys, are you know, 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:21.640 not always that reliable, especially in a rural county like Bedford, Virginia, 0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:23.560 where you know they don't see a lot of murders 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:27.880 and the cops are not that well trained and sophisticated. 0:17:29.240 --> 0:17:31.840 You just you you want to say, why can't you 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:35.480 guys look at what's obvious. What frustrates me is when 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:39.400 you get to trial and you have what you think 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:43.600 should be a competent defense lawyer who cannot walk through 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:47.119 the confession step by step by step and show the 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:50.480 discrepancies between the confession and the actual crime scene. I'm 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:53.840 not sure if this was done or attempted in Yuen's case, 0:17:53.880 --> 0:17:57.760 but it certainly was not effective. And so that's that's 0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:01.560 what we always start in a false confession case is 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:04.600 let's match it up with the proof, and it never 0:18:04.680 --> 0:18:05.280 matches up. 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:07.760 It never does. And this was a crazy case because 0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:11.000 on top of all the other, you know, factors that 0:18:11.080 --> 0:18:14.520 led to his wrongful conviction. I think there was an 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:17.240 inherent bias. I can't prove this because of the fact 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:20.560 that it was Bedford County, which ironically is the county 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:23.080 that lost more soldiers in World War Two to the 0:18:23.119 --> 0:18:25.160 Germans per capital than anywhere else in the United States. 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:28.240 It's why the World War Two Memorial is there. And 0:18:28.320 --> 0:18:30.639 so I think that there's at least an argument that 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:33.480 there could have been a the odds wood stacked against 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:35.879 the ends from the beginning. I want to bring Sheriff 0:18:35.880 --> 0:18:42.199 Harding into the conversation. Sheriff Harding is a Ford You've 0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:45.560 been in law enforcement for several decades, four decades, right, 0:18:45.920 --> 0:18:50.919 and have been recognized by it's I mean, his resume 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:54.800 is nuts when you look at the number of accreditations 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:58.040 he has and the number of awards he's won, and 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:03.640 he's one of the most accomplished people in law enforcement 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:06.840 in the United States. And you've been You've dived into 0:19:06.920 --> 0:19:11.960 this case with I mean, with all guns blazing, so 0:19:12.040 --> 0:19:16.199 to speak. And is it possible, Sheriff You've examined this 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:20.359 evidence eighteen ways till Sunday. Is it theoretically possible that 0:19:20.400 --> 0:19:21.480 Ian's committed this crime. 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:23.679 Is it possible, I mean he could have been dropped 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:25.800 down with us from a spaceship and done it. But 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:29.800 is it logical he was there when these murders occurred. 0:19:30.400 --> 0:19:33.280 Extremely unlikely he was there. There's nothing that puts him 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:36.439 there other than this false confession. And as John was 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:39.960 saying earlier, the confession didn't match the crime scene when 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:44.119 you look at it, I mean, there was some huge discrepancies. 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:44.400 That weren't followed up. 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:48.400 You had a young investigator, his first homicide case she'd 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:51.720 ever investigated, and I'm reading a transcript going, you got 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:54.160 to be kidneyed. You didn't do any follow up. Plus 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:56.800 they didn't tape the confession. So when he gets to court, 0:19:57.480 --> 0:20:02.200 very skillfully, the prosecutor only asked questions that were consistent 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:07.560 with the cram scene in the event and omitted the inconsistencies. 0:20:07.960 --> 0:20:09.680 And as John was pouring out, he had a very 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:13.240 very ineffective defense attorney that didn't bring that to the 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:14.480 attention of the jury. 0:20:14.960 --> 0:20:17.680 Among other things. And yet take us back in your 0:20:18.920 --> 0:20:23.280 you know, from your perspective, this this is a nightmare 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:26.359 that no one can imagine living through you were. You 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:28.440 had been in jail in England for quite some time 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:31.199 before you even came to trial. You had nothing in 0:20:31.240 --> 0:20:33.280 your life experience that would prepare you for any of this, 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:38.280 And now here you are in the in the grip 0:20:38.520 --> 0:20:43.320 of the justice system in Virginia as a sort of 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:47.119 an arch villain, right, And what was this like for 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:49.080 you to go through this at the time? Did you 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:51.679 believe that you would be that you would actually win 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:52.200 this case? 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:56.200 Can I go in a couple of other factories and 0:20:56.320 --> 0:21:04.120 then answer your question details that corroborate the confession. At 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:11.439 the time of the trial, the prosecutor pointed out to 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:18.080 the jury twenty six times that the police found some 0:21:18.320 --> 0:21:22.480 O type blood at the crime scene, and that I 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:26.280 was the only person involved in the case who had 0:21:26.680 --> 0:21:29.920 type old blood. The victims did not have Type O blood, 0:21:30.040 --> 0:21:32.720 and my girlfriend did not have type of blood. The 0:21:32.800 --> 0:21:36.200 only person involved in the case was type oh blood 0:21:36.359 --> 0:21:39.200 was meat, is what the prosecutor told the jury twenty 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:43.359 six times. And it would take another two and a 0:21:43.400 --> 0:21:48.840 half decades to find out through DNA testing that indeed 0:21:48.920 --> 0:21:52.480 that was type of blood that was left by somebody else. 0:21:53.400 --> 0:21:57.280 So what is the fact that seemed to corroborate the 0:21:57.320 --> 0:22:01.040 confession at the time of the trial. It's now shown 0:22:01.640 --> 0:22:04.200 to actually prove the confession. 0:22:04.640 --> 0:22:09.119 And talk more about that, Sheriff Harding, what percentage of 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:11.919 the population has this type of blood? I think it's 0:22:11.960 --> 0:22:14.360 about forty five percent, isn't it. It's pretty high, right, 0:22:14.440 --> 0:22:16.520 So I mean that really is I mean, it's a 0:22:16.600 --> 0:22:18.760 ridiculous thing to try to pin anything on, but yet 0:22:18.760 --> 0:22:21.440 the prosecutor mentioned it for twenty six times. It's also 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:26.760 worth mentioning that Yenz's lead trial lawyer was disbarred a 0:22:26.800 --> 0:22:32.840 few years after your your false, your wrongful conviction, and 0:22:32.880 --> 0:22:36.399 he was disbarred because of mental illness. Drugs were a 0:22:36.440 --> 0:22:39.600 factor in all of this, and it was shown that 0:22:39.680 --> 0:22:45.480 he was suffering from this, this this profound problem during 0:22:45.520 --> 0:22:49.399 the time of your trial. So that's just another important 0:22:49.400 --> 0:22:54.440 thing to recognize. 0:23:00.040 --> 0:23:01.720 You feel like you wanted to know what it felt 0:23:01.800 --> 0:23:05.760 like at that stage in nineteen ninety, I had already 0:23:05.840 --> 0:23:10.840 been in prison for four years, finding expedition from England 0:23:10.960 --> 0:23:13.760 to the United States. For most of those four years, 0:23:15.240 --> 0:23:18.199 I was convinced that all my lawyers were convinced and 0:23:18.280 --> 0:23:21.600 everybody thought that I was definitely be sentenced to death. 0:23:22.800 --> 0:23:27.399 So I spent four years in prison in effect psychologically 0:23:27.560 --> 0:23:32.040 on death row. I was Everybody, including my own team, 0:23:32.119 --> 0:23:35.760 told me that I had no chance of avoiding the 0:23:35.760 --> 0:23:40.360 Electric two, and then at the last minute that was avoided. 0:23:40.440 --> 0:23:42.640 We won an appeal at the European Court of Human 0:23:42.720 --> 0:23:46.439 Rights and I was brought back to America. And that 0:23:46.560 --> 0:23:50.000 sort of thing has an effect on you psychologically. 0:23:49.960 --> 0:23:54.119 Living in prison for four years believing. 0:23:53.600 --> 0:23:57.480 That you're going to die pretty increasingly in the Electric two, 0:23:58.560 --> 0:24:02.280 and then I got that brought back to his virginion. 0:24:03.400 --> 0:24:08.040 Everybody hated me. Everybody was convinced I was guilty, and 0:24:08.240 --> 0:24:12.560 it was you know, he was really scary. I was. 0:24:14.200 --> 0:24:19.119 It was very frightening experience and I did not handle 0:24:19.160 --> 0:24:25.000 it well. I did not handle it well. But again 0:24:25.040 --> 0:24:27.040 you have to put them against the background of my 0:24:27.160 --> 0:24:31.879 having spent you know, three years under commin a breath 0:24:31.920 --> 0:24:37.000 of death and then coming into the zo atmosphere and 0:24:37.200 --> 0:24:42.200 having to see Elizabeth Haysen, a woman that that sacrificed 0:24:42.280 --> 0:24:48.760 myself for get up understand and Toldure herself and tell 0:24:48.800 --> 0:24:53.479 all these lies to put me away in prison. And 0:24:53.560 --> 0:24:55.639 when I say that, she toldured herself, that's not just 0:24:55.680 --> 0:25:00.840 the claim I make. Twenty six years later, she actually 0:25:00.880 --> 0:25:04.840 admitted that in a newspaper interview. She admitted that she 0:25:04.880 --> 0:25:08.000 told her herself at that trial. But at that time 0:25:08.760 --> 0:25:12.639 nobody knew that, and nobody caired. They just wanted a 0:25:12.760 --> 0:25:15.640 witness to point the Fingrette mean, and she did that job. 0:25:17.760 --> 0:25:23.600 And that and my own false confession and the type 0:25:23.600 --> 0:25:24.360 of blood. 0:25:24.600 --> 0:25:26.840 That's what did me in and the sock print, of course, 0:25:26.920 --> 0:25:29.840 was a ridiculous piece of evidence that no serious person 0:25:29.920 --> 0:25:32.560 should have ever even it shouldn't been allowed in court, 0:25:32.600 --> 0:25:34.040 and it shouldn't have been in the way that was 0:25:34.040 --> 0:25:37.000