Speaker 1: Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura and I
Speaker 1: writer and I'm Steve Drissen. Today we'll bring you to
Speaker 1: Culpepper County, Virginia to tell you the story of teenage
Speaker 1: buddies Eric Weekly and Michael Hash. Local police solved a
Speaker 1: murder case by coercing Eric into falsely confessing and into
Speaker 1: falsely implicating his friend Michael as an accomplice. For years,
Speaker 1: lawyers couldn't get justice for either of them until Michael's
Speaker 1: mom found evidence that blew this case wide open. Michael
Speaker 1: Hash and Eric Weekly were childhood friends, longtime friends, and
Speaker 1: to see the way the systems split them apart in
Speaker 1: this case, it's terrible. It's not uncommon for one co
Speaker 1: defendant to turn on another code defendant, especially in a
Speaker 1: state where the death penalty is on the table, and
Speaker 1: it's really understandable how that could have destroyed Eric's relationship
Speaker 1: with Mike and Mike's whole family. But that's not what happened.
Speaker 1: One of the most incredible things about Wrongful Convictions work
Speaker 1: is that you encounter these pockets of grace in the
Speaker 1: most unexpected places, some of the most unbelievable humans. You'll
Speaker 1: ever meet. Are people like Pam hash who son Mike
Speaker 1: was falsely implicated by his one time childhood friend. You know,
Speaker 1: that's a situation that could have led to a lot
Speaker 1: of rage and a lot of anger, and a lot
Speaker 1: of blame. Yeah, I mean vengeance, anger, hatred. They can
Speaker 1: keep somebody stuck. But Pam realized very early on that
Speaker 1: that was wasted energy and that she needed to spend
Speaker 1: all her time learning about the case, finding the right lawyers,
Speaker 1: doing your own digging, and pushing the authorities to come
Speaker 1: to the right solution. She turned all of that into forgiveness.
Speaker 1: That's pretty incredible. Today's story starts in Culpepper County, Virginia,
Speaker 1: about ninety minutes west of the Washington d C Beltway.
Speaker 1: Culpepper is a popular weekend getaway spot for the d
Speaker 1: C crowd. It's got bed and breakfasts, art boutiques, and
Speaker 1: plenty of fancy cafes. Architectural Digest even named Culpepper the
Speaker 1: prettiest area in Virginia. But for all its beauty, Culpepper
Speaker 1: is also home to an unremedied injustice, one that stains
Speaker 1: the county to this day. That injustice began back in
Speaker 1: in Lignum, an unincorporated part of Culpepper that hadn't quite
Speaker 1: caught up to the rest of the county's growing prosperity.
Speaker 1: Lignum was where seventy four year old Thelma Scroggins had
Speaker 1: lived her whole life, in the same two story frame
Speaker 1: house where she'd been born. Thelma was a petite, curly
Speaker 1: haired lady who had attired from her work as a
Speaker 1: mail carrier. She had been widowed years earlier, and since
Speaker 1: then she lived alone. But Thelma's life was still full
Speaker 1: and active. She had plenty of friends and liked to
Speaker 1: spend time playing the organ at the Baptist church across
Speaker 1: the street. It was the evening of Saturday July and
Speaker 1: Thelma was on the phone with one of her girlfriends.
Speaker 1: At about nine pm, Thelma told her friend that she
Speaker 1: had to go. Someone was knocking at the door. The
Speaker 1: friend called back fifteen minutes later, but got no answer.
Speaker 1: She tried again the next morning, still no answer. When
Speaker 1: Thelma didn't show up at church that Sunday morning, her
Speaker 1: friends really started worrying. One of them, Richard Hicks, went
Speaker 1: over to Thelma's house. As he pulled up outside, he
Speaker 1: could hear Thelma's TV blasting at top volume. Richard let
Speaker 1: himself inside the front door wasn't locked, and found pink
Speaker 1: hair curlers scattered across the living room floor. He went
Speaker 1: in further and saw Thelma slumped over in front of
Speaker 1: her bedroom door. Or She had been shot in the
Speaker 1: head four times. It seemed the TV had been turned
Speaker 1: up to mask the sound of the gunshots. Police arrived
Speaker 1: and quickly canvassed the scene. They found that Thelma's jewelry
Speaker 1: was still sitting on her dresser, but her purse was missing,
Speaker 1: along with her green Ford pickup truck. A month later,
Speaker 1: a deer hunter found the truck abandoned in a wooded
Speaker 1: area about a mile and a half away from Thelma's home.
Speaker 1: Her purse was there too, with its contents scattered on
Speaker 1: the ground nearby. But despite this discovery, police couldn't develop
Speaker 1: any viable suspects or leads. A few months later, the
Speaker 1: case went cold. Three years later, in November nine, a
Speaker 1: new DA was elected in Culpepper on a promise to
Speaker 1: solve cold cases. Shortly after he took office, new detectives
Speaker 1: were assigned to investigate Thelmas Scroggin's murder. They started off
Speaker 1: by visiting a local prison to interview a young woman
Speaker 1: named Alicia Shelton. Alicia had just been convicted of shooting
Speaker 1: a man in the heads six times. The cops figured
Speaker 1: her crime was similar enough to what happened to Thelma
Speaker 1: to make Alicia worth questioning. On audio tape, Alicia told
Speaker 1: the investigators that she didn't know anything about Thelma's murder,
Speaker 1: But then one detective offered what he called a little foundation.
Speaker 1: He suggested that Alicia might get a reduced sentence if
Speaker 1: she provided information about her teenage cousin, Michael Hash. Then silence.
Speaker 1: The tape was shut off, supposedly for a cigarette break.
Speaker 1: When the recorder got turned back on, Alicia was suddenly
Speaker 1: full of ideas. She said she'd overheard her cousin Michael,
Speaker 1: discussing his involvement in Thelma's murder. She said Michael did
Speaker 1: it along with his buddies Eric Weakley and Jason Klobe.
Speaker 1: Alicia Shelton was looking at a lot of time and
Speaker 1: desperate for a way to get out from underneath the
Speaker 1: weight of a heavy sentence. I don't know what happened
Speaker 1: when the camera was off, but there had to be
Speaker 1: some powerful inducement to get her to change her story
Speaker 1: from I don't know what you're talking about two, fingering
Speaker 1: her own cousin and his friends for this cry in.
Speaker 1: When Thelma was killed, Michael was fifteen, Eric was sixteen,
Speaker 1: and Jason was eighteen. They had grown up together, writing
Speaker 1: go karts as kids and crushing on girls as teenagers.
Speaker 1: Michael and his parents, Jeff and Pam Hash, lived within
Speaker 1: a mile of Thelma's house. In fact, Thelma had been
Speaker 1: the Hash family's mail carrier, delivering birthday cards and letters
Speaker 1: to the home with her typical friendly wave. Michael was
Speaker 1: a good kid. There was no reason whatsoever to suspect
Speaker 1: him and his friends of killing Thelma's croggins. It's true
Speaker 1: that Michael used to frequent a campsite near the wooded
Speaker 1: area where Thelma's truck had been found, but that was
Speaker 1: a pretty thin connection. Somehow, though, Michael Hash, Jason klobe
Speaker 1: and Eric Weakley found themselves at the center of a
Speaker 1: cold case murder investigation. In April two thousand. Police decided
Speaker 1: to interrogate, but they don't start with Michael Hash or
Speaker 1: Jason Klobey. They start with Eric Weekly. By this time,
Speaker 1: Eric was nineteen years old with a reputation as a follower,
Speaker 1: someone who could be easily intimidated. Eric Weekly was a
Speaker 1: weak link. He had a little daughter that he cared
Speaker 1: very much about. He had a prior record, which gave
Speaker 1: interrogators leverage. They started with him because they felt that
Speaker 1: he was the most likely to break and it worked.
Speaker 1: Eric said his factory job. When two detectives approach him
Speaker 1: and start asking about Thelma's murder. Eric is shocked. He
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with it. He tells the detectives
Speaker 1: they're crazy and says he has to get back to work.
Speaker 1: The cops leave, but not for long. They follow Eric everywhere,
Speaker 1: the gas station, the grocery store. They show up at
Speaker 1: Eric job over and over. These detectives would not leave
Speaker 1: him alone. They hounded him, They stalked him, They kept
Speaker 1: coming to his workplace trying to question him. It got
Speaker 1: to the point where his employer just was fed up
Speaker 1: and he fired Eric. And Eric got worried that he
Speaker 1: would never be able to get another job because everywhere
Speaker 1: he would go, these cops would just show up at
Speaker 1: his work again. So he gave up and he agreed
Speaker 1: finally to go to the police station and answer their questions.
Speaker 1: Over the next several weeks, Eric and Doors not one,
Speaker 1: not too but a whole chain of interrogations as the
Speaker 1: police keep insisting he come back again and again. Some
Speaker 1: of these interrogations last longer than twelve hours. Only a
Speaker 1: few are recorded, but what did get caught on tape
Speaker 1: is enough to make anyone skeptical. During the first few interrogations,
Speaker 1: Eric protests his innocence over and over. He doesn't have
Speaker 1: the mind or the heart to kill somebody, he tells police,
Speaker 1: and I'm sitting he had tell him no, and he
Speaker 1: still not believe. I'm sitting here telling you no, I
Speaker 1: did not shoot this woe. The police won't listen to Eric.
Speaker 1: They insist he's guilty, and they chip away at him
Speaker 1: slowly and steadily over the course of weeks. Why do
Speaker 1: you sit here and try to lie to me about
Speaker 1: that today? Then the police tell Eric that if he cooperates,
Speaker 1: he can go home. If he just repeats the details
Speaker 1: they feed him, the police can work with him, even
Speaker 1: help him come from That helps here. But if Eric
Speaker 1: holds back, if he refuses to say he was involved,
Speaker 1: they say that'll hurt him. If he doesn't confess, he
Speaker 1: might not get to see his daughter anymore. These interrogations
Speaker 1: continue off and on for weeks, but Eric still won't confess,
Speaker 1: so the cops pull out a tried and true attacked.
Speaker 1: Finally they say, okay, Eric, if you have nothing to
Speaker 1: do with this, would you at least come down and
Speaker 1: take a polygraph exam? And Eric did. He took that
Speaker 1: exam to get these police officers off his back, and
Speaker 1: then they told him he failed the exam, which got
Speaker 1: him talking. The polygraph finally does it. Eric weakly realizes
Speaker 1: he'll never be able to get the police to believe him,
Speaker 1: and he breaks. He agrees to tell the cops a story.
Speaker 1: Eric says that he, Michael, and Jason chopped Thelma's body
Speaker 1: up with an axe. Their motive, he said, was robbery.
Speaker 1: They stole diamond rings, vases, and necklaces from her home,
Speaker 1: a king's ransom in treasure. This was a confessional, right,
Speaker 1: but none of it came close to what actually happened.
Speaker 1: Thelma wasn't attacked with an ax, and what little jewelry
Speaker 1: she owned was found sitting on her dresser. So police
Speaker 1: accused Eric of lying. Again, Eric's response, I'm just telling
Speaker 1: you what you want to hear, so I can go
Speaker 1: the hell home. The police don't let him go the
Speaker 1: hell home. They've got to clean up Eric's story and
Speaker 1: it takes hours. They cut him short when he begins
Speaker 1: to describe the jewelry because none of it had actually
Speaker 1: been taken. They show him photos of the crime scene
Speaker 1: so that he can see Thelma's body wasn't mutilated with
Speaker 1: an axe. In fact, they end up straight out telling
Speaker 1: Eric that Thelma had been shot, and all these details
Speaker 1: provided by the police are what end up in Eric's confession.
Speaker 1: Eric's story becomes final on May six, two thousand, He's arrested.
Speaker 1: Immediately that same night, police come for Jason Klobe and
Speaker 1: Michael Hash. The night that he was arrested, it was
Speaker 1: it was a total shock. That's Pam Hash. She's Michael
Speaker 1: Hash's mom. It was about one o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 1: Everybody had gone to bed, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: there's barking dogs, people banging on the door, yelling. My
Speaker 1: husband got up, went to the door and they pretty
Speaker 1: much just barged into the home. They were wanting Michael.
Speaker 1: She had, of course the boxers on, nothing else, and
Speaker 1: I begged them to let him have at least shirt
Speaker 1: and shoes. They let him take it with him, and
Speaker 1: in a matter of minutes he was loaded into the car,
Speaker 1: and all these cars left, and who got dressed and
Speaker 1: followed them. It was all so quick, it felt like
Speaker 1: it was in a movie. It was just a nightmare.
Speaker 1: Pam's nightmare had just begun. She would soon find out
Speaker 1: her son, Michael, along with his buddies Eric and Jason,
Speaker 1: had been charged with capital murder. Culpepper County Commonwealth Attorney
Speaker 1: Gary Close prosecuted each of the three boys, starting with
Speaker 1: Jason Klobe, but the prosecution had a problem. There was
Speaker 1: no evidence against Jason except for Eric's statement, and prosecutors
Speaker 1: could only use Eric's statement against Jason if Eric agreed
Speaker 1: to testify in person against him. It's not enough to
Speaker 1: simply play Eric's confession during the trial of Michael and Jason,
Speaker 1: because lawyers can't cross examine a confession. They need to
Speaker 1: be able to cross examine Eric about what he says
Speaker 1: on that tape. It's part of a constitutional right of
Speaker 1: criminal defendants to confront witnesses the right of cross examination.
Speaker 1: The prosecution needed Eric weakly to get up on the
Speaker 1: witness stand and testify to get him there. They offered
Speaker 1: him a deal. If Eric agreed to testify against both
Speaker 1: Jason and Michael, the state would reduce Eric's charges to
Speaker 1: second degree murder. That charge carried at most twenty years
Speaker 1: behind bars, sometimes much less. If Eric didn't take the deal.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, he was facing life in prison
Speaker 1: if convicted. Eric was in despair. He felt cornered by
Speaker 1: the confession that detectives had wrung out of him. Like
Speaker 1: so many people before him, Eric felt that he had
Speaker 1: no real choice. He took the deal and agreed to
Speaker 1: testify against his friends. Once you confess, the pressure to
Speaker 1: plead guilty on these suspects is even greater. Of all
Speaker 1: the exonerations in the DNA database, twelve percent involve people
Speaker 1: who pled guilty to crimes they didn't commit, and each
Speaker 1: one of those please involved someone who was represented by
Speaker 1: counsel and who weighed the options and decided it was
Speaker 1: in their best interests to give up all of their rights,
Speaker 1: to give up their right to testify, their right to appeal,
Speaker 1: their right to prove their innocence, in order to plead guilty.
Speaker 1: Eric was now a lock for the prosecution. In November
Speaker 1: two thousand, it was time to try Jason Klobe as
Speaker 1: he had agreed to do. Eric took the stand and
Speaker 1: testified that Jason had participated in the murder. But Jason's
Speaker 1: defense lawyers had an ace in the hole, an alibi.
Speaker 1: They brought in several witnesses who testified that Jason had
Speaker 1: been visiting his dad in Pennsylvania at the time of
Speaker 1: Felmus murder. It took the jury less than two hours
Speaker 1: to find Jason Klobe not guilty. If Jason wasn't present
Speaker 1: during this crime, then that undermines Eric's entire confession because
Speaker 1: he has Jason right there being a major actor along
Speaker 1: with Michael in the murder of Thomas Croggins. Once these
Speaker 1: detectives learned that Jason had an alibi, they should have
Speaker 1: walked away from this case, But detectives didn't walk away. Instead,
Speaker 1: they plowed ahead with the trial of Michael hash After
Speaker 1: Kloby was acquitted, I kept telling Mike, you're next. They
Speaker 1: know the truth from Chloe's case. Your next, You'll be next.
Speaker 1: You're coming home now. Michael didn't have a strong alibi
Speaker 1: like Jason did. When Thelma died, Michael had been right
Speaker 1: there in Culpepper County, hanging out with some buddies. But
Speaker 1: even though Michael's defense was weaker, the prosecutors decided to
Speaker 1: leave nothing to chance. They knew that Eric Weekly's testimony
Speaker 1: alone wasn't going to be enough to get a conviction
Speaker 1: against Michael. So what did they do? They manufactured more evidence.
Speaker 1: They went to a seasoned serial snitch, a jailhouse informant
Speaker 1: who had worked with them in the past and testified
Speaker 1: in other cases, Paul Carter. About a week after Michael
Speaker 1: had been arrested, he met Paul Carter in jail. At
Speaker 1: the time, it seemed like a random encounter. Later, at
Speaker 1: Michael's trial, Carter testified that when they met, Michael had
Speaker 1: admitted to killing Thelma. During cross examination, Eric's defense attorney
Speaker 1: suggested Car it was getting some benefit in exchange for
Speaker 1: fabricating testimony against Michael, but Carter denied it. He said
Speaker 1: he wasn't receiving anything for his cooperation. He was a
Speaker 1: pretty career criminal and he knew what he was doing,
Speaker 1: even though he's up there telling the jury that he
Speaker 1: is only there because this was somebody's mother or grandmother.
Speaker 1: You know, he's looking for something, and I thought the
Speaker 1: jury would see right through that. The prosecutor backed up
Speaker 1: his witnesses claim, telling the jury that, of course, the
Speaker 1: state hadn't made any deal with Carter. After testimony concluded,
Speaker 1: the jury deliberated for six and a half hours. As
Speaker 1: the clocks neared midnights on February nine, two thousand one,
Speaker 1: they returned a verdict guilty. It's a sound that I
Speaker 1: think out here for the rest of my life. When
Speaker 1: they came back and said that they found him guilty,
Speaker 1: it's almost likely you hear guilty, guilty, guilty, just echoing,
Speaker 1: and quite frankly, I don't remember a whole lot after that.
Speaker 1: I know that I broke down and they took Michael
Speaker 1: immediately out of the courtroom. I remember my husband putting
Speaker 1: me in the backseat of the car, and don't really
Speaker 1: remember a whole lot after that Until the next morning.
Speaker 1: At sentencing, Michael told the judge, you've convicted an innocent person,
Speaker 1: but it was too late. Michael Hash was sentenced to
Speaker 1: life without the possibility of parole. A lot of defendants
Speaker 1: in Michael's situation might have played guilty and accepted a
Speaker 1: much shorter sentence, but Michael didn't confess. That's important. It's
Speaker 1: never wrong to assert your innocence. For his part, Eric
Speaker 1: weakly had finally satisfied the state he'd lived up to
Speaker 1: his end of the bargain and testified against his friends.
Speaker 1: In exchange, the state reduced Eric's charges to second degree murder,
Speaker 1: to which Eric formally pled guilty on June thirteenth, two
Speaker 1: thousand one. He would go on to serve six years
Speaker 1: and eight months in prison. Eric implicating Michael and Jason
Speaker 1: and even himself. It angered me, but I would always
Speaker 1: go back to I know he's not doing this, and
Speaker 1: just knowing Eric, somebody is making him say these things.
Speaker 1: They're threatening him. He had a child by then, a
Speaker 1: young child, and I knew that that was probably his
Speaker 1: main focus was I've got to do whatever to get
Speaker 1: back to my child. And I can't be mad at
Speaker 1: that because I'm a mom. Eric weekly served his time
Speaker 1: and was freed in two thousand six, but Michael remained
Speaker 1: behind bars, serving a life sentence, even as he pursued
Speaker 1: his appeals. You know, each year at Christmas time, I'd
Speaker 1: have that faith he's going to be home this year,
Speaker 1: and I'd buy him Christmas presents, just like I did
Speaker 1: every year. Before i'd wrapped them I'd have them under
Speaker 1: the tree. I'd always after Christmas take him up, pack
Speaker 1: them away in a box, and add to it each
Speaker 1: Christmas that he didn't come home. When Michael's last appeal
Speaker 1: ended fruitlessly, pam Hash drove to the office of her
Speaker 1: son's lawyers and took his paperwork. I didn't know anything
Speaker 1: about the legal system or law I worked as a
Speaker 1: foal designer, but she was a mother and she was
Speaker 1: going to help her son. I went to the office
Speaker 1: and picked up of what must have been a dozen
Speaker 1: legal boxes, pens, the thousands of papers just thrown in
Speaker 1: the box in no particular order. And that's pretty much
Speaker 1: when I started searching the internet on false confessions, asking questions,
Speaker 1: looking up people that I could call, that I could
Speaker 1: beg for help. Steve Grison was one of the first
Speaker 1: people that I contacted. I knew that Eric had given
Speaker 1: a false confession, and I thought maybe Steve could help me.
Speaker 1: I sent utters to him. I made phone calls and
Speaker 1: bless his hard I think he took my call just
Speaker 1: so that maybe I would shut up. Pam Hash would
Speaker 1: call me, would send me information. She sent me a
Speaker 1: VHS of Eric's interrogation. I reviewed those transcripts and talked
Speaker 1: about the case with her. Pam was a very forceful
Speaker 1: advocate for her son. She believed that he was absolutely
Speaker 1: innocent and was willing to go to the ends of
Speaker 1: the earth to prove it. Steve put Pam in touch
Speaker 1: with several people in Virginia, everyone from lawyers to axonorees
Speaker 1: like Beverly Monroe, who we talked about in Emerson Stephen's story.
Speaker 1: In fact, it was Beverly who told Pam Hash to
Speaker 1: go to the federal courthouse and pull the file on
Speaker 1: Paul Carter that jail house snitch prosecutors had denied making
Speaker 1: a deal with. I went to the Federal Court and
Speaker 1: I asked the clerk of the to look through his files.
Speaker 1: Her exact remark to me was, and this is the
Speaker 1: clerk of the Federal court Paul Carter. She said, Oh,
Speaker 1: he got the deal of the century. Turns out Paul
Speaker 1: Carter had been serving a fifteen years sentence on federal
Speaker 1: drug charges after he testified against Michael. Though Carter was
Speaker 1: immediately released time served, he sure did get the deal
Speaker 1: of the century to get out of jail free card.
Speaker 1: It also turned out that Michael had been moved to
Speaker 1: a different jail for two nights for no other reason
Speaker 1: than to put him together with Paul Carter. None of
Speaker 1: this had been disclosed to Michael's defense or to Eric
Speaker 1: Weakley's defense. Pam may have started out as a floral designer,
Speaker 1: but her legal work was pretty kick ass. She had
Speaker 1: singlehandedly demolished Carter's value as a witness against her son.
Speaker 1: She had proven that the prosecutor lied when he told
Speaker 1: the jury there was no deal with Carter. The only
Speaker 1: evidence against my Chael that remained was Eric Weekly. A
Speaker 1: few years after Eric's released from prison, two lawyers from
Speaker 1: the University of Virginia Innocence Project knocked on his door.
Speaker 1: Eric was rebuilding his life as best he could, but
Speaker 1: his friend Michael Hash was still behind bars. Did Eric
Speaker 1: want to tell them anything about his testimony against Michael?
Speaker 1: Eric nearly broke down. His false testimony against Michael had
Speaker 1: sat for years on his shoulders like a lead weight.
Speaker 1: He had been coerced into confessing by police and into
Speaker 1: pleading guilty by prosecutors. But fairly or unfairly, he blamed himself.
Speaker 1: Could he really take it all back? Try at last
Speaker 1: to do right by his friend? Eric was at risk
Speaker 1: of being charged with perjury if he came forward and
Speaker 1: said that everything he had testified to was a lie.
Speaker 1: The sad part is that even when witnesses recant their statement,
Speaker 1: prosecutors and judges most of the time don't believe them.
Speaker 1: They think that the initial statement is the true statement
Speaker 1: and that the recantation is a lie. So Eric risked
Speaker 1: doing it all for nothing, because if the courts didn't
Speaker 1: believe him and Michael stays in prison, Eric decided the
Speaker 1: risk was worth it. On March twenty one, two thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: he signed an affid davit recanting everything. I had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with Thelmas Groggin's murder, and neither did Michael
Speaker 1: hash He wrote, we are innocent of this crime. Instead,
Speaker 1: he explained that police had fed him information about Thelma's
Speaker 1: murder and coerced him into repeating it. This was courageous,
Speaker 1: and I think that Pan and Michael recognized as such.
Speaker 1: I was so happy when Eric came board because I
Speaker 1: knew how much he stood to lose, yet he was
Speaker 1: still doing this, and it just was maybe here's some
Speaker 1: more hope. Maybe this will be something that will turn
Speaker 1: the case around. Now, Eric couldn't benefit directly from his affidavit, because,
Speaker 1: as we mentioned before, when you plead guilty, you give
Speaker 1: up your right to prove your own innocence. But Michael
Speaker 1: Hash could benefit. He hadn't pled guilty, he'd been convicted
Speaker 1: at trial. That meant that legally he was still able
Speaker 1: to challenge his conviction in court. Michael's lawyers at the
Speaker 1: mid Atlantic Innocence Projects snapped into action, with Pam Hash
Speaker 1: right alongside them. They filed a petition to overturn Michael's conviction,
Speaker 1: with Eric's affidavit and the secret deal with Paul Carter
Speaker 1: as the centerpieces. Pam Hash knew from day one that
Speaker 1: her son was innocent. Her investigative work, together with Eric's recantation,
Speaker 1: had proved it, but every time she'd spoken out in
Speaker 1: the past, authorities had told her to shut up, sit down,
Speaker 1: stopping so dramatic. I knew exactly what called Pepper County
Speaker 1: was capable of. It's blatant that this was a setup,
Speaker 1: that he was put in with a snitch. And I
Speaker 1: was told, Mrs Hash, you watched too much TV. This
Speaker 1: is real life, that doesn't happen. Would this time be different?
Speaker 1: Would someone finally listen on February two twelve, Pam got
Speaker 1: her answer a federal judge throughout Michael's conviction. The judge
Speaker 1: ruled that Eric's recantation was more believable than his confession.
Speaker 1: As for Pam's discoveries about Paul Carter, the judge said
Speaker 1: prosecutors had out and outlied when they denied cutting Carter
Speaker 1: a deal. Real life had met real justice. It was like, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: somebody finally gets it after so many doors being shut.
Speaker 1: This was amazing for once we won something. Two weeks later,
Speaker 1: Michael was released from prison. He had been behind bars
Speaker 1: for nearly twelve years. It was an absolute perfect day.
Speaker 1: I hugged him and all I could think to telling
Speaker 1: was no more chains, Mike, no more chains. After he
Speaker 1: came home, I gave him this huge box with all
Speaker 1: of his Christmas presents in it, and some of them
Speaker 1: were twelve years old, so the wrapping paper was faded
Speaker 1: and like a delmi. I had bought chocolate well that
Speaker 1: had melted and rehardened and melted and turned white. He
Speaker 1: started opening video games that you couldn't even get the
Speaker 1: computer to play them on anymore, but he loved it
Speaker 1: just the same. We cried a lot of sad tears
Speaker 1: and a lot of happy tears. A few months later,
Speaker 1: all charges against Michael Hash were formally dismissed. That day,
Speaker 1: Pam wrote an email to Steve just three words long.
Speaker 1: We one, Steve. I almost fell out of my chair.
Speaker 1: I was ecstatic. As for Eric Weekly, the judges's decision
Speaker 1: took a twelve year burden off his shoulders. I'm glad
Speaker 1: that man's home, Eric told the local news. I feel
Speaker 1: like I amended my wrong. Since the charges were dismissed,
Speaker 1: Michael Hash has been making the most of his freedom.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and fifteen, he got married. His parents
Speaker 1: were there, his lawyers were there, and you know who
Speaker 1: else was there? Eric Weekly, celebrating with all his heart.
Speaker 1: All had been forgiven. It was as if nothing happened,
Speaker 1: and this was Mike's decision. But why not? We were
Speaker 1: friends then, we're still friends now. Why shouldn't I invite
Speaker 1: him to my wedding? And the prosecutor who secured Michael
Speaker 1: and Eric's convictions he resigned one day before Michael walked free.
Speaker 1: That prosecutor was later reprimanded by the Virginia bar for
Speaker 1: lying to the jury about Paul Carter's get out of
Speaker 1: jail free card. As for Eric himself, he remains convicted
Speaker 1: of second degree murder. Remember, he doesn't have access to
Speaker 1: post conviction relief because he pled guilty. Eric Weekly brought
Speaker 1: justice to Michael Hash by making right and old wrong.
Speaker 1: Now it's time to bring justice to Eric too. In
Speaker 1: two thousand and eighteen, Eric's attorneys filed a pardon petition
Speaker 1: with the Governor of Virginia. While he waits for an answer,
Speaker 1: Eric has to face everybody, from employers to landlords, with
Speaker 1: a murder conviction on his record. A formal pardon from
Speaker 1: the governor would change that. It would exonerate Eric Weekly.
Speaker 1: And that's what Eric deserves. But don't take our word
Speaker 1: for it. Here's what Michael Hash thinks. Absolutely. I think
Speaker 1: the governor shippornerk. I think he was made to do
Speaker 1: what he did. And uh, he's still a part of
Speaker 1: this ordeal just as I am. So he deserves just
Speaker 1: as much as anybody else does in this case to
Speaker 1: have themselves vindicated. Hello, Hey, Eric, this is Laura and Steve.
Speaker 1: How are you doing all right? Great? How are you
Speaker 1: are you spending your time these days? Living life? Sometimes
Speaker 1: with my wife and kids and grand baby and all
Speaker 1: that good stuff. Grand baby, that's exciting, wonderful. Yeah, how
Speaker 1: old she's a year and I have now. Wow, that's great.
Speaker 1: I got a call from Pam Hash about your case
Speaker 1: actually when she was fighting to get Michael freed. The
Speaker 1: day that Michael got released from president was the greatest
Speaker 1: day of my life. Man. After it was all over
Speaker 1: where me and Michael had a long conversation and we
Speaker 1: made amendsum about each other. That's how friends do that.
Speaker 1: To see my friend come home and just do his
Speaker 1: thing and live his life free from all of it
Speaker 1: now and it's a great feeling. Eric. What would it
Speaker 1: mean to you to receive a pardon from governor of Virginia?
Speaker 1: We all fourteen years, I went back to president, got
Speaker 1: a beautiful wife's got a beautiful family, and still fighting
Speaker 1: it and I still keep my head held high. But
Speaker 1: it would be a life altering thing. I can actually
Speaker 1: go out and I'm not worried about having to put
Speaker 1: down the problem, Okay, Victor Sellon or not. I mean,
Speaker 1: it will mean the world for me, just to solidify that,
Speaker 1: you know, me, Mike and Jason were innocent of all
Speaker 1: of it. So I don't know how I'm going to
Speaker 1: react until I had the paper in my hand. I mean,
Speaker 1: I might just break down and cry like a little girl.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? You never know. The fact
Speaker 1: of the matter is that if you have a murder
Speaker 1: conviction on your record, that's an incredible yoke to have
Speaker 1: to carry with you for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1: That's right. I mean, Jason Klobe was found to be
Speaker 1: not guilty. Michael Hash now has been exonerated. Eric Weakly's
Speaker 1: is innocent. It's the other guys, and it's time for
Speaker 1: the governor to declare that Eric is actually innocent. If
Speaker 1: you want to support Eric Weekly's pardon petition, you can
Speaker 1: write to the Governor of Virginia. To find the governor's
Speaker 1: contact information, check out this episode's description on your podcast app,
Speaker 1: or visit my Instagram page at Laura ni Writer. And
Speaker 1: that's the story of Michael Hash and Eric Weekly. Join
Speaker 1: us next week when we tell you about Michigan police
Speaker 1: officer Ray McCann. Ray found himself accused of a brutal
Speaker 1: murder that he'd helped investigate. His story is proof that
Speaker 1: interrogators lies can trap anybody in a wrongful conviction, even
Speaker 1: a cop. Wrongful Conviction False Confessions is a production of
Speaker 1: Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number
Speaker 1: one Special thanks to our executive producers Jason Flam and
Speaker 1: Kevin Wardis. Our production team is headed by Senior producer
Speaker 1: and Pope, along with producers Josh Hammer and Jess Shane.
Speaker 1: Our show is next by Jeanie Montalvo. John Colbert is
Speaker 1: our intrepid intern. Our music was composed by j Ralph.
Speaker 1: You can follow me on Instagram or Twitter at Laura
Speaker 1: ni Writer and you can follow me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: s driven. For more information on the show, visit Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction podcast dot com. Be sure to follow the show
Speaker 1: on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast,
Speaker 1: and on Twitter at wrong Conviction