Speaker 1: On Saturday, June fourth, nineteen eighty three, and Chino Hills, California,
Speaker 1: the Ryan family, Doug Peggy, their children, Jessica and Joshua,
Speaker 1: as well as their neighbour's son, Christopher Hughes, were violently
Speaker 1: attacked in the Ryan home. Only eight year old Joshua
Speaker 1: Ryan survived, and at the hospital he described the perpetrators
Speaker 1: as three white or Hispanic men. At the same time,
Speaker 1: Kevin Cooper, a black man, had recently escaped from a
Speaker 1: nearby prison and had holed up in a vacant house
Speaker 1: near the Ryan home. When the police learned of the
Speaker 1: prison break, they disregarded the witnesses and tips corroborating josh
Speaker 1: Ryan's description in favor of the theory that one of
Speaker 1: the prison escapees was responsible, and as pressure mounted to
Speaker 1: solve the case with an election fast approaching, Kevin Cooper
Speaker 1: became an easy scapegoat for the sheriff. Under the DA's orders,
Speaker 1: the crime scene was dismantled and moved to a warehouse,
Speaker 1: rendering forensic testing us useless. The prosecution's case a trial
Speaker 1: was riddled with inconsistencies and problematic evidence, but with a
Speaker 1: poorly prepared defense attorney and hidden or destroyed exculpatory evidence
Speaker 1: that jury convicted Kevin of the murders and he was
Speaker 1: sentenced to death. We're joined by Kevin and his attorney
Speaker 1: Norman Hile, to discuss the status of his case, as
Speaker 1: well as the proven evidence tampering misconduct by the Sheriff's
Speaker 1: department and compelling alternate suspects that should have ended any
Speaker 1: suspicion into Kevin Cooper back in nineteen eighty three. This
Speaker 1: is wrongful Conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction today's episode.
Speaker 1: I'm going to say this case is as troubling as
Speaker 1: any case I've ever heard of, and I've been doing
Speaker 1: this work for a long, long long time. And with
Speaker 1: me today of course the man himself, Kevin Cooper, who
Speaker 1: has lived and continues to live through this nightmare, as
Speaker 1: well as his attorney Norman Hyle of Oric Harrington and Sutcliffe.
Speaker 1: So Norm, welcome to rafel Conviction. Really glad to have
Speaker 1: you here. It's great to be here and coming to
Speaker 1: us from inside the walls of San Quentin, where he
Speaker 1: remains to this very day. We have Kevin Cooper, Kevin,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry here joining us from where you're at
Speaker 1: where you never belonged in the first place. We don't
Speaker 1: belong now, but I'm very honored to have you here
Speaker 1: with us.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: This case involves layers and layers of misconduct and incompetence
Speaker 1: that would be funny if it wasn't so sick. I mean,
Speaker 1: you're going to hear about so many instances in which
Speaker 1: evidence was either altered, planted, or tampered with that you're
Speaker 1: going to find it hard to belie leave. But if
Speaker 1: it wasn't borne out by the evidence, Norman wouldn't risk
Speaker 1: his career to say it here today on the show.
Speaker 1: And this case also involves one of the most terrifying
Speaker 1: crimes I'm going to say in the history not just
Speaker 1: of California, but of this entire country. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is reminiscent of Charles Manson, the Tate LaBianca murders, and
Speaker 1: others that have made it into the popular consciousness. And
Speaker 1: what's even worse, if you can imagine that, is that
Speaker 1: the three white or Hispanic perpetrators who are actually responsible
Speaker 1: for this twisted scenario never were brought to justice because
Speaker 1: the police targeted Kevin Cooper, who is neither white nor Hispanic,
Speaker 1: but a black man. And there's not three of him,
Speaker 1: There's only one. And so before I lose my mind here, Kevin,
Speaker 1: let's go back before all of the circumstances that led
Speaker 1: to this web of total insanity. I mean, can you
Speaker 1: tell us about your early life. You were born Richard
Speaker 1: Goodman in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and then you were adopted by
Speaker 1: Melvin and Esther Cooper.
Speaker 2: Is that correct, Yeah, sir, that's correct. Growing up with
Speaker 2: my adoptive family, it was what it was. I mean,
Speaker 2: they were a good family. My own issue that I
Speaker 2: have with them, and basically what my adoptive father was
Speaker 2: that he was a disciplinarian and he used to violently
Speaker 2: beat me for things that all kids do. And I
Speaker 2: couldn't take that beating. My body couldn't take that beating.
Speaker 2: So over time, as early as seven years old, I
Speaker 2: was running away from home, and of course, if you
Speaker 2: run away from home, if you're out on the streets
Speaker 2: as a child, you have to eat. So I was
Speaker 2: stealing to eat, you know, and then it's just one.
Speaker 1: Thing there to another, right, so you're out there, you know,
Speaker 1: fending for yourself as early as seven years old, which
Speaker 1: led to a number of run ins with the law,
Speaker 1: from petty thefts and things like that, to stay, let's
Speaker 1: face it, clothed and bed and to meet your basic
Speaker 1: survival needs. And obviously lift is a crime. But when
Speaker 1: life deals you a hand like you got, you had
Speaker 1: to do what you did to survive. And importantly, none
Speaker 1: of it was violent, and none of it makes you
Speaker 1: a murderer or a candidate for death row.
Speaker 2: You know, they always trying to find the dead and people, right,
Speaker 2: they're morally good people and we're more than bad people,
Speaker 2: especially when you're poor and you're black. I don't apologize
Speaker 2: for those things I did as a child because I
Speaker 2: didn't know better. And for a child to teach yourself,
Speaker 2: what what do you need parents for? My parents didn't
Speaker 2: teach me. So the people on the street topey how
Speaker 2: to steal cars, how to get out of the rain,
Speaker 2: how to get out of the cold. You know, I
Speaker 2: don't justify it, but I don't apologize for it. And
Speaker 2: I'll be darned if I'm going to let anybody make
Speaker 2: me feel bad about it, because that was just my life. Man.
Speaker 1: So in nineteen eighty two, you picked up a burglary,
Speaker 1: right and in order to avoid prison, you pretended to
Speaker 1: be mentally incompetent and unfit to stand trial, which puts
Speaker 1: you in Mayview State Hospital in Pennsylvania. And at this
Speaker 1: point you'd been there before because of drugs, and you
Speaker 1: had noticed that it would be pretty easy to escape from.
Speaker 1: And here's a key part of the story. While you
Speaker 1: were there, you picked up a driver's license for a
Speaker 1: man named David Troutman. And when you escape from the
Speaker 1: facility and with some help made your way off to California,
Speaker 1: you passed yourself off as this David Troutman guy, right.
Speaker 2: Right, Because at that time, driver's license didn't have photos on.
Speaker 2: It was just a name and a data both and
Speaker 2: your driver's license ID number, but there was no photo.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's crazy to think about that, no picture on
Speaker 1: a driver's license. It seems like a different era entirely,
Speaker 1: which it was. But anyway, so you're in California and
Speaker 1: you're doing what you needed to do to survive. What
Speaker 1: you know how to do is survive, and once again
Speaker 1: you're arrested for burglary there, but this time as David Troutman,
Speaker 1: and that leads to your incarceration at the California Institute
Speaker 1: for Man. Otherwise, notice CIM in Chino, California, again under
Speaker 1: this alias of David Troutman. So none of this makes
Speaker 1: you a murderer, but it is really crazy, right, and
Speaker 1: now the story takes another crazy turn. It sounds like
Speaker 1: a movie. In June of nineteen eighty three, you escaped
Speaker 1: from that prison, which happened to be in the area
Speaker 1: of these absolutely horrendous murders. And from what I understand,
Speaker 1: it wasn't even that hard to escape. I mean, you
Speaker 1: didn't have to be Houdini, right, Yeah, June.
Speaker 2: Sit in nineteen eighty three, I was walking around in
Speaker 2: the prison, not in my finish, and I get to
Speaker 2: this one spot in fear. It was a big asshole
Speaker 2: in the fish. I didn't even think about it.
Speaker 1: I was gone, right, And then they searched for several
Speaker 1: hours and then gave up. Apparently Kevin, of course, now
Speaker 1: is out, but has no idea where to go, no money,
Speaker 1: never been in this area before except inside the prison.
Speaker 1: So he found his way to a bacont house in
Speaker 1: a residential area and spent two days hiding there before
Speaker 1: hitchhiking to Mexico on the evening of June fourth. Now
Speaker 1: it's worth noting, by the way, that in nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: three alone, fourteen prisoners escaped from this particular prison. That's insane.
Speaker 1: So this included, of course Kevin, as well as a
Speaker 1: guy named Ambloro Nori and Michael Martinez. You both escaped
Speaker 1: two days after Kevin on June fourth, nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 1: and that's an important date because the murders were getting
Speaker 1: ready to tell you about took place that very night
Speaker 1: on June fourth, nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 3: The family who was murdered was Doug and Peggy Ryan
Speaker 3: and their daughter Jessica, and a HouseGuest Christopher Hughes, who
Speaker 3: was there by chance that night spending the night, who
Speaker 3: was a friend of Josh Ryan's, the eight year old
Speaker 3: boy who survived. The Ryans were very strong people. Doug
Speaker 3: Ryan was a former military policeman and a chiropractor, and
Speaker 3: his wife, Peggy was not only a chiropractor, but she
Speaker 3: trained Arabian horses. However, both of Ryan's and their two
Speaker 3: children and Christopher Hughes were overwhelmed by three people who
Speaker 3: used three or four different weapons, and there were at
Speaker 3: least one hundred and forty four wounds on the victims.
Speaker 3: The adults, Mister and Missus Ryan were left in a
Speaker 3: posed position similar to the Tate La Bianca murders, as
Speaker 3: if to indicate there had been some sort of ritual
Speaker 3: going on as to how they were killed.
Speaker 1: Peggy had seventeen hatchet wounds to the face and head
Speaker 1: and four knife wounds to the chest. Jessica was stabbed
Speaker 1: forty six times with three different weapons. Douglas suffered thirty
Speaker 1: seven knife and hatchet wounds and a severed finger, and
Speaker 1: Christopher had twenty six stab wounds and numerous skull fractures
Speaker 1: and a severed finger as well.
Speaker 3: The sole survivor of this mayhem was Josh Ryan, who
Speaker 3: was eight years old, and he was found the next
Speaker 3: morning still alive when Christopher Hughes's father came to try
Speaker 3: to collect Christopher and discovered the victims in the Ryan's
Speaker 3: master bedroom in their home. Josh Ryan was still alive,
Speaker 3: although his throat had been cut. They were able to
Speaker 3: quickly take him to Loma Linda Hospital by helicopter and
Speaker 3: his life was saved.
Speaker 1: So this is a really horrifying crime. But then right
Speaker 1: away it seems like we see the police mishandling this
Speaker 1: case to an extreme and I'm talking about. Beginning with
Speaker 1: the initial investigation.
Speaker 3: The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department allowed over seventy people
Speaker 3: to walk through the crime scene during the first twenty
Speaker 3: four hours that the murders were discovered. The result of
Speaker 3: that was that most of the evidence was contaminated. What
Speaker 3: happened next is even more bizarre. The District Attorney for
Speaker 3: San Bernardino County decided that the best thing to do,
Speaker 3: perhaps to cover up the way in which the crime
Speaker 3: scene had been mishandled, was to completely tear down the
Speaker 3: crime scene, and the walls and the carpets and the
Speaker 3: furniture and everything was put into a storage facility that
Speaker 3: did not have air conditioning. And the result of that
Speaker 3: was that all of the blood evidence that was in
Speaker 3: what had been taken out of the Ryan bedroom became
Speaker 3: useless for purposes of trying to do chemical analysis of it.
Speaker 3: There couldn't be any analysis done of the blood spots
Speaker 3: and the way in which the bodies had moved, which
Speaker 3: might have been able to determine how many attackers there were,
Speaker 3: what snives and hatchets had been used by them, and
Speaker 3: how the victims had managed to fight back. All of
Speaker 3: that was lost when the district attorney ordered that the
Speaker 3: Ryan master bedroom be torn down and taken away.
Speaker 1: On the fifth, So, the day after the murders, a
Speaker 1: hatchet was found on the side of a road leading
Speaker 1: away from the Ryan's house. Forensics tested the hatchet, but
Speaker 1: they botched that as well, so any evidence from the
Speaker 1: hatchet was now rendered useless. You don't have to be
Speaker 1: a criminologist to know that this is a freaking disaster
Speaker 1: in the making. I mean, it's really sobering to think
Speaker 1: about the fact that they were willing to go to
Speaker 1: these extraordinary lengths to cover up the terrible incompetence in
Speaker 1: a case that should have been the number one priority
Speaker 1: to be solved. This is so troubling and it's a
Speaker 1: miracle that Joshua did survive.
Speaker 3: The reason that we know that there were three white
Speaker 3: or Mexican males who were the attackers is that josh
Speaker 3: Ryan was able to tell hospital staff and the Sheriff's
Speaker 3: department that within a few hours of when he was found.
Speaker 1: And there were other people that came forward. One neighbor
Speaker 1: actually reported to investigators having seen three white men driving
Speaker 1: away from the Ryan home after midnight on the night
Speaker 1: of the murders. Corroborating Josh Ryan's.
Speaker 3: Description, Yes, there were two different sightings of the Ryan
Speaker 3: station wagon speeding away from the Ryan home of the crimes,
Speaker 3: and the people who saw them saw that there were
Speaker 3: at least three people in the station wagon. In addition,
Speaker 3: that same night, a number of people in a local
Speaker 3: bar very close to the crime scene reported seeing three
Speaker 3: white men acting strangely in the bar, and late that
Speaker 3: night one of them came back in and was in
Speaker 3: coveralls that were covered in blood and in fact, the
Speaker 3: San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department issued a criminal bulletin on
Speaker 3: June seventh, which said the suspects were three either white
Speaker 3: or Mexican males, late teens or early twenties, wearing a
Speaker 3: white T shirt, a blue short sleeve shirt, a red
Speaker 3: long sleeve shirt, and Levi's So they had all of
Speaker 3: this information about who had committed this crime.
Speaker 1: Then. Seeing this bulletin, a woman named Diana Roper called
Speaker 1: the sheriff two days later to apport that her boyfriend
Speaker 1: Lee Furrow had come home get this around three am
Speaker 1: the night of the murders. To her, he had arrived
Speaker 1: in an unfamiliar station wagon with some people who stayed
Speaker 1: in the car. He changed out of his overalls, which
Speaker 1: he left on the closet floor. He was not wearing
Speaker 1: the blue T shirt that he had been wearing earlier
Speaker 1: that day. He left the house about five minutes later
Speaker 1: and didn't return. From what we understand, he then went
Speaker 1: on the lamb to San Diego.
Speaker 3: And she gave to the Sheriff's department a pair of
Speaker 3: coveralls that were covered in blood that her boyfriend had
Speaker 3: discarded when he came home about three o'clock in the
Speaker 3: morning the morning after the murders, and ultimately, because it
Speaker 3: was inconsistent with prosecuting, Kevin Cooper destroyed them without ever
Speaker 3: testing them to see whether or not the coveralls had
Speaker 3: the victim's blood on him.
Speaker 1: Okay, there's also this blue T shirt that was covered
Speaker 1: in blood that a woman found two days after the
Speaker 1: murder near the Canyon Corral bar near the crime scene. Well,
Speaker 1: if you remember the blue T shirt from the descriptions,
Speaker 1: Diana Roper also mentioned Lee Burrow missing his own blue
Speaker 1: T shirt that he had been wearing earlier that day.
Speaker 1: So this blue T shirt that was turned in was
Speaker 1: that ever tested?
Speaker 3: The sheriff's log reflects that the sheriff's deputy came to
Speaker 3: where the women had found the shirt and collected the
Speaker 3: shirt and the short sleeve blue shirt, which fits the
Speaker 3: description that Josh Ryan gave of one of the assailants
Speaker 3: disappeared and in fact they now claim that it never existed,
Speaker 3: even though their own log shows that they got a
Speaker 3: call about it and that they retrieved them. So they
Speaker 3: were willing to try to frame Kevin Cooper and to
Speaker 3: get rid of evidence that might have pointed them to
Speaker 3: other assailants.
Speaker 1: This episode is underwritten by AIG, a leading global insurance company.
Speaker 1: AIG is committed to corporate social responsibility and is making
Speaker 1: a positive difference in the lives of its employees and
Speaker 1: in the communities where we work and live. In light
Speaker 1: of the compelling need for pro bono legal assistance, and
Speaker 1: in recognition of AIG's commitment to criminal and social justice reform,
Speaker 1: the AIG pro Bono Program provides free legal services and
Speaker 1: other support to underrepresented communities and individuals. So there was
Speaker 1: overwhelming evidence mounting that a group of three white or
Speaker 1: Hispanic men were responsible. Meanwhile, there's the specter of this
Speaker 1: prison break. So the police were also following up on
Speaker 1: the theory that a recent escape bee from CIM might
Speaker 1: have been responsible, and when CIM officials gave them the
Speaker 1: info on all of the recent escapees, they found out
Speaker 1: that one of them, David Troutman will Not wasn't his
Speaker 1: real name, so as we know, that was Kevin's alias
Speaker 1: at the time, and so their focus turned away from
Speaker 1: Diana roper Lee Furrow, the bloody T shirt and coveralls,
Speaker 1: and all of the other evidence that corroborated Josh Ryan's
Speaker 1: description of a gang of three white or Hispanic men,
Speaker 1: and now they just turned to Kevin the lone black.
Speaker 2: Man com es cecil chill. Anyone who studies this case
Speaker 2: that one person who weighs one hundred and fifty five pounds,
Speaker 2: a skinny little kid, cannot murder four people want to
Speaker 2: kept their murder of.
Speaker 3: Fifth, the idea that three or four weapons were used,
Speaker 3: that there were one hundred and forty four wounds, that
Speaker 3: two adults were overcome. Both mister and Missus Ryan had
Speaker 3: loaded weapons at their bedside, and neither of them was
Speaker 3: able to get to those weapons when they were attacked,
Speaker 3: which clearly shows that they were more than one attacker.
Speaker 3: The fact that the Sheriff's department changed its story from
Speaker 3: being three whier Mexican men was that Kevin Cooper was
Speaker 3: a very convenient target. And at the time, the sheriff
Speaker 3: for San Bernardino County, a man named Floyd Tidwell, was
Speaker 3: running for sheriff that fall, and he needed to solve
Speaker 3: this crime as quickly as possible, and therefore Kevin Cooper
Speaker 3: became the convenient scapegoat.
Speaker 1: So now they began to try to find some evidence
Speaker 1: to support that theory. So they swept the area to
Speaker 1: Buying where Kevin had been hiding out after his escape,
Speaker 1: and the owner of that house, Larry Lease, who obviously
Speaker 1: had not been at home while Kevin was there, he
Speaker 1: called the police asking them to come by and check
Speaker 1: out the house.
Speaker 3: That's correct, and the first time that the Leae house
Speaker 3: was inspected after the crimes had been discovered, two detectives
Speaker 3: went into the house from the Sheriff's department. They didn't
Speaker 3: find anything, and they wrote a report saying they didn't
Speaker 3: find anything with respect to that might have tied Kevin
Speaker 3: to the crime. But the next day they went back
Speaker 3: and suddenly in a room that they had said they
Speaker 3: before had no evidence in it. There was a green
Speaker 3: prison jacket button on the floor in the middle of
Speaker 3: a carpet, and a hatchet sheath. The fact that they
Speaker 3: were not seen on the first inspection of the house
Speaker 3: and were seen for the second one says to us
Speaker 3: that they were planted. The green button, of course, didn't
Speaker 3: turn out to be consistent with what Kevin Cooper was wearing.
Speaker 3: There is testimony from a guard who saw Kevin having escaped,
Speaker 3: who reported that he was in a brown prison jacket,
Speaker 3: so the green button was clearly planted because the Sheriff's
Speaker 3: department didn't know what color jacket Kevin was wearing at
Speaker 3: the time. The hatchet sheath is clearly a hatchet sheaf
Speaker 3: for a hatchet that was kept at the Least house
Speaker 3: and that disappeared. The hatchet that was found outside the
Speaker 3: Ryan home that was one of the murder weapons was
Speaker 3: a different hatchet with a different color handle. But the
Speaker 3: prospers Jushon obviously wanted to try to tie Kevin to
Speaker 3: the crime by planting the hatchet chief that went with
Speaker 3: the hatchet from the Leice house in order to frame
Speaker 3: Kevin Cooper.
Speaker 1: There's literally no end to what they were willing to
Speaker 1: do in order to make sure that no justice was
Speaker 1: done in this case. Yeah wow. And while this horrible
Speaker 1: cover up of this ridiculously botched crime scene and investigation
Speaker 1: was going on, Kevin had hitchhike to Mexico, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: he's unaware of this quadruple murder, but he did still
Speaker 1: escape from prison. So he checked into a hotel in Tijuana,
Speaker 1: and there he befriended an American couple and he hitched
Speaker 1: a ride on their boat. He was arrested when they
Speaker 1: pulled into Pelican Bay, which is near Santa Barbara, and
Speaker 1: he sat in jail for about two years before even
Speaker 1: going to trial.
Speaker 3: So the one piece of evidence that the prosecution relied
Speaker 3: on Pond was a blood spot on a wall outside
Speaker 3: the Ryan bedroom, and that blood spot has been the
Speaker 3: source of dispute ever since. At trial, the Sheriff's Department
Speaker 3: forensic scientist said that the blood type matched Kevin Cooper's
Speaker 3: blood type, but when he was cross examined by defense counsel,
Speaker 3: it became clear that he had botched the test and
Speaker 3: gotten the wrong blood type to be a match to Kevin,
Speaker 3: and had changed his notes to make the blood type
Speaker 3: match Kevin, and that was shown to the jury. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: that blood spot had been subjected to testing only by
Speaker 3: the prosecution, and it had been tested so much that
Speaker 3: it was exhausted, there was none left of it.
Speaker 1: So they changed the blood type to match Kevin Cooper.
Speaker 1: Exactly what in the war? They changed the freaking blood type?
Speaker 1: Who does these things? There's also some Harris found right
Speaker 1: that didn't match their narrative at all, but they didn't
Speaker 1: bring that up. Right.
Speaker 3: Jessica Ryan had hairs clutched in her hand when her
Speaker 3: body was found that were blonde in color, and the
Speaker 3: jury was never told that a trial. The prosecution didn't
Speaker 3: want that to be known, and the defense lawyer did
Speaker 3: not do a good job. Bear in mind, there were
Speaker 3: no hairs from an African American at the crime scene
Speaker 3: note ever found.
Speaker 1: And so the prosecution brings up the station wagon. Doesn't
Speaker 1: make a big deal that the blood evidence of the
Speaker 1: car clearly shows that three perpetrators had stained the seats
Speaker 1: beneath them. But they do bring up cigarette butts, cigarette
Speaker 1: butts that somehow were not found during the first inspection
Speaker 1: of the Ryan station wagon.
Speaker 3: The origin of those cigarette butts, of course, is the
Speaker 3: cigarette butts that they collected in the lease house after
Speaker 3: they inspected it, which disappeared, and then suddenly cigarette butts
Speaker 3: with Kevin's blood type bottom are discovered in the Ryan
Speaker 3: station wagon. There's another part to the forensic Marie ass
Speaker 3: that is this case, which is that at the lease
Speaker 3: house they tested the shower area for blood. The problem
Speaker 3: with that is that the test that they did is
Speaker 3: a test that could be showing either blood or bleach,
Speaker 3: and the woman who had left the lease house the
Speaker 3: week that the murders were committed testified that she had
Speaker 3: in fact cleaned the tub with bleach. So there was
Speaker 3: clearly that basis for the finding that there was bleach
Speaker 3: not blood in there. But of course that whole theory
Speaker 3: is inconsistent with the theory that if he had committed
Speaker 3: these murders, gone to the lease house and taken a shower,
Speaker 3: he wouldn't have left blood in three different seats in
Speaker 3: the car. But all of that was overlooked.
Speaker 1: So what was presented, if anything, in his defense by
Speaker 1: his team.
Speaker 3: Obviously, Kevin's lawyer did a good job of showing that
Speaker 3: the blood spot evidence was faulty, but the problem that
Speaker 3: he faced with his defense was that his lawyer, who
Speaker 3: was a public defender, wanted to defend this case on
Speaker 3: his own without any help from anybody else. Meanwhile, the
Speaker 3: prosecution had countless lawyers and investigators and forensic people, and
Speaker 3: so the lawyer for Kevin was simply overwhelmed, and he
Speaker 3: never bothered to read the documents that were produced by
Speaker 3: the prosecution, as it's required by law, and he didn't
Speaker 3: know how to get any evidence forward that would have
Speaker 3: shown that there was, for instance, blonde hairs in Jessica's hand.
Speaker 3: And he basically told the trial judge that he was
Speaker 3: exhausted and couldn't go forward, and the judge said to him, well,
Speaker 3: you should have gotten help. It's too late now.
Speaker 1: Let me just throw that back for a second. So
Speaker 1: you did say that the defense lawyer, the one hope
Speaker 1: in hell that Kevin had, at one point, said he
Speaker 1: was too exhausted and couldn't go on, yes, and didn't
Speaker 1: bother to read the for its prosecution the view that
Speaker 1: they did turn over to him, which he's required by
Speaker 1: ethics and everything else to do. That's correct.
Speaker 3: Probably the most crucial piece of evidence at trial was
Speaker 3: the testimony that the prosecution presented of Josh Ryan. As
Speaker 3: you recall, Josh Ryan had identified the assailants as three
Speaker 3: whiter Mexican men the morning after the crimes and.
Speaker 2: He saw my pitscrow TV. He seen it wasn't me.
Speaker 2: So what did they do to the Loane high witness?
Speaker 2: They flipped him. They makes him say that he didn't
Speaker 2: see me per se, but he saw a shadow with
Speaker 2: a puff of hair and a puff of hair meaning
Speaker 2: that air room.
Speaker 3: And they presented a videotape of him where he simply
Speaker 3: said that all he saw was one shadow of the assailants.
Speaker 3: And the jury never was able to understand how that
Speaker 3: change came about, and therefore the most crucial evidence in
Speaker 3: the case from Josh Ryan was gone, as well as
Speaker 3: not having the bloody coveralls that were turned over to
Speaker 3: the Sheriff's department by the girlfriend of the person who
Speaker 3: we think actually committed these crimes, or the blue shirt
Speaker 3: with blood on it which matched the description that Josh
Speaker 3: Ryan gave shortly after he was taken to the hospital.
Speaker 3: So what you have is a very distorted picture that
Speaker 3: the jury was shown of the evidence and of the
Speaker 3: crime and of Kevin Cooper because of evidence that was
Speaker 3: destroyed or hidden and evidence that was planted.
Speaker 1: How long did the jury deliberate?
Speaker 3: Jury actually deliberated for a week, seven days, and the
Speaker 3: jury members have told us that if there had been
Speaker 3: one less piece of evidence, they would have acquitted Kevin.
Speaker 1: So, Kevin, when the jury went out to deliverate, can
Speaker 1: you tell us what you were feeling then, what was
Speaker 1: going through your mind?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm feeling good because they deliberate seven days. I mean,
Speaker 2: you would think that if they were going to find
Speaker 2: me right away. So I'm thinking, damn, I got a shot.
Speaker 2: And then I come back and they found me guilty,
Speaker 2: and you know that was It's unreal. I can't put
Speaker 2: into words. The person has to experience that personally for
Speaker 2: them to truly understand the out of body experience that
Speaker 2: that is. Now after that I was a convicted murderer,
Speaker 2: society said that I don't deserve to live, and that's
Speaker 2: how they treated me. They put me in the back
Speaker 2: of a police car like at two o'clock in the
Speaker 2: morning and drove me from San Diego all the way
Speaker 2: up here to San Quentin Prison until I got here.
Speaker 2: And they have nineteen eighty five. I was on death
Speaker 2: room and I've been here every since. I got here
Speaker 2: when I was twenty seven. Now I'm sixty four. My
Speaker 2: life has says a lot. I have survived a lot,
Speaker 2: and I've been through they own back. I did not
Speaker 2: commit murders. I would not commit me. I'm not a
Speaker 2: murder That's not in me to do. You know I've
Speaker 2: been in Saying put prison nineteen eighty five. You know
Speaker 2: I've never been in a fist writing. I'm on the
Speaker 2: mainline death U York. I've never been to ac I've
Speaker 2: never been in any trouble. I never had a whole
Speaker 2: unquote prison writer for miscontent because I Missitussea laws. It's
Speaker 2: just because this stuff was not in me.
Speaker 1: And since then it's been a winding road through the
Speaker 1: appeals process and the bad actors in this case. There's
Speaker 1: still a whole lot more to come, right.
Speaker 3: Well, talking about the appeals, first, on direct appeal to
Speaker 3: the California Supreme Court, the California Supreme Court actually decided
Speaker 3: for the first time to ascribe a motive to Kevin Cooper,
Speaker 3: and in their opinion, even though the prosecution had never
Speaker 3: asserted this, said that the reason for the murder of
Speaker 3: the Ryots was for Kevin Cooper to steal the Ryans car. Well,
Speaker 3: the Ryan station wagon which was taken away by the
Speaker 3: ackers had the keys in it, so there was no
Speaker 3: need for anybody to harm the Ryans if that was
Speaker 3: the reason for the crimes. The California Supreme Court also
Speaker 3: rejected a number of other claims of ineffective assistance of
Speaker 3: its council and of evidence being planted and evidence being destroyed.
Speaker 3: Federal courts under a piece of legislation called the Anti
Speaker 3: Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, it was passed in
Speaker 3: the nineties, those federal courts are not allowed to make
Speaker 3: findings that are inconsistent with what the state court findings are,
Speaker 3: and that has been a real legal hurdle for Kevin
Speaker 3: Cooper to assert his innocence and overturn this conviction, even
Speaker 3: though the evidence that the California Supreme Court relied upon
Speaker 3: has now been disproven. So Kevin's appeals continued in the
Speaker 3: federal courts, handcuffed by this law, and finally, in February
Speaker 3: of two thousand and four, Kevin was scheduled to be
Speaker 3: executed when a stay was issued by the Ninth Circuit
Speaker 3: Court of Appeals, giving Kevin the right to file a
Speaker 3: new federal habeas corpus petition James L.
Speaker 2: Brownie, he wrote a descent. He took that this in
Speaker 2: around to all the other judges and for the first
Speaker 2: time in the history of nestility case in California death
Speaker 2: roal Indmaker in balk hearing, I got a nine or
Speaker 2: two decision because she only did eleven judges at that time,
Speaker 2: and they stayed not execution. But normally, when people get
Speaker 2: a state, the United States Supreme Court will lift that
Speaker 2: state and those animates will ultimately get execute But in
Speaker 2: this case, there was so much wrong that they're not
Speaker 2: a state supreme court. They refused to lift the state,
Speaker 2: and that's why I'm still here today.
Speaker 3: He came within three hours and fifty seven minutes of
Speaker 3: being executed. We had a new habeas corpus proceeding in
Speaker 3: federal court in San Diego, and that judge, unfortunately, was
Speaker 3: the one who had decided against Kevin twice in previous
Speaker 3: habeas corpus petitions, and she refused to listen to any
Speaker 3: of the evidence that we put on.
Speaker 1: There's also the issue of the DNA right the blocking
Speaker 1: of the DNA being tested. Tell us how it came
Speaker 1: to be the DNA in this case, which was available
Speaker 1: with the modern technology that was developed long after Kevin
Speaker 1: went to prison, that it took literally decades in case
Speaker 1: after case and brief after brief to try to get
Speaker 1: anybody to test the DNA am I right.
Speaker 3: Yes, there was DNA testing done in the early nineteen
Speaker 3: nineties and what that DNA testing showed was that prosecution
Speaker 3: had tampered with the evidence that they had said they
Speaker 3: were going to allow DNA testing for. So while some
Speaker 3: of the DNA testing seemed to exonerate Kevin, some of
Speaker 3: it did not. We were able to do some testing
Speaker 3: which showed that, in fact, Kevin's blood had been planted
Speaker 3: on the T shirt that had been tested for Kevin's DNA.
Speaker 1: How could the testing have proven that they planted this blood?
Speaker 1: I mean, I've heard of something called EDTA. Can you
Speaker 1: explain that? And how this could have been the key
Speaker 1: that literally unlocked the doors of the president sent him
Speaker 1: home years and years and years ago.
Speaker 3: The only thing that has tied Kevin to the Ryan
Speaker 3: House is the supposed finding of a blood spot outside
Speaker 3: the crime scene in a hall. When Kevin was arrested,
Speaker 3: they took vials of his blood to be able to
Speaker 3: compare his blood type to the blood at the crime scene.
Speaker 3: We felt that the prosecution had taken Kevin's blood that
Speaker 3: was taken at the time that he was arrested and
Speaker 3: put it on the T shirt and on the blood spot.
Speaker 3: And the way to prove that is to see whether
Speaker 3: or not in addition to the blood, there is a
Speaker 3: chemical that is used by law enforcement to preserve blood
Speaker 3: when it is taken, called EDTA, and the prosecution hired
Speaker 3: a scientist to do the testing for EDTA, and his
Speaker 3: results showed that there was heightened DTA. But as soon
Speaker 3: as he found out that that was his result, he
Speaker 3: withdrew said there'd have been a contamination in his lab
Speaker 3: and that was why the result showed that there was
Speaker 3: a high level of DTA, and the judge at the
Speaker 3: time accepted that, and the.
Speaker 1: Beat goes on. Right. I mean, it's crazy that there's
Speaker 1: so many people, so many years after the fact, that
Speaker 1: are still in positions of great power who are actively
Speaker 1: engaged in continuing this grievous injustice. And I want to
Speaker 1: say not everyone, right, because while Kevin's habeas petitions have
Speaker 1: been repeatedly denied, there was a judge, Judge William Fletcher.
Speaker 1: So Judge Fletcher dissented from the Ninth Circuit Court's opinion,
Speaker 1: and in it he argued that the police may have
Speaker 1: tampered with the evidence and that the Ninth Circuit should
Speaker 1: have reheard the case en banc, which of course means
Speaker 1: the entire panel of judges, and ordered the Federal District
Speaker 1: judge to give Cooper the fair hearing. He has never
Speaker 1: had strong words. Right. And then here are some of
Speaker 1: the arguments that were proposed post conviction. Right. But it's
Speaker 1: interesting that Judge Fletcher concurred with many of these findings. Right.
Speaker 1: He said, quote, deputies misrepresented Josh's recollections and gradually shaped
Speaker 1: his testimony so that it was consistent with the prosecution's
Speaker 1: theory that there was only one killer. End quote. He
Speaker 1: referenced to blonde hairs that were found clutched in Pjessica
Speaker 1: Ryan's hand. Obviously, Kevin is not blonde, but that that
Speaker 1: was disregarded. He pointed out that the initial search of
Speaker 1: the station wagon, no cigarette butts were found. Judge Fletcher wrote, quote,
Speaker 1: some of those cigarette butts could have easily been planted
Speaker 1: in the car. Moreover, after initial forensic testing, paper from
Speaker 1: a hand rolled cigarette butt supposedly founded the station wagon
Speaker 1: was described as consumed. That same paper later quote reappeared
Speaker 1: and was offered into evidence. This is still the judge's quote.
Speaker 1: By the way, when the paper reappeared, it was significantly
Speaker 1: larger than the paper and the cigarette butt that had
Speaker 1: been tested. End quote. Fletcher wrote that while the button
Speaker 1: found in the house came from a green prison jacket quote, uncontradicted,
Speaker 1: evidence to trial showed that Cooper was wearing a brown
Speaker 1: or tan prison issue jacket when he escaped end quote.
Speaker 1: Fletcher further said the preservatives found in the blood on
Speaker 1: the T shirt indicated that it may have been planted.
Speaker 1: He wrote that if the EDTA testing already performed shows
Speaker 1: that Cooper's blood was planted on the T shirt, that
Speaker 1: showing greatly increduces the likelihood that much of the evidence
Speaker 1: introduced a trial was false end quote. I mean, this
Speaker 1: judge laid it out, man, He laid it out. And
Speaker 1: then there's all the evidence of the alternate suspects, right,
Speaker 1: especially Lee Furrow.
Speaker 3: We now have evidence from him to third parties that
Speaker 3: he in fact was the killer. So he is confessed
Speaker 3: to a number of people about having done this although
Speaker 3: he has not confessed to law enforcement.
Speaker 1: We can't leave out another guy, Lee Furrow's one time boss,
Speaker 1: Clarence ray Allen, who was a notoriously violent guy who
Speaker 1: happened to also run a criminal organization, and he and
Speaker 1: Farrow had had a big falling out over the murder
Speaker 1: of a teenage girl, Mary Sue Kit, who had witnessed
Speaker 1: some of their criminal activity.
Speaker 3: Back in the nineteen seventies. At Clarence rey Allen's direction,
Speaker 3: Lee Furrow strangled this young lady and cut her body
Speaker 3: up and threw it into a drainage ditch. Lee Furrow
Speaker 3: was captured and charged with his crime, and in order
Speaker 3: to get a reduced sentence, he turned state's evidence against
Speaker 3: Clarence ray Allen, and so Pharaoh only served three and
Speaker 3: a half years in prison for the murder of Mary
Speaker 3: Sue Kits, while the Clarence rey Allen ultimately was convicted
Speaker 3: and sentenced to death. So Farah has a pretty nefarious
Speaker 3: background which links him to the type of crime that
Speaker 3: was perpetrated on the Ryan family in nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 1: Now, even with the multiple confessions by Lee Furrow, were
Speaker 1: unsure why they killed the Ryans, but some people and
Speaker 1: you'll remember that Peggy raised Arabian horses. Clarence ray Allen
Speaker 1: was in that business as well, and some people believe
Speaker 1: that it was a horssale gone awry. It's also believed
Speaker 1: that Clarence ray Allen contracted many more murders from behind bars,
Speaker 1: and Lee Furrow kept himself safe by working off his
Speaker 1: debt to Clarence ray Allen, by carrying out these executions.
Speaker 1: You don't need to be a genius to figure this
Speaker 1: one out, you really don't. But here we are today,
Speaker 1: and thirty eight years later, Kevin remains in prison, suffering
Speaker 1: day in and day out. Now, of course we go
Speaker 1: to a little bit of a hopeful development, I guess
Speaker 1: you could say, which was that on May twenty one,
Speaker 1: Governor Gavin Newsom ordered a full innocence investigation into the case. Now,
Speaker 1: Governor Newsom has granted already eighty six pardons ninety two
Speaker 1: commutations in twenty eight reprieves. So there's reason to believe
Speaker 1: that there could be hope, especially with this Melissa. And
Speaker 1: I think he's a great governor, and I think that
Speaker 1: he is a man who believes injustice, he believes in fairness,
Speaker 1: and he believes in righting wrongs. So all of that
Speaker 1: gives me hope. So, Kevin, what are you thinking about
Speaker 1: this now? After everything you've been through? Are you feeling
Speaker 1: optimistic about this?
Speaker 2: Well, first and foremost, this just didn't happen on its own.
Speaker 2: There have been a lot of a lot of people,
Speaker 2: including my attorney else the former put in a lot
Speaker 2: of work to get these people to see the truth.
Speaker 2: This Innocents Investigation will reveal the truth. We're not afraid
Speaker 2: of the truth. It's the other side who's afraid of
Speaker 2: the truth. The truth that has been exposed so far
Speaker 2: about the case and the corruption, you know, the champion
Speaker 2: with evidence, the fanting of governess, the intimidation and witnesses,
Speaker 2: and all this other stuff has been revealed by us.
Speaker 2: And so it is my hope and it is my
Speaker 2: prayer that this innocence investigation, which is the first for
Speaker 2: a death row inmate in the history of the state
Speaker 2: of California, will do exactly what it is designed to do,
Speaker 2: investigate the innocence and come up with the treatment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, absolutely so, Kevin. I know a lot of
Speaker 1: our listeners are going to want to learn more about
Speaker 1: your case. Is there a website that you can refer
Speaker 1: them to go to. I know there've also been a
Speaker 1: ton of national press done about your case as well.
Speaker 2: Anyone who wants to learn more about my case, you
Speaker 2: can go to Freekevincooper dot com. You can go to
Speaker 2: my Facebook page. You can look at death row stories
Speaker 2: on Natino's Hills, murders on a Mountain. You can look
Speaker 2: at forty eight Hours. Over the twenty years since nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety nine, Aaron Morioty of CBS News at forty eight
Speaker 2: Hours has done i think five stories on this case,
Speaker 2: and so the information is there.
Speaker 1: We'll put links to all of that in our bio
Speaker 1: and I hope that you are listeners will get involved
Speaker 1: in this case. If you have it already, this wrong
Speaker 1: can still be righted. And with people like Norm on
Speaker 1: the case and the governor of the great State of California,
Speaker 1: I hope that we'll be welcoming Kevin home very soon.
Speaker 1: And with that, we have a tradition here at Ronful Conviction,
Speaker 1: which is my favorite part of the show, and it's
Speaker 1: probably most people's favorite part of the show. It's called
Speaker 1: closing arguments and it works like this. First of all,
Speaker 1: I thank you too, guys for coming here and courageously sharing.
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk to you now, Kevin, of course
Speaker 1: your story, and Norm for all the work you're doing.
Speaker 1: So without further ado, I'm going to turn my microphone
Speaker 1: off for the section of the show we call closing arguments.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna kick back in my chair, turn the volume up,
Speaker 1: leave my headphones on, and let you guys share any
Speaker 1: final thoughts you want to share with our audience. So Norm,
Speaker 1: let's start with you, and then you can just hand
Speaker 1: the mic off to Kevin and let him take us out.
Speaker 3: We hope that this travesty of justice will be reversed,
Speaker 3: and we definitely are very thankful to Governor Newsom for
Speaker 3: having ordered an investigation of this case. We're confident that
Speaker 3: an investigation into what happened here will show that Kevin
Speaker 3: Cooper is in fact innocent and should be released from
Speaker 3: prison and pardoned and Kevin over to you.
Speaker 2: America is not just dealing with the racial reckoning in
Speaker 2: this country, also dealing with a truth reckoning, a truth
Speaker 2: reckoning that is based on this denial of its racial problem.
Speaker 2: Here in this country. This criminal justice system is truly
Speaker 2: last messages of slavery. Nothing more is true about that.
Speaker 2: Then it comes to dealing with police on the front
Speaker 2: end of the criminal justice system, execution is on the
Speaker 2: back end of the justice system, and all in between
Speaker 2: this justice system, there's a bunch of people, not all
Speaker 2: of them, but a bunch of them who are that
Speaker 2: same mentality to lack us or get rid of us.
Speaker 2: Now I am to blame to a degree for being
Speaker 2: on death thrill. Why because I walked away from that person,
Speaker 2: and I put myself in a position by doing so
Speaker 2: to let those body snatchers get their hands on me,
Speaker 2: and they did the rest. And the only reason why
Speaker 2: I'm alive, And I really to this day don't know
Speaker 2: why I'm alive unless it's God and he has a
Speaker 2: plan for me bigger than I know, because I honestly
Speaker 2: thought on February nine, two thousand and four, when they
Speaker 2: had me sitting inside that Jeff Chamber of waiting room,
Speaker 2: that I was going to die that night. How and
Speaker 2: why I'm still alive today, I don't know other than
Speaker 2: their turns who fly for me then are still fighting
Speaker 2: for me now. And the truth about this case just
Speaker 2: keeps coming out, and it proves that I did not
Speaker 2: commit those murders and that somebody else did so. All
Speaker 2: master for is my day in court. Here in this
Speaker 2: country the claims to be the land of the free
Speaker 2: and the home of the brave, when it should be
Speaker 2: called the land of the oppressors and the home of
Speaker 2: the moral cowards. Because of this moral coworkers, these people
Speaker 2: have taken. Damn, they're forty years out of my life.
Speaker 2: Not just prosecutors, but these judges who refuse to look
Speaker 2: at the truth, corpor stamp in my case on through
Speaker 2: even though all the evidence is there, that evidence was planted,
Speaker 2: evidence was destroyed. Witness will temperat with and pave me.
Speaker 2: If these people get the opportunity, they will put that
Speaker 2: death chamber back together, they will reassembly. And I'm the
Speaker 2: first online for them to murder, not because I'm guilty
Speaker 2: and because I'm fighting back. And that's the worst thing
Speaker 2: that those people see in me. I'm a fighter.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Rafel Conviction. I'd like to
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Justin Golden, Jeff Cliburn,
Speaker 1: and Kevin Wadis, with research by Lyla Robinson. The music
Speaker 1: in this production was supplied by three time Oscar nominated
Speaker 1: composer Jay Row. Sure to follow us on Instagram at
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on
Speaker 1: Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good.
Speaker 1: On all three platforms, you can also follow me on
Speaker 1: both TikTok and Instagram at it's Jason Flap. Wrongful Conviction
Speaker 1: is the production of Lava for Good podcast and association
Speaker 1: with Signal Company Number one