Speaker 1: To our listeners. This episode is part two of the
Speaker 1: story of Tommy Ward and Carl Fontano. Two days before
Speaker 1: we were scheduled to release this episode, Steve and I
Speaker 1: learned about breaking news in Tommy's case, and it's the
Speaker 1: kind of news that reminds us why we do this work.
Speaker 1: So you'll hear this episode as we originally recorded it,
Speaker 1: but with a special update at the end. No spoilers,
Speaker 1: but for Tommy and Carl, it's starting to look like
Speaker 1: justice might not be just a dream after all. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura and I writer
Speaker 1: and I'm Steve Drissen. Today we bring you back to Aida,
Speaker 1: Oklahoma for the second half of our story about Tommy
Speaker 1: Ward and Carl Fontano. When we left off last week,
Speaker 1: Tommy and Carl were sitting on death row after police
Speaker 1: turned Tommy's bad dream into a murder confession. This week,
Speaker 1: we'll tell you about some serious twists in the case,
Speaker 1: from the discovery of the victim's body to the revelation
Speaker 1: of hidden evidence that turned this case upside down. We'll
Speaker 1: update you on everything that's happened since the twenty eighteen
Speaker 1: Netflix series The Innocent Man told Tommy and Carl's story.
Speaker 1: There's been some very good news for one of them
Speaker 1: and a lot of hope for the other. Steve. For
Speaker 1: those listeners who missed last week's episode, let's tell them
Speaker 1: what happened in Ada, Oklahoma. Denise Harroway, a twenty four
Speaker 1: year old woman, goes missing. She vanishes. The police bring
Speaker 1: Tommy Ward in for questioning, and it got ugly fast.
Speaker 1: Tommy told the police about this nightmare he'd had about
Speaker 1: Denise's disappearance, and over a nine hour interrogation, police turned
Speaker 1: that dream into a confession. They even hauled in Tommy's friend,
Speaker 1: Carl Fontano and got him to confess too. But here's
Speaker 1: the thing. These confessions were riddled with errors. They named
Speaker 1: a third perpetrator who had a rock solid alibi. They
Speaker 1: repeated the story that police fed to Tommy and Carl
Speaker 1: without adding anything new. These confessions were obviously obviously false.
Speaker 1: Now going into trial, the prosecutors have two confessions that
Speaker 1: are at odds with the objectively noble facts of the crime.
Speaker 1: But they thought they had an ace in the hole,
Speaker 1: and that ace in the hole was a single fact
Speaker 1: that both Tommy and Carl had told to police. Officers
Speaker 1: a description of a blouse that Denise Harrowy was wearing
Speaker 1: at the time that she was abducted, A blouse that
Speaker 1: it turned out was missing from Denise's wardrobe. Of blouse
Speaker 1: which even the police did not know about at the
Speaker 1: time they interviewed Tommy and Carl. But based on this
Speaker 1: one detail in their confessions, Tommy and Carl it were
Speaker 1: convicted of murder. And remember, her body still hadn't been
Speaker 1: found when they were convicted. No body, no bones, no motive,
Speaker 1: nothing but a description of Denise Harroway's blouse, and they
Speaker 1: are on death row because of that. That's where we
Speaker 1: pick up the story. Three months after Tommy and Carl
Speaker 1: were convicted, a wake up call arrived in the case
Speaker 1: that was built on a dream. On January twenty first,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six, a man was walking through a field
Speaker 1: in Girty, Oklahoma when he found a skull under some brush.
Speaker 1: Police found more human remains spread across the field, and
Speaker 1: dental records confirmed a match. Finally, they'd found Denise Harroway.
Speaker 1: This discovery produced a new round of problems with Tommy
Speaker 1: and Carl's confessions. Denise had been found unclothed, twenty miles
Speaker 1: away from where Tommy and Carl had said they'd left her.
Speaker 1: Her body hadn't been burned at all, despite the fact
Speaker 1: that Carl had said they'd set her on fire, and
Speaker 1: the medical examiner confirmed even though Tommy and Carl had
Speaker 1: said Denise had been stabbed, that never happened. She'd actually
Speaker 1: been shot in the head. It's like they're describing completely
Speaker 1: different crimes from what happened to Denise Harroway. Both Tommy
Speaker 1: and Carl's convictions were reversed on appeal, but not because
Speaker 1: Denise's body had been found. It was because the judge
Speaker 1: ruled they shouldn't have been tried together. Prosecutors went ahead
Speaker 1: and tried both Tommy and Carl again, this time separately,
Speaker 1: but using the same evidence as before. When the second
Speaker 1: trial come up, before they had found her remains and
Speaker 1: everything they found it that crime scene had proved Tommy's
Speaker 1: confession wrong. Nothing was right about it. That's Tommy Ward's brother, Melvin.
Speaker 1: He's been advocating for Tommy's innocence for over thirty years.
Speaker 1: Our hult was a high I mean, how can you
Speaker 1: ignore you know that she was shot back at the head,
Speaker 1: and here you got two boys saying it was she was.
Speaker 1: She would never stad the evening corners from Ford states
Speaker 1: at but believe it or not, the second trials were
Speaker 1: deja vu all over again, just like before. The prosecutors
Speaker 1: relied on the fact that Tommy and Carl had both
Speaker 1: said Denise was wearing a blue flowered, ruffled blouse. The
Speaker 1: police hadn't known anything about the blouse before the interrogation.
Speaker 1: The prosecutors insisted that fact couldn't have been fed. Imagine
Speaker 1: you're a prosecutor and you have to stand up in
Speaker 1: front of a jury and present them with a confession.
Speaker 1: They can't tell you what happened to Denise, who did it,
Speaker 1: or even where the crime occurred. That's what these prosecutors
Speaker 1: had to do. But they did it well enough, well
Speaker 1: enough to convict both Tommy and Carl a second time.
Speaker 1: When Tommy heard the verdict, he began to sob uncontrollably.
Speaker 1: You're all liars, he shouted at the prosecutors. I'm being
Speaker 1: punished for something I didn't do. I don't I still
Speaker 1: have a hard time. I actually thought it would be
Speaker 1: a hung jury the second one. Confessions are hard to
Speaker 1: get by. You know, people still believe that, you know,
Speaker 1: why did you confess if you didn't do it? So
Speaker 1: their confessions were similar, but they also was off. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm not a lawyer by any means, but I could
Speaker 1: not see how twelve adult jurors could just ignore all
Speaker 1: the other evidence. And that's what they did. Had to have.
Speaker 1: Tommy was totally convicted on his confession. Their confessions sunk
Speaker 1: them this time around. Tommy Ward and Carl Fontineau were
Speaker 1: ultimately sentenced to life in prison. That's been thirty five
Speaker 1: years ago, plus thirty five years later, Tommy just still
Speaker 1: waiting to get out. Tommy and Carl went off to
Speaker 1: prison to serve their life sentences. Years passed and their
Speaker 1: appeals were denied one after another. Tommy was a kid
Speaker 1: that he would take it straight, for instance, and uh, well,
Speaker 1: I mean by strays. I don't meet just stray dogs.
Speaker 1: Like one time he found a hawk they had a
Speaker 1: broken wing. He took that hawk and nursed it back
Speaker 1: to health and let it go. Man. A wife would
Speaker 1: would for years when and saw him. You know, every
Speaker 1: two or three weeks, Mama red religiously go see him.
Speaker 1: Even today he cast me every week almost in prison,
Speaker 1: he got into the cabentry and why I understand it.
Speaker 1: He's very good at it. He'd build uh prefab homes there.
Speaker 1: And everybody that knows Tommy, everywhere he's at, even in prison,
Speaker 1: everybody likes him. You know. He's a good Christian man.
Speaker 1: He's honest, and you know he just just not in
Speaker 1: him to do what they claimed he did. Tommy had
Speaker 1: befriended Carl Fontineau when Carl had no family or home.
Speaker 1: He wasn't much different from those other strays Tommy took
Speaker 1: in in prison. While Tommy worked carping jobs, Carl pursued
Speaker 1: a different kind of woodworking. He taught himself the lonely
Speaker 1: skill of building picture frames out of toothpicks and glue,
Speaker 1: even though he didn't have any photos of loved ones
Speaker 1: to go in them. While Tommy and Carl sat in
Speaker 1: an Oklahoma prison, words started spreading about this mysterious case
Speaker 1: that was built on a dream. Two books were written
Speaker 1: about it, one in nineteen eighty seven and a second
Speaker 1: in two thousand and six. This was a case that
Speaker 1: captured the imagination of an investigative reporter named Robert Meyer,
Speaker 1: who wrote a classic wrongful conviction book entitled Dreams of Ada,
Speaker 1: and then none other than John Grisham wrote a book
Speaker 1: about this case. This is the only nonfiction book Grisham
Speaker 1: ever wrote, and like he told us in the last episode,
Speaker 1: even he couldn't make up a story like this. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Grisham's book The Man would be turned into a Netflix series,
Speaker 1: which was released in two thou eighteen. Finally somebody was
Speaker 1: taking notice, is starting to believe in Tommy's story. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's even gone so far were I get Facebook, people
Speaker 1: on the other side of world, I mean Ukrainian in
Speaker 1: places Italy, you know, wishing Tommy well and believing in
Speaker 1: his innocent It's just pretty amazing. While journalists were telling
Speaker 1: Tommy and Carl's stories, the two men sat behind bars
Speaker 1: for decades. Both still insisted on their innocence. They needed
Speaker 1: post conviction lawyers to take their case, but any new
Speaker 1: legal team would face a problem. No DNA evidence existed
Speaker 1: that could prove Tommy and Carl's innocence. How on earth
Speaker 1: would any lawyers go about exonerating them. It was a case,
Speaker 1: turns out that was made for the organization that Steve
Speaker 1: and I are lucky enough to codirect the Center on
Speaker 1: Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. The
Speaker 1: purpose of the Center on Wrongful Convictions is to identify
Speaker 1: and rectify wrongful convictions and other serious miscarriages of justice.
Speaker 1: Here's the co founder of our center, renowned journalist Rob Warden.
Speaker 1: We thought that it was important to have an organization
Speaker 1: that would investigate cases in which there was no DNA
Speaker 1: but there was other persuasive evidence of actual innocence. Now,
Speaker 1: these cases are much harder to prove than DNA, but
Speaker 1: they are no less compelling. The Center on Wrongful Convictions
Speaker 1: was a first innocence project in the country that was
Speaker 1: taking non DNA cases as well as DNA cases. In
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, when the Center had been around
Speaker 1: for about seven years, Rob heard about Tommy Ward's case
Speaker 1: and he couldn't forget what he learned. We wouldn't even
Speaker 1: have had a wrongful conviction movement were it not initially
Speaker 1: for vibrant investigative reporting. John Grisham and I had a
Speaker 1: conversation about the Tommy Ward case when he was in Chicago.
Speaker 1: The thing that was so striking about the Ward Fonteno
Speaker 1: case was that the dreams conflicted with known physical facts
Speaker 1: of the crime. So we have this evidence that the
Speaker 1: dream confessions are false, and that quite clearly the ideas
Speaker 1: here were implanted in the minds of both Tommy and
Speaker 1: Carl by the police. The case probably never should have
Speaker 1: been brought. It still has immensely powerful evidence of actual innocence,
Speaker 1: and that's why the Center on Uncle Convictions got involved,
Speaker 1: and we've been involved in it for the ensuing a
Speaker 1: dozen or thirteen years. Still fighting. Now Here's one thing
Speaker 1: that fascinated Rob about the case and about Aida, Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: Turns out Tommy Ward wasn't the only innocent man from
Speaker 1: Aida who was convicted of murder based on a dream confession.
Speaker 1: Ron Williamson was minor league baseball player who had been
Speaker 1: sentenced to death based on a dream that he described
Speaker 1: to police about the crime. He was exonerated by DNA.
Speaker 1: So this was an intriguing situation for me. Of the
Speaker 1: twelve known dream confessions in the history of false confessions,
Speaker 1: we have two of them coming from Ada, Oklahoma, this small,
Speaker 1: seventeen thousand person town. What are the chances of that
Speaker 1: it's like a cancer cluster. What's going on here is
Speaker 1: that these interrogators were hell bent on solving high profile murders,
Speaker 1: and they were converting dreams into confessions. This was part
Speaker 1: and parcel of their arsenal of tactics to break suspects
Speaker 1: down and get them to confess, and they were getting
Speaker 1: false confessions. If that other dream confession was false, if
Speaker 1: Ron Williamson had been exonerated, maybe Tommy and Carl could
Speaker 1: be exonerated too. Our colleagues at the Center on Wrongful
Speaker 1: Convictions partnered with Oklahoma attorney Mark Barrett to represent Tommy Ward.
Speaker 1: Carl Fontineau also got new representation. Together, both legal teams
Speaker 1: dug into the case of Denise Harroway's disappearance. And what
Speaker 1: did they find. Not DNA, but they did find evidence
Speaker 1: of innocence that was equally compelling, a whole box of
Speaker 1: investigative reports that had not been disclosed to Tommy or
Speaker 1: Carl's defense, eight hundred and sixty pages of secret evidence,
Speaker 1: and the contents of those reports talk about a dream
Speaker 1: come true. The discovery of this box is a development
Speaker 1: that occurred after all the books, after the Netflix series,
Speaker 1: and it's a development that blows this case wide open.
Speaker 1: The prosecution that turns out, we now have learned, had
Speaker 1: concealed a huge body of exculpatory evidence, including evidence cooborating
Speaker 1: Tommy Ward's alibi that he had been at a party
Speaker 1: with a bunch of people at the exact time of
Speaker 1: the abduction and couldn't have been involved in that box.
Speaker 1: There was also a full recantation from Carl Fontano, which
Speaker 1: he wrote just days after he confessed. There were police
Speaker 1: reports showing that the only witness who put Tommy Ward
Speaker 1: at mcinally's that night, James Moyer, had completely changed his
Speaker 1: description several times of whoever it was he saw. But
Speaker 1: what about that blouse with the blue flowers and lazy collar?
Speaker 1: That magical proof that Tommy and Carl must be guilty
Speaker 1: because their interrogators didn't know what Denise was wearing in
Speaker 1: that box, The lawyers found a draft missing person's report
Speaker 1: written by the police but never actually circulated to either
Speaker 1: the public or to defense counsel in this case. That
Speaker 1: report described the blouse that Denise was wearing on the
Speaker 1: day she was abducted. It said that Denise Harwy was
Speaker 1: wearing a blouse with blue flowers and lace around the neckline,
Speaker 1: and that report was dated one day after Denise's disappearance.
Speaker 1: That's months before the interrogations, so the police knew what
Speaker 1: Denise was wearing before they interrogated both Tommy and Carl,
Speaker 1: and there was more in the box. Lawyers also found
Speaker 1: an undated report of an interview with Denise's sister, which
Speaker 1: is probably where police got the information for the missing
Speaker 1: person's bulletin. In it, she described Denise as wearing a
Speaker 1: button down blouse with small blue flowers that had lace
Speaker 1: around the collar and elastic on the sleeves. These are
Speaker 1: the same details, the same words that ended up in
Speaker 1: Tommy and Carl's confessions. Not to play on stereotypes, but
Speaker 1: what are the odds that these two rough and tumbled
Speaker 1: dudes from rural Oklahoma would have described a woman lacy
Speaker 1: blouse using exactly the same words as Denise's sister. This
Speaker 1: eviscerates the state's case. The one fact, the blouse fact,
Speaker 1: that put these men on death row. We now know
Speaker 1: that the police knew about it before they interrogated Tommy
Speaker 1: and Carl. We now know that Denise's sister told them
Speaker 1: about it shortly after she disappeared. Now we know it
Speaker 1: must have been fed to them by the same police
Speaker 1: officers who fed so many other facts to them. The
Speaker 1: anchor that police claimed was the basis of conviction in
Speaker 1: both Trial one and Trial two. You gotta pull that
Speaker 1: anchor up, because remember, there's nothing else in this case,
Speaker 1: there's no other evidence. It was the one unanswerable fact,
Speaker 1: and now it's answerable. The confessions no longer convict Tommy
Speaker 1: and Carl. The detectives said they did not in all
Speaker 1: the description of their shirt until after Tommy's in car confession. Well,
Speaker 1: we kind of have proof now that that's not true.
Speaker 1: These detectives got both of them to mention Odell Tipsworth's
Speaker 1: name in there. They added the description of the shirt
Speaker 1: in there. It was just much these detective confession as
Speaker 1: it was Tommy and carls. I guess that's the best
Speaker 1: way saying that. So much for the prosecution's ace and
Speaker 1: the whole police had known all along what Denise was
Speaker 1: wearing when she disappeared. Tommy and Carl were innocent. I
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't understand law or anything, but here
Speaker 1: you have a blatant miscouraged of justice because it's their
Speaker 1: job to hand over all the evidence to, you know,
Speaker 1: the defense, but the prosecuting attorney did not do that.
Speaker 1: That's a violation of their rights. When you put this
Speaker 1: all together, there is just no question that Tommy Ward
Speaker 1: and Carl Fontineau are absolutely innocent of this crime and
Speaker 1: have been the victims of one of the most egregious
Speaker 1: miscourages of justice in the history of the United States.
Speaker 1: The confessions of Tommy Ward and Carl Fontineau are worthless.
Speaker 1: There is nothing holding this case together at all. Based
Speaker 1: on these new discoveries, both Tommy and Carl filed petitions
Speaker 1: for releaf, Tommy in state court and Carl in federal court.
Speaker 1: Carl's judge was the first to act. In twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: he threw out Carl Fonteneou's conviction. After thirty four years
Speaker 1: behind bars, Carl was released on bond. He's finally free.
Speaker 1: I'm absolutely delighted that Carl Fontineau has been released. Of course,
Speaker 1: the damage that's been done to him can never be undone.
Speaker 1: Nobody can ever make this right for Carl. But at
Speaker 1: least he is no longer in prison, and when he
Speaker 1: was released, he was welcomed with open arms by a
Speaker 1: new community, a new family, the community of Exonorees from
Speaker 1: the state of Oklahoma. But justice in this case won't
Speaker 1: be complete until Tommy Ward is free. We're very happy
Speaker 1: for Karl, and Tommy's very happy for Karl. Of course,
Speaker 1: it shows hope for Tommy because a lot of the
Speaker 1: things that the federal judge had come out with it
Speaker 1: also falls under Tommy's case. As of this recording, Tommy's
Speaker 1: still waiting behind bars for his judge to decide whether
Speaker 1: he can walk free too. Tommy's been waiting for that
Speaker 1: decision for thirty five years, and God, we hope it's
Speaker 1: the right one. I would guess Tommy would be dreaming
Speaker 1: about freedom now in this case that started with a nightmare.
Speaker 1: There are new things to hope for now, doors opening,
Speaker 1: chains being removed, family embracing you and taking you home.
Speaker 1: These are the things that all wrongfully convicted people hope
Speaker 1: for until finally, one day those dreams come true. I
Speaker 1: have more hope for Tommy now than I've had in
Speaker 1: a long time. After thirty five years of knowing that
Speaker 1: your little brothers in prison for something he didn't do.
Speaker 1: You want him out. We want him out bad, and
Speaker 1: he deserves to be out. If there's any justice in
Speaker 1: this world, he'll be out one of these days. Fifteen
Speaker 1: years after author John Grisham started researching this case. He
Speaker 1: still speaks with Tommy Ward all the time and remains
Speaker 1: a strong advocate for Tommy's freedom. Tommy prays for me,
Speaker 1: will not pray for him. I would say, Tommy, relax,
Speaker 1: I'm okay, worried about you. SI. That's not the kind
Speaker 1: of guy he is. He has a long prayer list
Speaker 1: and he keeps a lot of people on that list.
Speaker 1: And Tommy would probably go to work helping people when
Speaker 1: he cut out. When he gets out. This is an
Speaker 1: innocent man. Get him out of prison. That's what should happen. Hello,
Speaker 1: this is a collect call from tom an inmate at
Speaker 1: Connor Correctional Center. You may start the conversation now. Hello,
Speaker 1: Hey Tommy, this is Laura and this is Steve Tommy. Sorry, Tommy,
Speaker 1: how are you doing? Okay, it's the same a prayer,
Speaker 1: said Snumer. Be coming to an answer. We sure hope.
Speaker 1: So can you tell us how you pass your time
Speaker 1: these days? Well, I've been trying to keep bisbee, you know,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of will be the hobby craft
Speaker 1: for you know, like Christmas presents or birthday presents and
Speaker 1: kind of case busy doing that. You've had so many
Speaker 1: ups and downs over the past decades that you've been
Speaker 1: locked up. Do you allow yourself to think about what
Speaker 1: you're going to want to do when you get out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: would work, And I'd like to open them my own
Speaker 1: wood shop. And I always thought of, you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of elderly people were I could go in and
Speaker 1: maybe lower their jab inage forum and ghousers and you know,
Speaker 1: make it like wheelchair assessable where they can shay at
Speaker 1: home longer than stead having to go to a nursing home. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that would be pretty meaningful work to do. Do you
Speaker 1: get letters from people who have watched your story on
Speaker 1: TV or who read the books? Oh? Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: lesson to hear from everybody that has written to me.
Speaker 1: No one has to kick them after they do sorts.
Speaker 1: Getting a lot of people care Tommy, and just from
Speaker 1: talking to you now, I can see that you deserve
Speaker 1: every one of those blessings and a whole lot more
Speaker 1: high listeners. So here's your update on that breaking news
Speaker 1: we learned just a few days ago. On December eighteenth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, there was a ruling in Tommy's case, and
Speaker 1: it's what we've all been waiting for. The judge throughout
Speaker 1: Tommy's conviction. Not only that, the judge dismissed the charges
Speaker 1: against Tommy and ordered him to be released from prison.
Speaker 1: This is a moment for celebration and joy, But believe
Speaker 1: it or not, Tommy's case still isn't settled. Prosecutors have
Speaker 1: obtained a temporary stay of Tommy's release while they prepare
Speaker 1: to appeal. So for now, Tommy Ward is still behind bars.
Speaker 1: Steve and I and the Center on Wrongful Convictions will
Speaker 1: be posting updates on Twitter, so follow us for the latest.
Speaker 1: Tommy Ward is now sixty years old. Will he finally
Speaker 1: be able to reclaim what's left of his life as
Speaker 1: an exonerated man? We hope. So, Tommy, we support you
Speaker 1: all the way. Your dream of freedom is our dream too.
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions is a production of Law for
Speaker 1: Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one Special
Speaker 1: thanks to our executive producers Jason Flam and Kevin Wardis.
Speaker 1: Our production team is headed by senior producer and Pope,
Speaker 1: along with producers Joshi Hammer and Jess Shane. Our show
Speaker 1: is mixed by Genie Montalvo. John Colbert is our intrepid intern.
Speaker 1: Our music was composed by Jay Ralph. You can follow
Speaker 1: me on Instagram or Twitter at Laura Nyrid and you
Speaker 1: can follow me on Twitter at s Drizzen. For more
Speaker 1: information on the show, visit Wrongful Conviction podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow the show on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
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