Speaker 1: On the night of April twenty eighth, two thousand and one,
Speaker 1: a young woman returned to her apartment in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.
Speaker 1: When two men approached. She got a brief look at
Speaker 1: one of their faces before being forced inside at gunpoint.
Speaker 1: They covered her face and both men raped her. They
Speaker 1: also stole her purse and cell phone before fleeing the scene.
Speaker 1: A rape kit was performed and the victim described the
Speaker 1: one assailant she had seen, as well as his clothing.
Speaker 1: Two days later, investigators tracked down the cell phone to
Speaker 1: a man named Chris Smith, who had clothing that was
Speaker 1: similar to what the victim described. Even though Chris claimed
Speaker 1: that he bought the phone second hand, he was arrested
Speaker 1: and identified. But this is wrongful conviction. Wrongful conviction has
Speaker 1: always given voice to innocent people in prison, and now
Speaker 1: we're expanding that voice to you us at eight three, three,
Speaker 1: two oh seven, four six sixty six, and tell us
Speaker 1: how these stories make you feel and what you've done
Speaker 1: to help the cause, even if it's something as simple
Speaker 1: as telling a friend or sharing on social media. We've
Speaker 1: really appreciated hearing from our audience so much so that
Speaker 1: we've included one of the messages at the end of
Speaker 1: this episode, So stick around for that, and if you
Speaker 1: have something to say, we definitely want to hear it,
Speaker 1: and you might just hear yourself in a future episode.
Speaker 1: Call us eight three three, two oh seven four six
Speaker 1: sixty six. Welcome back to Ronful Conviction, where we have
Speaker 1: yet another case out of Cuyahoga County on the east
Speaker 1: side of Cleveland, Ohio, where it appears that there was
Speaker 1: evidence that should have kept our guest, Chris Miller, from
Speaker 1: ever having been even brought to trial, much less convicted
Speaker 1: and sentenced to sixty years. So Chris, first, let me
Speaker 1: just say how glad I am that you're here with
Speaker 1: us today rather than back inside where you never should
Speaker 1: have been in the first place. Thank you and joining
Speaker 1: him as a partner at FG and G and a
Speaker 1: proud member of his legal team.
Speaker 2: Jack one Green, absolutely a proud member. Thanks for having
Speaker 2: me here of course.
Speaker 1: Now, Chris, let's talk about your life before prison. Where'd
Speaker 1: you grow up, what was your family life like? Give
Speaker 1: us the whole background.
Speaker 3: I grew up in the east side of Cleveland, Saint Claire.
Speaker 3: I was raised ball women, my great grandmother Auntie, my mom,
Speaker 3: and my girl cousin. My grandfather dad when I was
Speaker 3: ten years old, so he was the only man at
Speaker 3: the house. So eleven years old, I was the man
Speaker 3: at the house, you know, dealing with with women and boyfriend.
Speaker 3: And I'm fighting grown me when I was eleven years old.
Speaker 3: I had to grew up kind of fast because my
Speaker 3: grandfather when he dad, everything got tight. No, he was
Speaker 3: the money. My grandfather was a mechanic, you know. So
Speaker 3: eleven years old, I was in the streets. Then I
Speaker 3: was in the streets some drugs.
Speaker 1: Chris helped to keep the family afloat until about the
Speaker 1: time of this crime. He was twenty four years old,
Speaker 1: had two kids of his own and one on the way,
Speaker 1: and he and his girlfriend needed a phone for the
Speaker 1: new place they were moving into. And it appears that
Speaker 1: a chance encounter one morning with a man named Dwayne
Speaker 1: Collins had devastating effects on Chris's life. Collins approached Chris
Speaker 1: and a man named Desmond Fletcher on a street corner
Speaker 1: with a phone to trade for drugs.
Speaker 3: It was a Sunday morning that with Fletcher. He gave
Speaker 3: him the drugs. I just gave him the money. He
Speaker 3: gave it. Due to drugs I didn't know all this
Speaker 3: was coming with it.
Speaker 1: By it, he means the phone which belonged to a
Speaker 1: white woman who will refer to as LB. She had
Speaker 1: survived the rape the previous night in Cleveland Heights.
Speaker 2: April twenty eight, two thousand and one. LB. She's out.
Speaker 2: She's returning home at the end of the night. She's
Speaker 2: got a ground floor apartment in a building with a
Speaker 2: number of units. It's a little after eleven o'clock. She
Speaker 2: comes in through this exterior door. There's like a half
Speaker 2: flight of stairs that goes down from kind of a
Speaker 2: parking area, and you know, her doors down the hall
Speaker 2: of it. So she goes to close the door to
Speaker 2: apartment and she hears some voices like up, I think
Speaker 2: on the flight of the stairs, and she turns. She
Speaker 2: calls out. Two guys appear at the top the landing,
Speaker 2: and of course she doesn't know who they are at
Speaker 2: the time. One of them comes down, grabs her arm,
Speaker 2: holds a gun to her neck, and they force her
Speaker 2: into the apartment at gunpoint. They put something over her
Speaker 2: face during these events, so she only really saw one
Speaker 2: guy briefly of the two. Then they sectually assault her,
Speaker 2: both of them before leaving. One of them tells her,
Speaker 2: you know, don't report the attack. They take her purse,
Speaker 2: they take her cell phone, they take other items, and
Speaker 2: they leave. That night. LB does go to the hospital.
Speaker 2: There is an examination and a rape kit done, so
Speaker 2: there are specimens obtained for the purpose later of testing
Speaker 2: that is done. We end up learning there's a mixture.
Speaker 2: There are two contributors, and she.
Speaker 1: Did get a brief look at one of the assailants.
Speaker 2: There are a couple different early reports that came to light.
Speaker 2: The first description from LB is quote first mail as
Speaker 2: a black mail about five eleven, one hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: to one hundred and seventy pounds, eighteen to twenty two
Speaker 2: years old, no facial hair, wearing a white T shirt
Speaker 2: possibly with a black circle on the chest, blue jeans
Speaker 2: and a green coat.
Speaker 3: Six one. When I got arrested, I was like one.
Speaker 2: Night, so Chris is or now he's taller and he's
Speaker 2: brought her right.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's hard to mix up one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty and one hundred and ninety pounds man. But then
Speaker 1: somehow the clothing took on a more important role, especially
Speaker 1: the circular pattern on his shirt. And we'll get back
Speaker 1: to that in a bit. As the investigators moved beyond
Speaker 1: the victim and the crime.
Speaker 2: Scene, Detective Mark shit Schmid, I'm gonna say that again.
Speaker 2: Detective Mark Schmidt of the Cleveland Heights Police Department. He comes.
Speaker 2: He's now the lead detective on this case. And Schmidt
Speaker 2: focuses on this cell phone. And there had been some
Speaker 2: calls made from the phone overnight and then earlier in
Speaker 2: the morning to like a number stored in the phone,
Speaker 2: to a number from LB's little date book that was
Speaker 2: in her purse. And then round eight o'clock in the
Speaker 2: morning or so, the phone starts getting used pretty steadily.
Speaker 2: And this is when Chris has the phone.
Speaker 3: It's Sunday. I shouldn't even been on the corner anyway.
Speaker 3: They guy walk up. You got then I got a phone.
Speaker 3: I'm annoying. Hedn't found the phone down the street in
Speaker 3: the field. So the dudes was after they did what
Speaker 3: they Didaturday night, they rolled down through my neighborhood and
Speaker 3: through the phone in the field. He was one in
Speaker 3: the field to use the bathroom and heard the phone
Speaker 3: ring it, so he picked it up and came up
Speaker 3: on nine nine Saint Clear and sold it to me
Speaker 3: for five dollars, So you know, I was using the phone.
Speaker 3: It was charged up, had the phone for probably a
Speaker 3: day and a.
Speaker 1: Half, And sometime during that day and a half, Detective
Speaker 1: Schmidt started visiting the people who had received calls from
Speaker 1: the phone, including Chris's girlfriend.
Speaker 3: When I pull off for my mother's apartment building, I
Speaker 3: look at the riview she following me. I'm like, so
Speaker 3: I pulled over. She said, the police came to my
Speaker 3: house talking about you robbed somebody for a phone. She's like,
Speaker 3: get rid of that phone. Now. They don't say nothing
Speaker 3: about the rape. Then they just sayd I robbed somebody.
Speaker 3: When I got home, I just put it in sewer
Speaker 3: right front the house when in the house.
Speaker 1: But by then, Detective Schmid had already figured out that
Speaker 1: Chris was the person who had this phone, which was
Speaker 1: enough for him to obtain an arrest warrant on April thirtieth.
Speaker 3: So I went home. I'll get my son in a bath.
Speaker 3: I take a bath. I'll fall asleep a couple hours.
Speaker 3: Then I hear somebody just dog in my mother doorbill.
Speaker 3: I wake up on my sleep, I'm like, who is this?
Speaker 3: I go down there. It's just like fifty cops. I'm like,
Speaker 3: and my aunts was at the door with them and
Speaker 3: was letting them in that I was coming to open
Speaker 3: the door to see who they was. So they come
Speaker 3: in the house. He like he had a warrant, so
Speaker 3: I signed war let him search. I ain't got an
Speaker 3: ass so I let him search. I was draws, no shirt,
Speaker 3: no socks on.
Speaker 2: How'd you get the clothes to wear to go to
Speaker 2: the police station.
Speaker 3: They dug him out the dirty clothes and made me
Speaker 3: put them on.
Speaker 2: Who gave them to you?
Speaker 3: Schmidt?
Speaker 2: So Mark Schmitt himself is the one who gives these
Speaker 2: clothing items to Chris to wear. Remember, Mark Schmidt is
Speaker 2: the person who had previously interviewed LB. We know about
Speaker 2: that later on in the story, but at this time
Speaker 2: Schmidt has information. He finds clothes for Chris to wear
Speaker 2: out of the house for the arrest.
Speaker 3: She said, I had a white T shirt with Circle
Speaker 3: of Emotions. They went there and took a white jersey
Speaker 3: with pinky purple letters Toronto Raper's jersey, Vince Carter jersey. Yeah,
Speaker 3: made me put it on and said it that's that's
Speaker 3: what I had on. Like, I ain't have on that, bro.
Speaker 3: They just found anything and just tried to put it
Speaker 3: on the Fifth Day theory.
Speaker 1: Since Chris didn't have a green jacket like LB had described,
Speaker 1: they chose as black one. I guess they figured that's
Speaker 1: close enough. Now they've got Chris dressed up prime for identification,
Speaker 1: and they dragged him from his house for what he
Speaker 1: believes was the stolen cell phone at.
Speaker 3: The MARTIALISTMS take me out of the house and put
Speaker 3: me in the car. I'm so half sleep, I don't
Speaker 3: even know my mother and the man even in the house.
Speaker 3: My mother and Shark my daughter and walked to the
Speaker 3: corner store. So by the time they come out of
Speaker 3: the store, I'm in the beckseat of the police car.
Speaker 3: The cop come to the car like, hey, turn your
Speaker 3: legs out. He said, your daughter wants you. She was
Speaker 3: five years old. Said she comes, she gets betray my
Speaker 3: legs and she said, dad, what's going on? Said? They said,
Speaker 3: I robbed somebody, so I shouldn't be back. You know,
Speaker 3: they figure out when.
Speaker 1: Me you're listening to Ron for Conviction. You can listen
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Speaker 3: The night is going to happen, Me and two of
Speaker 3: my friends rode to Harvard and leave.
Speaker 1: There.
Speaker 3: Used to be a restaurant there, a seafood restaurant called
Speaker 3: Dave Servant Turf. We used to come all the way
Speaker 3: across down to go there, and they had cameras in there.
Speaker 3: I got to telling her, I said, man, do is
Speaker 3: go to the day Surf. I'm on the cameras when
Speaker 3: you walk in till the clock. I told him everything
Speaker 3: I ordered, because I went in and ordered for all
Speaker 3: three of us.
Speaker 1: However, this camera footage from the time of the crime
Speaker 1: never surfaced. Meanwhile, back at the police station, Chris was
Speaker 1: photographed in the outfit they had chosen for him, and
Speaker 1: his interrogation continued.
Speaker 2: This goes through the nighttime. Detective Schmidt keeps coming to you,
Speaker 2: Chris right, and trying to question you, question you repeatedly
Speaker 2: over the course of the night. Every time you told
Speaker 2: me before Right you were about to fall asleep, he'd
Speaker 2: come back in and pull you out to question you
Speaker 2: some more, you know, just trying to wear Chris down,
Speaker 2: trying to get him to say something, you know, that
Speaker 2: would implicate him.
Speaker 3: I didn't have no tell him I didn't do nothing
Speaker 3: like a ball the phone.
Speaker 1: The following day, the victim came in to make an identification,
Speaker 1: but curiously, instead of viewing a liveline, investigators chose to
Speaker 1: show her a photo array.
Speaker 2: So the photo array contains a photograph of Chris from
Speaker 2: his arrest, wearing this shirt that Schmidt has handed to
Speaker 2: him that has this, you know, kind of design on it.
Speaker 3: But I also think everybody else in Atlanta had on
Speaker 3: County orange.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you look different than the other pictures. So that's
Speaker 2: another piece of the puzzle here, right. So LB looks
Speaker 2: at this array of photos for like four or five minutes,
Speaker 2: is what the record show. That's a while, you know,
Speaker 2: to look and think. Eventually she ends up picking out Chris.
Speaker 2: Chris is arrested based on the phone, but then on
Speaker 2: the identification. This is what leads to him being charged
Speaker 2: with multiple counts of rape, aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary, kidnapping,
Speaker 2: intimidation of Filoniu's assault, the.
Speaker 3: Saying they put me in a Cleveland Heights. It was
Speaker 3: a board outside the window, so anytime I looked up
Speaker 3: out the window, you got all my name and all
Speaker 3: them charges. I'm like when I see what I was
Speaker 3: in there because they said robbery, I see the try.
Speaker 3: I'm like man with a rape and all that come for.
Speaker 2: This identification from Schmidt to LB is the through line
Speaker 2: to how Chris then ends up wrapped up in this
Speaker 2: criminal case he had nothing to do with.
Speaker 1: Not only was this a cross racial misidentification, which study
Speaker 1: after study after study have shown are less accurate than
Speaker 1: guessing yeah, you heard that right, but then further suggestion
Speaker 1: was added through this careful selection of clothing by detective Shit, don't.
Speaker 2: Please, don't put that on you. That was an accident?
Speaker 3: Was it?
Speaker 2: I can't help my subconscious, okay, but really accident.
Speaker 1: At this point, the case was as good as closed.
Speaker 1: Except for the rape kit. So far, we just know
Speaker 1: that there had been two contributors.
Speaker 2: At the time, they use what was new technology is
Speaker 2: str DNA testing. That's primitive compared to what we've got
Speaker 2: available as technology at the current. So they test the
Speaker 2: samples in the rape kit. There's a mixture. There are
Speaker 2: two contributors, and only one contributor could be identified at
Speaker 2: the times with the str DNA testing. What we knew
Speaker 2: is the contributor was a single mail profile Chris was
Speaker 2: excluded from being that particular contributor, so he's not that guy.
Speaker 2: There is another contributor, though, right, and that second contributor
Speaker 2: was determined to have been an azospermatic contributor.
Speaker 1: So the guy had a low sperm count.
Speaker 2: Chris doesn't have that problem. Chris, you know, gave his
Speaker 2: DNA to write for comparison.
Speaker 1: He was excluded from the spermatic contributor by the DNA
Speaker 1: testing and then excluded as the other contributor by logic.
Speaker 1: He didn't have a low sperm count, so this should
Speaker 1: have ended the madness right then and there, but instead
Speaker 1: they tried to square the circle.
Speaker 3: Said they found DNA on my jersey didn't match her.
Speaker 2: They tried to test your clothes for cat hairs, hoping
Speaker 2: they would match Elbie's cats.
Speaker 3: Right, because my mother had cats that didn't match. Dude,
Speaker 3: I don't know this lady. He wasn't me.
Speaker 1: You can hear about hair comparison on Wrongful Conviction Junk
Speaker 1: Science that'll be linked in the episode description. So while
Speaker 1: they were tinkering around with fucking cat hair, Chris awaited
Speaker 1: trial from jail for a year and a half and
Speaker 1: then in Walks's public defender who instead of trying to
Speaker 1: track down the restaurant camera footage or hiring an expert
Speaker 1: to explain that Chris was ruled out of being a
Speaker 1: contributor in the rape kit, she relayed the prosecutions deal
Speaker 1: cop out an idea, you're alleged accomplice.
Speaker 3: She just kept trying to give me to come out
Speaker 3: to seven years. I'm like, I'm not coming on those
Speaker 3: sel years. They want to give you a long time.
Speaker 3: I said, well, they give me all of it. I
Speaker 3: ain't about scoping those seven years. I ain't do I said, man,
Speaker 3: get out of here.
Speaker 2: You were not going to stand down. And at a
Speaker 2: certain point, you know, before you're getting ready to go
Speaker 2: to trial, your lawyer puts on the record she's told
Speaker 2: you about the plea deal, right, and you've refused it.
Speaker 2: You're continuing to say you're innocent. The court talked to
Speaker 2: you right and wanted to make sure you understood the
Speaker 2: risks to go into trial.
Speaker 3: I mean, they was trying to take my life for
Speaker 3: somebody to do something. But I'm like, I got a fight.
Speaker 3: I can't lay down like that. Man. I couldn't. Then
Speaker 3: it was too much time. I'm like, hey, and I
Speaker 3: didn't do nothing like I'm not gonna see here just
Speaker 3: copp out to something. At least if I go to
Speaker 3: trial Va Louse, I could still fight it. You know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: That's the fucked up math that Chris and so many
Speaker 1: other men and women are forced to do. I mean,
Speaker 1: deciding whether or not to roll the dice on what
Speaker 1: could happen as a result of taking a case to trial.
Speaker 1: And for Chris, this was a trial that should have
Speaker 1: never even happened. If he was azospermatic, maybe they could
Speaker 1: have said he was the second contributor, but he didn't
Speaker 1: have a low sperm count. Nevertheless, trial began in January
Speaker 1: two thousand and two, and this is what the state
Speaker 1: had to present.
Speaker 2: It was made in the phone and the id ID
Speaker 2: and that was it right.
Speaker 3: Everything they did. It wasn't nothing from my fingerprints. K here.
Speaker 1: I really can't with this. I mean the fucking cat
Speaker 1: hair like.
Speaker 2: So no physical evidence connecting Chris to the crime whatsoever.
Speaker 1: Then it appears that maybe the prosecutor knew the case
Speaker 1: was weak considering how he argued the case.
Speaker 2: I'm going to just read a quote from the prosecutor
Speaker 2: from the opening statements. He goes several days later when
Speaker 2: he's arrested with some of the same clothing on that
Speaker 2: she had described to Detective Schmidt that he had on
Speaker 2: that night. And listen carefully. She will describe for you
Speaker 2: the clothing that he was wearing and some of that
Speaker 2: same clothing he had on a couple days later when
Speaker 2: he was arrested, and the prosecutor tells the jury that
Speaker 2: LB will talk to you very specifically about what she
Speaker 2: saw with regard to the clothing.
Speaker 1: Up until this point, we've been referring to LB's initial
Speaker 1: description of the clothes blue jeans, white T shirt with
Speaker 1: a circular pattern in black, and a green jacket. However,
Speaker 1: this initial description was not shared with the defense, so
Speaker 1: they didn't have it in order to impeach her trial testimony, and.
Speaker 2: So in the trial, LB identifies this black jean jacket
Speaker 2: as the one that the perpetrator wore that night. LB
Speaker 2: describes the attacker who had the gun right in this duo.
Speaker 2: She describes him as having now a V neck shirt
Speaker 2: with a half circle. The writing she testified was his
Speaker 2: half circle, and it looked to be like what she
Speaker 2: said was the state's exhibit, which was your Raptor's jersey,
Speaker 2: albeit admits that she's only seen one of the attackers briefly,
Speaker 2: but she testified at the trial she was confident that
Speaker 2: her identification of Chris was right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she got up there and point me on. He
Speaker 3: was on top of me. I'm like wow.
Speaker 1: But Chris was excluded by the DNA evidence as one
Speaker 1: contributor as well as the azospermatic designation of the second.
Speaker 2: So forensic asper testify there's no physical evidence, including Danna
Speaker 2: her figure Princess, specifically tie Chris to this crime. Lena
Speaker 2: testifies she saw Chris at home that night.
Speaker 1: Lena was Chris's girlfriend, and then two more alibi witnesses
Speaker 1: were presented, starting with the guy he was with when
Speaker 1: he got the phone, Desman Fletcher.
Speaker 2: But there were some little discrepancies in his story from
Speaker 2: what really happened.
Speaker 3: He let the the texts them scare him, like he
Speaker 3: don't remember what due had on. He had them all black, Dude,
Speaker 3: you don't remember what he had on? The say that
Speaker 3: he had MUNI already knew he gonna come here and
Speaker 3: say something like he messed up, like he don't remember,
Speaker 3: all right, knew that I said, cause lit Yes, him
Speaker 3: Munity Rustling walked down the al I'm like, fuck, you
Speaker 3: got muney phone five piece? What is gonna plump his
Speaker 3: stomach for a five dollar piece? Of eighteen's ago.
Speaker 1: Since the official story went that Fletcher sold Dwayne Collins
Speaker 1: crack after Colin sold Chris the phone, it appears that
Speaker 1: they were holding drug charges over Fletcher's head while he testified,
Speaker 1: and who knows what effect that had on his truthfulness
Speaker 1: or his appearance to the jury. However, they were able
Speaker 1: to locate Dwayne Collins.
Speaker 3: I'll say, if I would have never met him, I
Speaker 3: wouldn't be here. Man. He had to fall first, so
Speaker 3: y'all should have him here. When they brought him in there,
Speaker 3: Dwayne Kylas told him that he sold me the phone
Speaker 3: and everything. I'm going home, And.
Speaker 1: It appears the jury didn't have an easy time with it.
Speaker 1: On one hand, you had a definitive identification from the victim,
Speaker 1: who also said that the clothes Chris was wearing when
Speaker 1: he was arrested with a clothes worn by the assailant.
Speaker 1: But then there was a plausible story about the phone
Speaker 1: as well as DNA testing and the azos pramatic contributor
Speaker 1: that excluded Chris, but maybe that was just about confusing
Speaker 1: enough for the jury to totally misunderstand.
Speaker 2: The jury deliberated for three days in this case. It's
Speaker 2: a long time. There was clearly a struggle to determine
Speaker 2: what the outcome was going to be in this case.
Speaker 2: But eventually they came to a verdict aggravated burglary, two
Speaker 2: counts of rape with a sexually violent predator specification, as
Speaker 2: well as aggravated robbery, kidnapping, flowings of salt intimidation along
Speaker 2: with firearms specifications for all this stuff. And this too
Speaker 2: is at a time in Ohio where you hit a
Speaker 2: specific year's sentence, right, so you get what you get.
Speaker 2: It's not like you serve ten and then you get
Speaker 2: a chance to go to the parole board and see
Speaker 2: if you serve the rest. It wasn't like that at
Speaker 2: the time Chris was in prison on this sentencing regime
Speaker 2: in Ohio.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, they came back in they made like guilty.
Speaker 3: I'm like, mentally, I wasn't even there. It took me
Speaker 3: months before and realize so much time. I got man
Speaker 3: forty years flat. Then sink in it won real too.
Speaker 3: I had to go through the sex program with all
Speaker 3: the rapists and sex offenders all over Ohio. There was
Speaker 3: some weird motherfucker said, hear me this guy next door.
Speaker 3: I ain't no, but I kept asking the guy I
Speaker 3: was the selling, like man, why that lady on? What
Speaker 3: you going there and sell? A couple of days the
Speaker 3: dude taught me said, just standing the door, y'alls to watch.
Speaker 3: So I stood in the door while she tearing the
Speaker 3: sail up she had was doing collides. I said, oh,
Speaker 3: this dude tripping. He was cuttings as of girls. He
Speaker 3: cut him off the paper and they underwear and all that.
Speaker 3: After the shopping sparked making colliges. That was a wake
Speaker 3: up call, cause it's a it's a dorm for the
Speaker 3: sex offender. That's for real, That's all it is. It
Speaker 3: was guys like my age, nineteen twenty years old. It
Speaker 3: was fireman in there cocks. That was the weirdest shit
Speaker 3: I ever went through my life.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, violence against women finds a home in seemingly every
Speaker 1: walk of life. In fact, it turned out that the
Speaker 1: pervasionists of violence against women even became an issue with
Speaker 1: Christ's jury for post conviction.
Speaker 3: Well jew said, oh, he looked he looked guilty when
Speaker 3: I came in, getting to kind of found out she
Speaker 3: was in the rape for Robert case herself, so she
Speaker 3: shouldn't have been on the jury. So when they bring
Speaker 3: me back from the EVERDJ here the prostitutent that got
Speaker 3: to the lady. Now that they're told on everybody, they'll
Speaker 3: mess with her. Now she don't even want to talk.
Speaker 1: And so that issue didn't pan out for Chris after
Speaker 1: his initial denials. A bit of serendipity worked in Chris's favor.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and four.
Speaker 2: So Ohio a Bureau of Criminal Investigation and Identification also
Speaker 2: known as BCI. They have this database access to DNA profiles,
Speaker 2: and they turn up a hit to one of the
Speaker 2: male DNA profiles from the LB rape kit in the
Speaker 2: Federal Code of database. It matches a guy named Richard
Speaker 2: Marlin Stadmeire.
Speaker 1: Like with most of these cases, while the state is
Speaker 1: busy prosecuting an innocent person, the actual assailants remained free
Speaker 1: to commit more heinous acts. It's almost like the tax
Speaker 1: dollars that we pay are funding a system that protects
Speaker 1: the actual perpetrators while they go about framing innocent people.
Speaker 1: So while detective Schmidt was putting around with cat hairs.
Speaker 1: Another rape and robbery happened in May two thousand and one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was just about three weeks after the LB rape.
Speaker 2: In May two thousand and one, Stadmeire and another guy
Speaker 2: were arrested and charged with sexual assault and battery. Is
Speaker 2: about only five miles away from where Albe's apartment was
Speaker 2: in Mayfield Hights, Ohio. Wow. And in that other case,
Speaker 2: the perpetrators ambush the victim, held a gun to her neck,
Speaker 2: They forced her under her car, and they sexually assaulted
Speaker 2: and robbed her. And Stadmeyer was caught quickly for that case.
Speaker 2: He was convicted in March of two thousand and two.
Speaker 2: The other man involved turned out to Stadmeyer's friend and accomplice,
Speaker 2: Charles Boyd. And Boyd in that case he pled guilty
Speaker 2: to the Mayfield Heights attack and.
Speaker 3: He had to. When they take the chick to the ATM,
Speaker 3: the camera and the ATM called us tattoo.
Speaker 2: He got a lenient sentence in exchange for testifying against
Speaker 2: Dadmire at trial.
Speaker 3: In that one serial predators man.
Speaker 2: Going back to Chris's case, remember there were two DNA profiles.
Speaker 2: Stadmeire matched the one that Chris had already been excluded
Speaker 2: from right, the azospomatic contributor still remains unidentified at that point. Now,
Speaker 2: of course, Charles Boyd should have been the obvious person
Speaker 2: to go test and compare and try to see if
Speaker 2: he's that second person, given this other case from three
Speaker 2: weeks later, five miles away.
Speaker 1: Instead, Detective Schmidt once again tried to fit that same
Speaker 1: old square peg into the round hole.
Speaker 2: Detective Schmidt goes and interviews Stadmeyre and Boyd. Right, both
Speaker 2: guys were initially not cooperative. They denied involvement in the
Speaker 2: LB attack. Schmidt shows both men pictures of Chris Miller
Speaker 2: at the time Boyd was Mansfield. He confirmed at that
Speaker 2: time that he didn't know Chris, he only recognized him
Speaker 2: as another guy in the same prison. Stadmeyer also looked
Speaker 2: at the photo array told Schmidt he couldn't identify anybody.
Speaker 2: Several weeks later, Schmidt goes back and reinterviews Boyd, and
Speaker 2: at this point in time, miraculously Boyd comes around. He
Speaker 2: admits he's part of the attack against delb. He can
Speaker 2: describe Lbe's apartment with a lot of detail, but he's
Speaker 2: adamant that he never actually went in the apartment and
Speaker 2: instead he was just the lookout guy while Stadmeyer and
Speaker 2: Chris went in and raped del B. Boyd claimed that
Speaker 2: he had only met Chris a few hours before the
Speaker 2: attack against Delb and that after the rape, he and
Speaker 2: stan Meyer went up to a club to split the
Speaker 2: proceeds from the robbery, and Chris simply disappeared on foot,
Speaker 2: you know, miles away from where Chris lived.
Speaker 3: Phanom I'll want none of the money. I'm cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it makes no sense, he.
Speaker 3: Said, his friend brought me to him. You'll free of
Speaker 3: bringing me to you. You just wanna go rob somebody
Speaker 3: with me?
Speaker 2: You won't know me. Come on, that's crazy, right.
Speaker 1: We can only guess how Schmidt got Boyd to change
Speaker 1: his story.
Speaker 2: Well, let me shed maybe a little bit of light
Speaker 2: on that. You can make some inferences if you want.
Speaker 2: This is something that came out in our subsequent civil case.
Speaker 2: So again, even at the time of the exoneration, nobody
Speaker 2: knew this yet. We in our civil case got an
Speaker 2: affidavit from Richard Stadmeyer about when Schmidt came to see him,
Speaker 2: and so I'm going to read you some of the
Speaker 2: things that he says. At some point in two thousand
Speaker 2: and four. Two thousand and five, I met with the
Speaker 2: Tecta Schmidt in another officer. Detecta Schmidt showed me a
Speaker 2: card with two rows of photographs. I told the tectave
Speaker 2: Schmidt that I did not know anyone in the photographs.
Speaker 2: Detective Schmidt called me a smart ass and said, are
Speaker 2: you sure you don't know c. Mills. Detective Schmidt then
Speaker 2: showed me the photographs again and pointed out a photograph
Speaker 2: of a man. I did not recognize the man in
Speaker 2: the photograph. I later learned that the man in the
Speaker 2: photograph was Christopher Miller. Detectave Schmidt told me to quote
Speaker 2: make this easier on myself. I understood that Detective Schmidt
Speaker 2: was telling me that if I identified Chris Miller from
Speaker 2: his photograph as the rapist, then he would help me.
Speaker 2: Detective Schmidt said he knew that Christopher Miller was the
Speaker 2: rapist and asked if I was just to look out.
Speaker 2: I again told him I do not know Christopher Miller.
Speaker 2: Detectave Schmidt became angry and frustrated. Detecta Schmidt threatened me
Speaker 2: that he was going to talk with Charles Boyd and
Speaker 2: say that Boyd would be eager to give up information.
Speaker 2: So I think there's some assumptions we could make about
Speaker 2: how his conversation with BOYD went to that come out
Speaker 2: of that. Sadmar's indicted rape, robbery, kidnapping, all of these things.
Speaker 2: He pleads not guilty. He goes to trial. Of course,
Speaker 2: Chris testifies at the Sammar trial, basically again asserting her
Speaker 2: innocence and being like, I don't know anything about any of.
Speaker 3: This, right, well, I don't know them. Now he got stall,
Speaker 3: he told him, like I don't know him. He went
Speaker 3: with us, the prosecutor. You get to cussing me out,
Speaker 3: like why am I trying to get you out? Why
Speaker 3: are you trying to get you out? Saying, man, I
Speaker 3: ain't due with bro. That's all I can tell you.
Speaker 3: I didn't do it.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't know them dues, and they just send me
Speaker 3: back to the BOD.
Speaker 2: Now, remember LB, and everything we've ever heard has always
Speaker 2: been consistent. There are only two guys involved in this attack. Now,
Speaker 2: Schmidt saying on the stand, even though he testified in
Speaker 2: Chris's trial about her telling him about two attackers, now
Speaker 2: it's sad Meireer's trial. He's saying, he told me there
Speaker 2: were three guys. And he's pressed about this. He says
Speaker 2: about LB quote is not her responsibility to remember the
Speaker 2: facts of the case, which is just wild.
Speaker 1: On June twelfth, two thousand and six, Dad Meyer got
Speaker 1: an additional forty three years. Chris's conviction was strengthened by
Speaker 1: what appears to have been perjured testimony, and Boyd took
Speaker 1: a five year sentence for his alleged role as a lookout.
Speaker 2: And concurrent with the case he was already serving, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and seven, Chris tried to get a
Speaker 1: new trial on the Code has Hit, but the motion
Speaker 1: was denied. Meanwhile, the OHIO In Thisis Project began investigating
Speaker 1: Chris's innocence claims.
Speaker 2: Sometimes you can request a set of records from a
Speaker 2: place and not get anything useful or new, and you
Speaker 2: request the same set you know later on right, and
Speaker 2: you're going to get different stuff. Sometimes that's what happens.
Speaker 2: In twenty sixteen, though, when things really break, because that's
Speaker 2: when they finally they get a response to a public
Speaker 2: records request that they've sent. It includes new police reports,
Speaker 2: new notes, handwritten notes from Schmidt written shortly after the
Speaker 2: attack on LB being disclosed for the very first time.
Speaker 2: These reports and these notes contained exculpatory evidence, and they
Speaker 2: show that Schmidt has presented false and fabricated evidence to
Speaker 2: the prosecutors and during the trial and given false testimony
Speaker 2: throughout the course of this case.
Speaker 1: This is when they discovered LB's initial description of the
Speaker 1: attackers close and how that changed to align with what
Speaker 1: Schmid had pulled from Chris's hamper and closet.
Speaker 2: And this now forms the basis for new post conviction
Speaker 2: filings for Chris that his counsel, Brian Howe of the
Speaker 2: Ohio Innocence Project filed for him, and that included an
Speaker 2: application for DNA testing, a motion for new trial, and
Speaker 2: a petition for post conviction relief.
Speaker 1: The latter two were stayed, while newer and more sensitive
Speaker 1: DNA testing for the azosbramatic contributor moved forward.
Speaker 3: Neil Brien was just talking two or three times a week.
Speaker 3: You know, we've been waiting on the DNA.
Speaker 2: May thirty one, twenty eighteen, BCI issues that report. Lo
Speaker 2: and Behold comes back. It's Charles Boyd.
Speaker 3: Sort of lose a full life news on. Everybody in
Speaker 3: the dorm gonna wait me up, man, you're on a TV,
Speaker 3: but I got my headphones on something like what he like,
Speaker 3: stand up? So when I stood up out my faces
Speaker 3: on everybody TV in the door, I'm like, so he
Speaker 3: turned my TV to try to wait on watching him
Speaker 3: like man, I was. He got a kicking and hind
Speaker 3: the walls. I was like, whoa, that was real. Then
Speaker 3: the CEOs like they were sitting in the dudes from
Speaker 3: they blocks, go get see meals, tell him come over here,
Speaker 3: like I know you didn't do that. You ain't your character?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: Man?
Speaker 3: That was so surreal. Then Brian come see me go
Speaker 3: in the room. Brian got his note bad I'm reading
Speaker 3: upside down. He got his questious like where I want
Speaker 3: to eat? Like I'm kind of like, I mean tears now,
Speaker 3: like you know, yeah, that was awesome.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 3: That dude fought he used to come see me on
Speaker 3: the regular. Man, I got so much love for her, like,
Speaker 3: ain't my family? You know that DNA coming back was
Speaker 3: the best thing that ever happened to me.
Speaker 1: Amen to that. So where'd you go to eat?
Speaker 3: Real lobster? I met all the guys, all the other things.
Speaker 3: Nanner reeves that day was like I can't believe that
Speaker 3: I was out to this day is still like is
Speaker 3: emotional to me.
Speaker 1: Chris was soon reunited with his children.
Speaker 3: You know, my oldest daughter, she stayed with me. My
Speaker 3: three grandkids and my son stayed next door because I
Speaker 3: bought my mother house next door to me, So my
Speaker 3: mother and my son stayed next door, and me and
Speaker 3: my daughter and my grandkid had stayed house next door.
Speaker 1: His eldest daughter was the five year old little girl
Speaker 1: who had run to her father handcuffed in the back
Speaker 1: of the squad car on April thirtieth, two thousand and one.
Speaker 1: There's no amount of money that could make up for
Speaker 1: that lost time, but at least the civil suit made
Speaker 1: it possible to afford the house Chris just mentioned, but
Speaker 1: not before he had to face Detective Schmidt.
Speaker 3: You know, I can't face the face with him. I
Speaker 3: got he was in the room for two hours and
Speaker 3: didn't even say nothing.
Speaker 2: Turn your deposition.
Speaker 3: He was in the room with me and Sarah for
Speaker 3: two hours, shook my hand and anything. When I walked
Speaker 3: in there, when his lawyer said, yeah, my client, Mark Smith.
Speaker 3: When I heard that name, I said who, he said, Marshman,
Speaker 3: I said where he said? He nodded his head doing
Speaker 3: and when I looked at him, I looked at him
Speaker 3: his head and I just everything came back. All I
Speaker 3: remember he had, he got the little psoriasisting on his
Speaker 3: elbows and all on his hands. But the whole time
Speaker 3: in the room he looking out the window like this.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And you know, and you you didn't recognize him
Speaker 2: at first. So and it has a party to a lawsuit,
Speaker 2: you have a right two at ten depositions, But you
Speaker 2: also have a choice about whether you come to stuff
Speaker 2: like that. And I got a lot of cases where
Speaker 2: you know, those officers don't show up. Mark Sant he
Speaker 2: decided he was going to come to this one, you know.
Speaker 3: The social path.
Speaker 1: Well, at least he had the good sense to look away.
Speaker 3: I said, why you won't look at me? Dude? These
Speaker 3: a piece of ship.
Speaker 2: Going through these lawsuits is awful. I mean, it's obviously
Speaker 2: fathomably awful to be in prison for a crime you
Speaker 2: didn't commit and then seeking vindication through civil rights cases
Speaker 2: in the aftermath. Is it keeps the wound open, and
Speaker 2: it's like rubbing salt in the wound. And then you
Speaker 2: got to sit in the room and be polite to
Speaker 2: these people who took away years and years of your life.
Speaker 3: You know his lords won't be out of light.
Speaker 1: No, they're not. So is there anything you'd like to
Speaker 1: ask from our audience.
Speaker 3: Just know that this could happen to anybody. Happening. Your brother's,
Speaker 3: your sisters, your mom. You're happening, and they're you're not
Speaker 3: going to stop. So the people's jail, you know, it's
Speaker 3: still dues in there doing the rest of their life.
Speaker 1: There is there anyone in particular that's coming to mind
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of guys. The Anthony Johnson, he's still
Speaker 3: in there. They stole all his evidence.
Speaker 1: Anthony Johnson. All right, well, let's talk after this about Anthony.
Speaker 1: And with that we're gonna go to my favorite part
Speaker 1: of the show. It's called closing arguments, where I first
Speaker 1: thank you both from the bottom of my heart for
Speaker 1: joining us, and then I'm just gonna kick back in
Speaker 1: my chair, close my eyes and listen to anything else
Speaker 1: you feel is left to be said. So let's start
Speaker 1: with Jacqueline and then Chris, you take us off into
Speaker 1: the sunset.
Speaker 2: I think the conduct of Mark Schmidt in this case,
Speaker 2: it's one of the worst kinds of police misconduct where
Speaker 2: he was so hell bent on getting and then keeping
Speaker 2: a conviction that he was willing to manipulate other people
Speaker 2: and to lie on the stand. And there's no denying that,
Speaker 2: because there's two sets of testimony that are totally different.
Speaker 2: You know, we have these records in his own handwriting
Speaker 2: that make that clear. And it just goes to I
Speaker 2: think the really deeply rooted problems in our criminal legal
Speaker 2: system where winning is so often more important than the truth,
Speaker 2: and what justice are we serving and how are we
Speaker 2: in any way serving our communities or our societies if
Speaker 2: that's what our legal system is set up to do
Speaker 2: and the players in it are attempting to do. I'm
Speaker 2: so glad that the truth came to light in this case,
Speaker 2: but I'm also just so enraged and sad that Chris
Speaker 2: had to live through this hell. You know, before that happened.
Speaker 2: You know, he's not the only one, Like he just said,
Speaker 2: there are other people. There are a lot of other
Speaker 2: people who've lived the same kind of hell. We have
Speaker 2: to demand better, we have to demand different, We have
Speaker 2: to radically change the way our legal system works or
Speaker 2: this kind of thing is going to keep happening. So
Speaker 2: I appreciate that we got here, but we have hell
Speaker 2: a lot of work to do.
Speaker 3: It's been a hard fight. I ain't never really been
Speaker 3: quitter never, so I don't I don't know about quitting,
Speaker 3: you know. And the prosecutors they need to start getting
Speaker 3: some some you know, they need something, needapping in for
Speaker 3: just sending people to jail like that. It's like just
Speaker 3: sending people jail with no evidence, no nothing, you know,
Speaker 3: like people fucked my life up, you know, even though
Speaker 3: I'm finding notally able to live, wonder my life still
Speaker 3: fucking GOSDT, anxieties, this other stuff, mental health, but I'm
Speaker 3: able to deal with it. My man never raised me
Speaker 3: later out so I can't take care of my family
Speaker 3: and try to enjoy the rest of his life. I got.
Speaker 3: You know, it's a free man because I wasn't living.
Speaker 3: I was I wasn't living in there. I wasn't living.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrong for Conviction. You can
Speaker 1: listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcast
Speaker 1: us one week early by subscribing to Lava for Good
Speaker 1: Plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team,
Speaker 1: Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow
Speaker 1: executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cleiburn. The
Speaker 1: music in this production was supplied by three time Oscar
Speaker 1: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across
Speaker 1: all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram at
Speaker 1: It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava
Speaker 1: for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One.
Speaker 4: My name is Laura Asil. Your podcast has actually had
Speaker 4: a profound impact on my life. I happened to pawn
Speaker 4: your podcast about five years ago, and at that time,
Speaker 4: I thought, like a lot of people, that if you
Speaker 4: were in prison, you did something wrong and you're guilty.
Speaker 4: I never, in a million years thought that prosecutors and
Speaker 4: detective I just never thought they could get away with
Speaker 4: all the stuff that they've gotten away with. And from
Speaker 4: there I started getting interested in a lot of other
Speaker 4: social issues because I think the criminal justice system really,
Speaker 4: in my mind, is kind of a snapshot of racism
Speaker 4: and classism and all those kinds of things. When I
Speaker 4: started listening to your podcast, I would probably have labeled
Speaker 4: myself a conservative. I am now a registered Democrat and
Speaker 4: someone who is very active in my community. I volunteer
Speaker 4: in the criminal justice system. I volunteer to help put
Speaker 4: Democrat candidates in office. I don't think that anybody would
Speaker 4: have had on my BINGO card that I would have
Speaker 4: been a volunteer for any Democrat ever, and that my
Speaker 4: politics would completely completely change and the way I thought
Speaker 4: about a lot of things completely changed. So I want
Speaker 4: to thank you for opening up my eyes. I want
Speaker 4: to thank all your wonderful guests for sharing their stories
Speaker 4: and being people who forced me to listen. Like I said,
Speaker 4: my whole outlook and everything on the whole world our
Speaker 4: country completely changed, and it started just by listening to
Speaker 4: one episode of your podcast.