WEBVTT - #119 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Matt Livers 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:04.840 Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura and I 0:00:04.880 --> 0:00:05.480 writer and. 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:06.480 I'm Steve Drisen. 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:11.280 Sometimes farm life isn't as tranquil as it seems. Today 0:00:11.320 --> 0:00:14.400 we take you to small town, Nebraska, where two murders 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:18.239 shattered a peaceful Easter Sunday. This is the story of 0:00:18.320 --> 0:00:21.520 Matt Livers, a case with more plot twists than I've 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:26.280 ever seen, a coerced confession, dirty cops who planted evidence, 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:29.319 and a mysterious clue that led to a pair of 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:33.879 natural born killers. This story gives Tarantino a run for 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:45.879 his money. Horrible crimes can happen anywhere, even where you 0:00:46.000 --> 0:00:48.760 least expect it. And if you've learned one thing by 0:00:48.800 --> 0:00:51.640 listening to this podcast, I hope it's that false confessions 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:53.640 can also happen anywhere, at any time. 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:56.320 I want them to learn a second thing. It's that 0:00:56.400 --> 0:01:00.040 a confession is only as good as the evidence that 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:03.480 corroborates it. And in this case, it looked like there 0:01:03.560 --> 0:01:07.800 was perfect corroboration. There was evidence that seemed to prove 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:12.440 the confession true. But what happens when new evidence surfaces 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:16.680 that causes the confession to unravel? That makes the narrative 0:01:16.920 --> 0:01:17.920 seem to be false. 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:20.520 What do you do when a case like this starts 0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:24.119 falling apart? Do you double down? Or do you fix 0:01:24.160 --> 0:01:31.679 it up? Today's story begins in Murdoch, Nebraska. It's a 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:36.120 tiny town about halfway between Lincoln and Omaha. Murdoch is 0:01:36.160 --> 0:01:39.400 barely more than a few dozen homes, surrounded by fields 0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:44.120 of corn and the occasional outlying farmhouse. The population just 0:01:44.160 --> 0:01:47.800 two hundred and sixty nine people, only sixty six families, 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:51.760 and one of Murdoch's most respected families was the Stokes, 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:55.080 headed by Wayne and Sharman Stoke, both in their mid 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:58.400 fifties when our story starts on Easter Sunday two thousand 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:02.040 and six. And now, Wayne and Sharman were good people, 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:05.360 god fearing, well known Murdock residents who lived in an 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:10.399 immaculate farmhouse near town. Wayne was a successful businessman for years, 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:13.959 he'd run the Stoke Hay Company, growing bundling selling hay 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:17.200 to all the local farmers, and Sharman was a teacher's aid. 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:20.040 She ran a popular cake business out of their home. 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:24.560 So it's that Easter Sunday, April sixteen, two thousand and six, 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:27.679 it unfolded like many holidays for the Stokes. It was 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:31.320 a family occasion. That morning, Wayne and Sharman went to church, 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:35.040 followed by Easter traditions. Right they had brunch with their family. 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:38.600 They had an Easter egg hunt with their grandkids. It 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:42.000 was a lovely but unremarkable day, and Wayne and Sharman 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:45.000 went to sleep that night in their farmhouse as usual. 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:49.480 The next day, April seventeenth, rolls around. Wayne and Sharman 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:52.400 are early risers, but when their adult son, Andy arrives 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:55.400 at the farmhouse about nine am, he doesn't see any 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:58.839 sign of his parents. He goes inside. He moves through 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:03.160 the tidy but silent first floor. He goes upstairs and 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:06.320 he finds the worst, his dad's body in a blood 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:11.080 spattered second floor hallway. Wayne's head had nearly been blown 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:15.920 away by a gunshot blast. Now Andy calls the police 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:18.760 and the Cass County Police arrive. Murdoch's Way too small 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:22.280 to have its own police force, and soon enough investigators 0:03:22.320 --> 0:03:25.880 find a double tragedy, not only as Wayne dead, but 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:28.840 Sharmon's body is found in the bedroom, wedged between the 0:03:28.880 --> 0:03:31.560 bedside and the wall. She's been shot in the head too, 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:34.040 and a phone court is wrapped around her body like 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:36.800 maybe she'd been trying to call for help. This was 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:40.400 a double murder of the worst kind, something that Murdoch, 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:42.400 Nebraska had never seen before. 0:03:43.200 --> 0:03:48.080 Seasoned crime scene veterans and officers in the area looked 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:51.760 at this crime scene and it made them physically ill. 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:56.960 They had never seen so much carnage before, certainly not 0:03:57.000 --> 0:03:58.760 in Murdoch, Nebraska exactly. 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:02.240 So as local police are this scene, processing this trauma 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:04.440 that they're seeing in front of him, they realize they're 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:06.840 in a bit over their heads, so they call in 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:09.560 the big guns. They call on the Crime Scene Investigation 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:13.440 Division of the Douglas County Sheriff's Office. It's basically the 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:18.160 state's leading crime scene forensic experts. Now, the investigators find 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:22.040 several items of interest at the scene. They find shells 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:24.279 from a twelve gage shotgun that are littered around the 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:28.440 whole area. They find a silver flashlight with blood on it, 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:31.080 and sitting in the Soaks driveway, there's a red and 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:34.600 silver marijuana pipe. Now, both the flashlight and the marijuana 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:39.200 pipe are potentially DNA testable. There's also a damaged window 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:41.599 in the Stokes laundry room. It suggests that maybe somebody 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:46.080 had broken into the house, and inside police observe in 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:48.480 the blood spray that had been left on the wall, 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:52.440 there's a human silhouette. It implies that there had been 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:55.760 two people present, one to shoot and one to get 0:04:55.800 --> 0:04:57.160 sprayed by all that blood. 0:04:57.600 --> 0:05:02.719 What a visual blood spray to human silhouette. 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:06.200 Exactly, It's like a movie scene. And on the otherwise 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:10.640 spotless kitchen floor, police find a golden ring with an 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:14.080 unusual inscription, an inscription that didn't seem to relate to 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:17.800 anyone in the Stoke family. It said love Always, Corey 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:18.680 and Ryan. 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:22.359 There's no signs and anything's been stolen from the house. 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:27.080 Wayne and Sharman's children can't pinpoint anything that seems to 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:31.479 be missing. That leads the police officers to believe that 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:35.599 this crime was not some random break in, but that 0:05:35.760 --> 0:05:38.800 it was personal, that it was an act of vengeance, 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:43.000 and that whoever slaughtered the Stokes had an axe to 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:43.760 grind with them. 0:05:44.240 --> 0:05:48.240 Police start asking Stoke family relatives who might have wanted 0:05:48.279 --> 0:05:52.479 to harm Wayne and Sharman, and some of Sharman's family 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:55.400 members start wondering out loud about the person they thought 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:58.960 of as the black sheep of the family. Sharmon's nephew, 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:03.000 Matt Liver. Matt was twenty eight years old and had 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:06.240 no criminal record whatsoever, but he'd had his share of 0:06:06.360 --> 0:06:11.120 challenges because of his severe mental limitations. Matt had struggled 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:13.640 with getting through school as a boy and trying to 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:16.360 hold down a job as an adult. The Stokes were 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:19.600 a family that prided themselves on their success and by 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:23.200 their standards, Matt Livers stuck out like a sore thumb. 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:26.680 He'd also argued recently with Wayne and Sharman about whether 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:29.440 he was getting a sufficient share of a family inheritance, 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:32.839 and it was this feud that made police focus on 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:38.360 Matt as a suspect in the Stokes murder. At about 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:40.760 ten forty five pm on the day that the Stokes' 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:44.480 bodies are discovered, the police decide to interview Matt Livers. 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:48.440 The interrogation lasts four hours until almost three o'clock in 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:51.240 the morning, but Matt tells the cops he's there to 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:54.440 cooperate and he has only good things to say about 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:58.159 the Stokes. He downplays this idea of a family feud 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:01.599 and that makes officers. 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:03.560 And he does what many people who are innocent do. 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:08.240 He says I want to cooperate. Take my DNA, take 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:12.600 my hair, take my saliva, take my fingerprints. I'll even 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:16.160 come back for a polygraph. I had nothing to do 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:18.320 with this. I'm an open book. 0:07:18.000 --> 0:07:21.080 And based on all that, for the time being, Matt 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:25.200 Livers is released. Meanwhile, the police are interviewing others too, 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:27.480 and they do get a lead. Right there's a local 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:31.240 newspaper carrier who tells the police that he had seen 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:35.200 a car carked near the Stokes property on the morning 0:07:35.360 --> 0:07:39.760 of the murders. It's a tan four door midsize sedan. Now, 0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:42.160 this guy doesn't know whether the vehicle was related to 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:45.000 the crime or not, but he did recall seeing an 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:47.040 OH in the license plate. 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:51.840 Now, Matt Livers drives a red convertible, but his cousin, 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:56.840 Will Sampson drove a tan four door Ford Contour, which 0:07:56.920 --> 0:08:02.080 made investigators become suspicious. Now, Will's Contour didn't have an 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:05.200 O in its license plate, but oddly enough, it had 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:09.800 been professionally cleaned and detailed right after the murders, and 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:12.720 that gave the police reason enough to want to search 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:13.640 Will's car. 0:08:14.200 --> 0:08:17.040 They even go to the auto detail shop itself. They 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:19.920 go through the vacuum bags that were used when Will's 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:24.840 card was cleaned, but they find zero incriminating evidence. Now 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:29.080 this is strange. The crime scene was incredibly bloody. It 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:31.880 would have been almost impossible even for the most professional 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:36.360 detailers to erase every molecule of evidence, but the investigators 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:40.480 found nothing. Despite all this, police are still suspicious. Now 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:43.840 they discover that Will Samson, the guy who owns the contour, 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:46.760 did have an alibi on Eastern night, which is when 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:50.640 the crime presumably occurred. But Nick Samson, another one of 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:55.319 Matt Lever's cousins, did not have an alibi, and soon enough, 0:08:55.559 --> 0:09:08.520 Matt Livers and Nick Samson become the prime suspects. Fast 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:11.760 forward to eight days after the Stokes' bodies are discovered. 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:15.319 It's April twenty fifth. Police ask Matt to come in 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:18.200 for questioning a second time, but this time they take 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:21.679 him an hour away to the Cass County Law Enforcement Center. 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:26.000 He is held there for questioning a total of eleven hours, 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:29.200 most of it video recorded. Now Matt doesn't know it 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:31.840 at the time, but he wasn't going to return home 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:36.200 for months because here comes the interrogation, the line of 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:40.160 questioning designed to break Matt livers. Let's just get this 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:40.640 out over. 0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:42.120 Okay, we are watching. 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:44.880 You're in this up to your ears. 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:48.120 You were involved in it. We need to know what happened. 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:54.640 As typical in these interrogations, the investigators start by accusing 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:58.360 that of killing his aunt and uncle. It's not whether 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:01.679 or not you committed this crime, they say, we already 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:05.120 know that. You have to tell us why you committed 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:05.640 this crime. 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:07.800 And Matt denies it right. He says, I'm not that 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:10.280 kind of person. All he remember is sleeping in my 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:11.040 bed that night. 0:10:11.280 --> 0:10:11.439 I do. 0:10:14.480 --> 0:10:17.400 He goes on to deny and deny and deny eighty 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:21.880 six times, and then, just as in so many other cases, 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:24.720 he offers to try to prove his own innocence. He 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:27.920 agrees to take a polygraph, which the police build up 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:30.120 to him as foolproof. 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:34.160 You answers and the questions that you're asked about. Matt 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:36.840 takes the exam. He's excited. He thinks he's going to 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:39.840 pass the exam and this will all be over. But 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:43.120 the polygrapher comes into the room and tells him that 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:45.640 he had failed this test miserably. 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:49.520 This way, when he continues denying his involvement, the police 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:53.360 can point to his test results as evidence of his guilt. 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:58.760 They tell him that these polygraph charts leave absolutely no doubt, and. 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:03.000 Holding the results in his hand, the Nebraska State Patrol 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:08.000 officer says to Matt, we ask you a question that 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:12.320 specifically has to do with the death of Wayne. You 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:13.640 fly off the chart. 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:16.199 Now, this is a lie. Like in so many of 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:20.440 these other cases, Matt did not actually fail this polygraph exam. 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:22.960 It was confirmed after the fact by a polygraph expert. 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:26.120 But we know, as always the police are allowed to 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:29.240 lie during interrogations, and that's what they're doing here, lying 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:30.920 to him about lying again. 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:34.319 It's like seeing the same script play out over and 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:36.480 over and over again. In these stories. 0:11:36.640 --> 0:11:39.440 The whole point is to bring Matt Livers down to 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:41.239 this place of hopelessness. 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:46.960 Nebraska is a death penalty state, so what do the 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:52.160 interrogators do. They introduce the idea to Matt that he's 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:56.920 going to get the death penalty unless he confesses to 0:11:57.000 --> 0:11:57.520 this crime. 0:11:57.679 --> 0:11:59.920 If he doesn't, then they promise him they're going to 0:11:59.920 --> 0:12:00.600 go the hard. 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:03.120 Route, and they get graphic, they get specific. When I 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:07.160 first saw this tape, my jaw dropped. Matt Lyvers is 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:10.920 told by one of the Cass County investigators that he's 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:14.880 gonna personally make sure that Matt is executed for this 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:16.280 crime if he doesn't confess. 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:20.240 If I and you don't meant to me exactly what 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:22.600 you've done, I'm gonna do my love best to hang 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:24.559 your ass from the highest tree. 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:28.320 I'm going to do my level best to hang your 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:34.040 ass from the highest tree. Done, you are done. I 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:35.600 will go after the death penalty. 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:38.840 They're re citing all the different ways the death penalty 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:43.240 can be administered, electric chair, gas, lethal injection. They tell 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:45.040 him his asses on the line, and you're in the 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:46.720 frying pan right now. 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:47.760 I'll push and. 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:50.480 I push until I get everything. I mean to make. 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:52.680 Sure you move on hard for this, make no mistake 0:12:52.720 --> 0:12:56.360 about it. Matt is beginning to break down, and make 0:12:56.440 --> 0:13:01.080 no mistake about this as well. These investigators know that 0:13:01.160 --> 0:13:04.559 Matt has intellectual disabilities exactly. 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:08.320 He's giving them these really clear signals during the interrogation 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:10.959 that he's limited. At one point, one of the police 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:13.160 says to him, you know many people have tried and 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:16.880 failed to outsmart us. Matt turns to him and assures 0:13:16.960 --> 0:13:19.280 him that he's not trying to do that. I'm dumb 0:13:19.320 --> 0:13:22.160 as a brick, he says. And when one of the 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:26.040 interrogators urges Matt to confess, to stand up and to 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:28.200 be a man, Matt takes them literally. 0:13:28.480 --> 0:13:32.120 He is a concrete thinker, and he interprets that to 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:34.640 actually mean that he's going to stand up and get 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:35.720 up out of his chair. 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:41.480 These are terribly frightening, terribly coercive interrogation tactics, and it's 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:44.760 not the way someone with these kinds of disabilities should 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:45.400 be questioned. 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:50.040 I am so tired of law enforcement officers pretending that 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:54.559 they didn't know the person they were interrogating had some disabilities. 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:58.959 This willful ignorance on their part has got to stop. 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:02.439 Their worst strong signs that they were dealing with somebody 0:14:02.880 --> 0:14:06.520 who was disabled and they just treated him like he 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:11.000 was any other normal adult, and they plowed ahead and 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:15.920 used the same tactics and got false confessions away. 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:19.600 This is a high profile case, will not go away. 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:22.480 This pressure builds actually goes on for about six and 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:25.480 a half hours until we start to see signs that 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:29.200 Matt is finally beginning to crack under the pressure. He 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:32.440 looks up at his interrogators and he says, all I 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:33.520 want to do is go home. 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:34.880 Now. 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:37.960 The interrogators take that as their cue, and they start 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:40.280 telling Matt that he must have been tired of being 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:43.560 put down, shut out, kept out of the family inheritance 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:47.600 by his aunt and uncle, And slowly Matt begins to 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:52.520 respond affirmatively agree with a series of leading questions from 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:56.600 officers who literally start walking him through the story. 0:14:56.720 --> 0:14:59.120 The truth is, you got a gun, right or wrong, 0:15:00.880 --> 0:15:02.920 and you took that gun back to your uncle Wayne 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:08.480 and Ann Sharman's house, right right. Eventually they come around 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:11.320 to the murder itself, and you fired a shot at 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:16.600 your uncle Wayne, Wayne. Matt gives a series of one 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:22.600 word wrote answers, agreeing to the suggestions of these interrogators 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:26.120 about how this crime took place. The only answers to 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:30.400 these questions. They've scripted it, and Matt is just agreeing 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:30.680 to it. 0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:32.440 You know, you listen to this, and you get the 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:35.080 impression that if the next question was and this crime 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:38.000 happened on the moon, right, Matt, he would say right too. 0:15:38.120 --> 0:15:40.440 He was that much under their control, and. 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:44.640 He walked upstairs in our house after hours. Originally he 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:48.840 takes sole responsibility for the murders, but remember these investigators 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:51.760 have good reason to think that at least two people 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:53.160 were involved in the crime. 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:55.560 Right because of the silhouette and the blood sprayed wall. 0:15:56.080 --> 0:16:00.000 So after another lengthy series of questioning, Matt finally impled 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:03.520 Kate's his cousin Nick Sampson too, saying that it was 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:06.520 Nick that gave him the murder weapon and the keys 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:08.120 to the Ford Contour. 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:16.720 Based on this statement, both Matt Livers and Nick Samson 0:16:17.120 --> 0:16:21.320 are arrested and charged with murder. Now, the very next day, 0:16:21.360 --> 0:16:24.320 Matt is facing yet another polygraph exam. Right, questioning is 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:27.480 continuing for him even after he's arrested and charged. But 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:31.240 the very next day he recants on videotape the whole thing. 0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:34.400 He says, you know, I've just been making things up 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:37.720 to satisfy you guys and basically fitting in answers to 0:16:37.760 --> 0:16:40.760 what you guys have been asking. He later explained to 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:44.280 a court appointed psychologist that he confessed because he wanted 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:44.840 to go home. 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:52.400 Case closed. This is front page news in both Lincoln 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:55.680 and in Omaha. We got our men exactly. 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:58.520 They're facing charges both in the courtroom and the court 0:16:58.520 --> 0:17:02.920 of public opinion. But the case against them is problematic 0:17:03.280 --> 0:17:07.119 because there's no physical evidence implicating them. Police try to 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:09.520 match those twelve gage casings that they found at the 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:11.920 crime scene to a shotgun that they found in Nick 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:15.560 Samson's bedroom, but there is no match. What about the 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:17.920 marijuana pipe that they found in the Stokes driveway, Well, 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:21.879 there was DNA on it and it excluded both Matt 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:24.840 and Nick. And the same thing goes for that strange 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:27.960 golden ring that was found in the Stokes kitchen. It 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:31.480 did contain DNA from two unknown people, but that DNA 0:17:31.520 --> 0:17:34.400 did not belong to Nick or Matt. The police were 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:38.680 in desperate need of some corroboration for Matt Liver's confession. 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:43.800 So what do they do? They call in David Kofode. Now, 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:47.040 David Cofode was the commander of the Douglas County Sheriff 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:52.440 CSI unit. He's widely viewed as a statewide law enforcement hero. 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:57.520 He was also a shameless self promoter. He was not 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:00.480 only a legend in law enforcement circles, but he was 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:03.880 also a legend in his own mind right. 0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:06.240 David was the guy who had the magic touch. He 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:10.520 had a reputation for closing cases by finding forensic evidence 0:18:10.560 --> 0:18:14.320 that all the other officers had overlooked, and David Cofote 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:17.160 was brought in and asked to take a second look 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:23.480 at Will Samson's ford contour. Now, Cofote examines the contour personally, 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:27.119 and true to his reputation, he claims to have found 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:30.480 blood under the dash. He swabs the blood and it 0:18:30.560 --> 0:18:36.360 tests positive. The blood belongs to Wayne Stoke. The case 0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:40.439 against Matt Levers and Nick Sampson just became devastating, or 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:45.000 so it seemed. Meanwhile, other officers were continuing their investigation 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:47.960 and they focused on that strange golden ring from the 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:51.200 Stoke's kitchen. Now, there were two marks on that ring. 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:53.640 The first one was the inscription that we already talked 0:18:53.680 --> 0:18:57.639 about Love Always, Corey and Ryan. But there was also 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:01.239 a jeweler's mark on the inside of that ring, a 0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:04.439 mark made by the manufacturer, and police were able to 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:07.480 trace that mark to a jeweler in New York. 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:11.239 This jewelry business is going out of business, and the 0:19:11.280 --> 0:19:14.639 Nebraska investigator calls up and gets a woman on the 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:18.119 phone who is closing down the office, and she says, 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:21.159 can you help me track this ring? Where did this 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:25.040 ring go after it was manufactured? And do you have 0:19:25.080 --> 0:19:26.720 any idea about this inscription. 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:30.040 And on the day before this jeweler is literally closing 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:34.000 its doors in New York. Its employees tell investigators that 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:39.159 that ring was shipped off to a Walmart in beaver Dam, Wisconsin, 0:19:39.520 --> 0:19:42.320 where it was purchased by a woman named Corey for 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:43.280 her boyfriend Ryan. 0:19:43.640 --> 0:19:47.080 Had this phone call come a day later, they may 0:19:47.160 --> 0:19:49.080 never have been able to trace that. 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:51.960 Ring, and we might never know who actually killed Wayne 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:52.800 and Sharman Stoke. 0:19:53.000 --> 0:19:55.199 It was a miracle. It was a break, and it 0:19:55.240 --> 0:19:59.000 was a break that was generated by really good police work. 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:03.040 Unbelievable tracis ring them from Nebraska to New York to Wisconsin, 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:06.000 where they'd discover the story about Gregory Fester and Jessica 0:20:06.000 --> 0:20:08.800 Reed stealing the truck in which the ring had been left. 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:11.080 Now, who are these two? 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:15.920 Jessica Reid grew up in Wisconsin in a small town 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:19.760 called Horicon. Jessica was an honors student when she fell 0:20:19.800 --> 0:20:23.200 in love with greg who was an older, really troubled teenager. 0:20:23.480 --> 0:20:26.040 And the more detectives dug into Greg and Jessica, the 0:20:26.080 --> 0:20:29.280 more there was to learn. It turns out they'd stolen 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:32.919 a twelve gage shotgun and the pickup truck where Corey 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:36.320 and Ryan had left that Golden ring. Greg and Jessica 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:40.000 had gone on a drug fueled interstate crime spree, breaking 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:44.479 into houses in rural Iowa and Nebraska. They eventually ran 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:47.240 out of money and abandoned the truck in Louisiana on 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:50.800 April eighteenth. Somehow they made it back to Wisconsin, where 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:55.000 they were arrested a week later for car theft. Police 0:20:55.080 --> 0:20:59.120 questioned Greg and Jessica and began connecting the dots. According 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:02.320 to Jessica, she and Greg started their bender in Wisconsin 0:21:02.640 --> 0:21:05.680 and we're passing through Nebraska when the truck began running 0:21:05.680 --> 0:21:09.639 out of gas. They were tired, cranky, coming down from 0:21:09.720 --> 0:21:12.400 a cough seer up high and looking for a house 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:15.720 to rob. That's when Greg and Jessica came across the 0:21:15.800 --> 0:21:21.919 Stoke home in Murdoch. Greg goes in through a downstairs window, 0:21:22.000 --> 0:21:24.639 Jessica said, and he lets her in at the front door. 0:21:25.280 --> 0:21:29.919 They go upstairs and are confronted by Wayne and Sharman Stoke. 0:21:30.840 --> 0:21:34.000 Greg lifts up his shotgun and he fires one at Wayne, 0:21:34.119 --> 0:21:36.640 hitting him in the knee. He and Jessica back out 0:21:36.640 --> 0:21:38.879 of the room. They get into the hallway and Jessica 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:42.439 looks at Greg and says, do something. 0:21:43.760 --> 0:21:46.040 So one of them goes back into the room, we 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:49.159 don't know which one and finish his wayne off with 0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:52.560 a shotgun blast at close range to the back of 0:21:52.600 --> 0:21:57.520 his head. Meanwhile, Sharman is calling the police, and one 0:21:57.520 --> 0:22:02.800 of these two natural born killers opens fire and charm 0:22:02.840 --> 0:22:06.160 and shoots her in the face and her body falls 0:22:06.200 --> 0:22:09.159 down next to the bed and it's wedged between the 0:22:09.200 --> 0:22:09.920 bed and the wall. 0:22:10.240 --> 0:22:13.360 Greg and Jessica don't steal a thing. They just get 0:22:13.359 --> 0:22:16.159 out of that farmhouse, get back into their vehicle, and 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:31.320 drive off into the night. Now, Jessica's story smacked of truth, 0:22:31.400 --> 0:22:35.639 and it was soon corroborated. Wisconsin detectives in Jessica and 0:22:35.680 --> 0:22:39.240 Greg's DNA to Nebraska and lo and behold, their DNA 0:22:39.400 --> 0:22:42.720 was consistent with the DNA on the marijuana pipe and 0:22:42.880 --> 0:22:46.720 on the Golden Ring. Investigators also found wayIn Stokes blood 0:22:46.760 --> 0:22:49.560 in the truck and on clothes and shoes that had 0:22:49.560 --> 0:22:53.080 belonged to both Greg and Jessica. They even found a 0:22:53.200 --> 0:22:58.080 chilling entry and Jessica Read's diary I killed someone, She wrote, 0:22:58.560 --> 0:23:01.159 I loved it. I wish I could do it all the time, 0:23:02.080 --> 0:23:05.680 and they find a cigarette box in Jessica's home containing 0:23:05.680 --> 0:23:09.439 a letter to Greg and a spent twelve gage shell 0:23:09.480 --> 0:23:13.320 casing from the murders. In the letter, she wrote, this 0:23:13.400 --> 0:23:16.200 is something I did for you, for you to love 0:23:16.280 --> 0:23:19.359