WEBVTT - #245 Jason Flom on Nelson Serrano 0:00:03.320 --> 0:00:06.760 Nelson Serrano emigrated from Ecuador to the US in nineteen 0:00:06.840 --> 0:00:10.280 sixty four, building a family a successful business, and in 0:00:10.320 --> 0:00:14.120 the late eighties joined forces with two partners, George Gonzalvez 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:17.920 and Phil Dosso. Meanwhile, Phil's son Frank, had a side 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:21.760 business trafficking drugs from Miami to New York. A nineteen 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:24.680 ninety six drug bus left Frank a million dollars in 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:28.480 debt to some dangerous characters, which coincided with an unapproved 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:32.040 withdrawal from the business in that amount, causing a rift 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:35.960 between the partners. Then, on December third, nineteen ninety seven, 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:38.479 in the wake of a second drug bust, four people 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:41.360 were shot and killed at their factory in Bartow, Florida. 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:44.919 Frank Dosso, his sister Diane, her husband George, as well 0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:48.879 as George Gonzalvez. Due to the ongoing rift, attention focused 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:52.040 on Nelson Serrano, even though he was in Atlanta at 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:55.400 the time of the murders. Years of investigation turned up 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:58.960 zero evidence against Nelson, so he retired to Ecuador in 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:03.280 two thousand, but when pressure mounted in Florida, authorities indicted 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:08.920 Nelson anyway, Floridian authorities circumvented Ecuador's requests for evidence and 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:12.440 concerns over the death penalty, and instead arranged to have 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:17.120 Nelson kidnapped and illegally brought to the US. Prosecutors ignored 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:20.760 evidence of a multiple shooter drug hit and instead presented 0:01:20.959 --> 0:01:24.480 false evidence and an impossible theory of Nelson's guilt that 0:01:24.600 --> 0:01:29.400 is disproven by video timestamps and the limits of reality. Ultimately, 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:32.760 the jury was fooled and sentenced Nelson to death. His 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:36.080 attorney as well as his son Francisco, join us now 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:39.800 to share the current status of his case. This is 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:55.680 Wrongful Conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. I'm your host, 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:59.200 Jason Floman. Honestly, I don't even know if I'm ready 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:03.720 for this episode. It's an international story and it involves 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:06.640 a middle aged Ecuadorian man named Nelson Serrano, a guy 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:09.480 who had no prior record of any kind. I don't 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:12.280 even know if he ever had a parking ticket. This 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:15.360 is a guy who was a very successful businessman who 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:20.040 was illegally kidnapped from Ecuador by the State of Florida, 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:22.040 and they did it in order so that they could 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:25.239 prosecute him for a quadruple murder for which he had 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:30.880 an air tight alibi. But as we record this and 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:36.000 Nelson Serrano is eighty three years old and still on 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:39.440 death row in Florida. So without further ado, please allow 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:41.840 me to introduce the son of Nelson Serrano, who is 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:46.040 it's fiercest advocate and a son that I'm sure mister 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:49.320 Serrano couldn't be more proud of. Francisco Serrano. I'm so 0:02:49.680 --> 0:02:52.640 sorry you're here today under these circumstances, but thank you 0:02:53.120 --> 0:02:54.079 so much for being here. 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:55.040 Thank you. 0:02:56.280 --> 0:03:00.920 And joining him is Greg Eisenmenger, who as the attorney 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:05.840 for mister Serrano and who is fighting tooth and nail 0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:08.200 to save this man's life while he still has some 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:11.000 life left to live. So Greg, thank you for taking 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:12.280 the time to be here with us today. 0:03:12.520 --> 0:03:15.120 Well, thank you very much for including me so. 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:18.799 Nelson Serrano was born in Ecuador in nineteen thirty eight. 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:22.639 He was educated at the University of Rosario in Argentina. 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:25.440 I was a businessman in his home country before emigrated 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:27.359 to the United States way back in nineteen sixty four 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:31.120 and then becoming an American citizen in nineteen seventy one. Francisco, 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:32.440 tell us about your dad. 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:35.720 Sure in nineteen sixty four. My father came here with 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:37.880 a few dollars in his pocket and his wife to 0:03:37.920 --> 0:03:40.320 be my mother. They went to New York, got married, 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:43.800 found a job as a draftsman. Little by little in 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:47.240 this world of engineering, he made a name for himself 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:49.840 over his designs. He got picked up by one of 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:53.000 the biggest companies in material handling at the time, and 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:56.800 little by little climbed the ladder in different companies till 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:58.600 he formed his own in nineteen eighty four. 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:04.280 I mean this like one of those really beautiful immigrant 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:09.320 success stories. And it was until this Saturday came to pass. 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:13.680 Nelson started a company right, his own company, Garment Conveyor Systems. 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:15.680 It was called it. He partnered with another company called 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:19.240 Eerie Manufacturing Cooperative, which was started by Phil Dosso and 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:22.279 George Gonzalvez. And in the late nineteen eighties the three 0:04:22.320 --> 0:04:25.800 men decided to become business partners, equal shareholders in each company, 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:29.640 and they moved both businesses from New York to Bartow, Florida. 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:33.279 And after the relocation you started working there as well, Francisco, 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:35.200 and things really started to take off. 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:35.479 Right. 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:38.719 He took their business from barely scratching up to a 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:42.280 million dollars a year in sales to going past nine 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:45.400 million within a few years. So everything was going great. 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:47.920 But then things went downhill from there. 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:51.799 And things went downhill in a profoundly terrifying way, which 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:55.920 brings us to Nelson's business partner's son, Frank Dosso, who 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:58.320 had also come down from New York to join the 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:00.839 family business, starting at forty five thousand a year with 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:03.640 the promise of moving up in the business. So it 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:05.920 seems that instead of waiting for that to pan out, 0:05:06.000 --> 0:05:09.080 Frank got involved in drug trafficking with a Staten Island 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:12.600 man named Bobby Venaria, in which he began an operation 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:15.479 moving large amounts of cocaine from Miami to New York. 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:19.160 And in December of ninety six, the DEEA busted one 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:22.840 of these moves and Veneria held Frank responsible to the 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:27.480 tune of one million dollars. And then, coincidentally or not, 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:31.960 in April nineteen ninety seven, well, tell us what happened, Francisco. 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:34.480 Yeah, I get back from one of my business trips 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:37.280 and I have to do my due diligence every month, right, 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:40.120 check the bank records, strike in style accounts, and then 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:42.960 I noticed there's a million dollars missing from the jumbo 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:46.000 money market. So of course they immediately go to the 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:48.880 bank and go, hey, what happened here, and they say, well, 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:51.480 George pulled that money out. Went to George and failed 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:52.960 and said why did you do that? And they just 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:54.000 looked at me and they said, we don't have to 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:56.880 tell you anything. We're two shareholders and we can do 0:05:56.920 --> 0:05:59.440 anything we want. So of course I call my father up. 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:01.000 He's on a busines the strip, and I tell him 0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:03.000 what goes on. He calls them, they tell him the 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:06.240 same thing. My father comes back early from his business trip, 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:09.680 confronts them with the corporate attorney and the corporate accountant. 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:12.600 Basically says to them, you guys got to return that money. 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:15.479 You can't do this. This is embezzlement, this is fraud. 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:18.360 And they said no, it's two against one. So they said, 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:20.359 all right, well then I got assue you. And it 0:06:20.360 --> 0:06:23.320 didn't make any sense. We're doing incredible, our reputation in 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:26.240 the industry is at its highest. It didn't make any 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:29.360 sense until later with what this million dollars meant. Obviously, 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:32.120 the police to save his son's life, but at the 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:34.080 time there was just no reasoning behind. 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:38.880 It, so Nelson sued Dasso and Gunzalvez, who then demoted 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:42.159 Nelson from president to general manager, removed his access to 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:46.680 accounting and changed the locks on the building. So Nelson quit. 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:50.200 Now this brings us to December third, nineteen ninety seven. 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:55.120 Frank Dasso, George Gunzalvez, Diane Patisso, and George Patiso was 0:06:55.160 --> 0:06:58.839 shot and killed at the Eerie Manufacturing plant in Barto, Florida. 0:06:58.960 --> 0:07:02.479 Diane Patiso was Phil Dosso's daughter, but she was also 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:05.960 an assistant States attorney. Get that, and that evening she 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:08.599 went to pick up her brother Frank and her husband 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:11.600 George Patisso at the factory to go back home for 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:15.400 a family birthday party. Talk about wrong place, wrong time, 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:17.720 and it looks like she may have walked in on 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:21.040 something terrible that was about to go down and got 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:25.520 pulled tragically, got pulled into it. So Phil in the details. 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:28.520 Here, it appears the shooting started where Diane Patisso's body 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:31.760 laid and then the three men found in the one 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:38.360 office all killed with small caliber weapons, short range shots, 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:42.920 execution style and was actually termed as an execution you know, 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:44.920 a hired hit type of murders. 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:49.480 Family members began calling Frank Dosso did not get an answer, 0:07:49.800 --> 0:07:53.600 so Phil Dosso and his wife, Nicoletto, drove to the plant. 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:57.400 Phil stayed in the car, sending his wife in the 0:07:57.440 --> 0:08:00.880 front door of the facility. When she went into the 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:04.679 front door of the facility and immediately saw the body 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:09.520 of her daughter, Diane, she started screaming. Phil left the car, 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:12.400 called nine on one and ran into the building and 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:16.320 he ran pass his daughter and into Frank's office. Nicoletta 0:08:16.680 --> 0:08:21.480 moved her daughter's body, cradling her or holding her. Phil 0:08:21.720 --> 0:08:26.400 tracked bloody footprints into Frank's office and the other three 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:30.600 people were found in Frank's office. Blood splatter evidence shows 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:33.680 that George Batistia was actually shot at least one time 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:37.880 and a different part of the facility before he was 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:40.240 brought into Frank's office and executed. 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:45.040 When officers arrived that evening, they found fourteen shellcasings, eleven 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:47.520 from a twenty two caliber weapon, one from a thirty 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:49.920 two which was pulled from Diane, and two from a 0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:53.240 thirty caliber rifle in Frank's arm. Now, all of the 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:55.400 victims had been shot in the head with twenty two 0:08:55.440 --> 0:09:00.840 caliber bullets execution style, and the murder weapons were never located. Now, 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:03.920 the crime scene provided no clear physical evidence to link 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:07.599 anyone to the crime, let alone Nelson, although relatives of 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:11.160 the victims immediately pointed fingers at Nelson because of all 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:14.840 the bad blood and the current litigation. Now, there were 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:18.240 some shoe prints that didn't match the Dosos or the victims, 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:22.120 but no fingerprints or biological evidence from anyone but the 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:25.920 victims was present, which makes it sound an awful lot 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:29.080 like a professional hit. As we go through the evidence 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:32.880 from the crime scene, it strains the imagination to think 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:37.960 that one single person could have carried out this awful crime. 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:40.880 As the state eventually contended. 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:44.120 These four people, according to blood splatter evidence, were shot 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:47.719 at three different locations in the facility. So you've got 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:51.800 one guy running around shooting people in different locations, moving 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:55.200 at least one wounded person from one location to another 0:09:55.679 --> 0:10:00.000 where the final execution took place, and killing the assistant 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:03.520 state attorney I am in a completely different location. Now, 0:10:03.720 --> 0:10:08.040 at least two guns were clearly used in this, and 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:12.120 the evidence suggests that there was three. Well, one of 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:14.800 them is a long rifle, two of them are handguns, 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:18.880 and less. Serrano grew an extra arm. One person cannot 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:23.920 manage three weapons and four people, So this is significant 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:27.559 evidence that shows that there were two shooters involved. Then 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:30.320 you start to talk about all the blood that this 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:34.560 would have created. When the deceased were discovered, some of 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:39.000 the family members actually walked in the blood, and there 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:43.200 were bloody footprints by them later matched up to their shoes. 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:47.320 Yet no blood was ever found on anything belonging to 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:48.240 Nelson Serrano. 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:52.160 Yeah, and we'll talk later about the prosecution's crazy theory 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:55.280 that Nelson drove a Renzl car to and from airports 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:59.760 to make flights in an unbelievably tight travel itinerary. Yet 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:03.600 where's the blood evidence in the alleged rental car. His 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:07.480 body and clothing would have been covered in blood if 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:11.640 he shot four people, right, where did he manage to 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:14.800 stop and rinse off all of this blood evidence? They 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:17.080 never answered that question. Well, come back to the state's 0:11:17.080 --> 0:11:19.840 impossible theory in a minute, But first let's talk about 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:24.360 the eyewitnesses, because again this is another super strong indication 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:28.920 that Nelson's Serrano did not commit this crime. Now, eyewitnesses 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:31.559 said there were several Latin or Asian men in their 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:33.920 twenties and thirties at the scene, and a man named 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:36.679 John Purvis, who worked across the street from the factory, 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:39.400 said that when he left work that day, he noticed 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:43.040 a beige luxury vehicle, perhaps a Cadillac part next to 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:46.200 Erie's main entrance, and he saw a man on the 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:47.920 side of the road lighting a cigarette. 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:50.800 When Purvis comes out of the driveway of where he works, 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:55.160 his car is pointing right at Eerie Manufacturing, and that's 0:11:55.200 --> 0:11:58.360 where he sees this young guy who's well dressed. Right, 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:00.760 he's got a blazer, he's got a sweater, ves and 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:03.760 the whole thing, which is not common in rural Bartow 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:06.280 so that stood out. And then he sees that this 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:08.160 kid is trying to light a cigarette when it's windy. 0:12:08.200 --> 0:12:10.960 He's so close to him that he's able to see 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:13.920 that he's got a Zippo type lighter and that it's silver, 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:16.160 and that he's lighting a cigarette. And he's able to 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:18.680 tell you that he's got jet black hair. 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:21.800 Which doesn't sound like a description of Nelson, who is 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:24.360 nearly sixty years old at that point and well known 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:27.400 to smoke a pipe, not cigarettes. But despite the lack 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:30.920 of evidence, Nelson and Francisco continued to be targeted and 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:36.080 thoroughly investigated, even harassed. Officers searched Nelson's house, where several 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:39.920 guns were found. After all, Nelson did collect guns. However, 0:12:40.040 --> 0:12:43.280 none of Nelson's guns matched the murder weapons, and a 0:12:43.400 --> 0:12:47.360 paraffin test showed conclusively that Nelson had not fired a weapon. 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:50.920 Now let me not leave out the complicity of the 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:55.080 media in this slow moving disaster, right because the media 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:57.839 ran with the story of Nelson as the prime suspect, 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:01.400 always displaying his picture when the story and referring to 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:05.080 him as quote the Mexican which is like any old 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:08.680 brown country will do, right, I mean, oh, and Francisco, 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:12.319 if I'm understanding this correctly, They were targeting you at 0:13:12.320 --> 0:13:14.000 the time, as well as your dad, right. 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:17.800 Yeah. We realized that because I was suing the company 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:20.319 basically George and Phil for breach of contract from my 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:23.440 employment agreement, and my father was suing them for the 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:25.199 money they took that, you know, they would want to 0:13:25.240 --> 0:13:27.840 look at us. So from day one we cooperated. When 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:30.200 they asked to do a paraffin test on me, I 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:31.839 didn't have a problem with it, you know, and I 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:33.840 was looking to help. So my father came back early 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:35.920 from his business trip just so he can come in 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:37.800 and see what he could help with. This is the 0:13:37.840 --> 0:13:40.040 way we were until they started targeting us and making 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:43.000 our lives miserable. The searches in my father's home, the 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:46.640 tapping of the phones and of our emails, and the 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:49.920 way they went after all our friends. It was just crazy. 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:51.440 I can't even believe that it really happened. 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:07.720 This episode is underwritten by AIG, a leading global insurance company. 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:11.560 AIG is committed to corporate social responsibility and is making 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:14.360 a positive difference in the lives of its employees and 0:14:14.400 --> 0:14:17.080 in the communities where we work and live. In light 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:19.920 of the compelling need for pro bono legal assistance, and 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:23.960 in recognition of AIG's commitment to criminal and social justice reform, 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:28.040 the AIG pro Bono Program provides free legal services and 0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:40.080 other support to underrepresented communities and individuals. Meanwhile, investigators received 0:14:40.080 --> 0:14:42.640 an eyewitness account that should have busted this case wide 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:45.000 open and tied together all of the loose threads. And 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:47.960 of course, I'm referring to the statements from Robert Fowler. 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:50.640 In nineteen ninety eight, a man named Robert Fowler was 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:53.280 in jail at unrelated charges and reached out to police 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:56.280 with information about this crime looking for lateiency in his 0:14:56.320 --> 0:14:59.600 own case. Now, normally, jail house informants are not to 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:04.120 be bled unless what they're saying is corroborated by the 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:09.080 physical evidence, and in this case it was like Frank Dosso. 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:12.960 Robert Fowler worked for Bobby Vanaria, the Staten Island drug dealer. 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:17.080 In nineteen ninety seven, the DEA busted Frank's trafficking operation 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:20.720 for the second time. Bowler said that after this, Venaria 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:24.520 was done with Frank Dosso and sent two hitmen, Anton 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:27.960 and a guy named Binny Aspirins. You can't make those 0:15:28.040 --> 0:15:32.760 names up. He sent these guys to Florida to kill Frank. Now, 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:37.120 according to mister Fowler, the hitmen found Frank at erie. 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:40.480 They had two lookouts. They confronted the group and demanded 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:43.640 that Frank come with them. Diane Patisso was there and 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:46.560 identified herself as an assistant state's attorney and told them 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:50.680 to leave, and that's when the shooting started. Diane was killed, 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:54.520 the men scattered, George was shot somewhere else in the factory, 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:57.040 and then the three men were corralled into the office 0:15:57.040 --> 0:16:01.240 where they were killed execution style. That's the statement from 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:04.320 mister Fowler, and it makes sense. It's the first thing 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:06.880 we've heard that actually makes sense. The work was done 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:10.080 for them at this point. And it's not like Fowler 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:12.400 is trying to help the Serranos. He doesn't even know 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:15.040 the Serranos. He was just trying to help himself. And 0:16:15.120 --> 0:16:18.080 you don't just make up information. It matches the crime 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:22.640 scene to a t and less law enforcement veue that information. 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:27.160 But they hadn't because if they had, investigators wouldn't have 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:32.120 ignored Fowler's statement and instead let the case go cold. Now, eventually, 0:16:32.240 --> 0:16:34.720 in two thousand, your dad did what he had always 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:37.400 planned to do, from my understanding, which was to retire 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:41.600 to Ecuador after a life well lived. Right, and that's 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:45.960 where this story of Nelson Serrano should have ended, peacefully, 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:47.960 back at home in Ecuador. 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:52.320 It's important to note that Nelson has dual citizenship. He 0:16:52.400 --> 0:16:56.280 has natural citizenship of Ecuador and he was a naturalized 0:16:56.320 --> 0:17:00.760 citizen of the United States. He liquidated business interests and 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:04.119 moved Ecuador to the place of this birth. This was 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:08.879 later mischaracterized at trial as him fleeing to Ecuador to 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:12.520 avoid prosecution, but there was no reason for him to 0:17:12.640 --> 0:17:15.520 believe that he was still a suspect in this crime 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:17.800 when he moved back to Ecuador. 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:20.800 Right because they had no evidence against him. But back 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:23.919 at Bartow, Florida, people were upset that no perpetrator had 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:27.359 been found for this crime. After all, the local media 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:30.080 had held up your father's picture and told the public 0:17:30.160 --> 0:17:34.000 for years that the quote Mexican, the Mexican did it. 0:17:34.080 --> 0:17:38.240 And so on May seventeenth, two thousand and one, Nelson 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:41.320 Serrano was indicted on four counts of first degree murder 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:44.240 and his extradition was requested from Ecuador. 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:48.400 So at that point Tommy Ray, who's the investigating agent 0:17:48.520 --> 0:17:52.520 in this case, and Assistant State Attorney Paul Wallace traveled 0:17:52.520 --> 0:17:56.200 to Ecuador and arguably they're going to Ecuador to seek 0:17:56.520 --> 0:18:01.240 Nelson Serrano's extradition. They discovered Ecuador under no circumstances would 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:05.000 extradite mister Serrano if he was going to be facing 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:11.040 the death penalty. Additionally, Ecuador requested information about the particulars 0:18:11.080 --> 0:18:14.160 of the evidence that would show Nelson Serrano was involved 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:17.600 in this before they would extradite him. At that point, 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:21.720 Wallace and Ray pretty much broke off any attempt to 0:18:21.760 --> 0:18:27.680 extradite mister Serrano legally. Instead, according to Tommy Ray's own testimony, 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:32.000 they came into contact with someone who was associated with 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:36.240 the American Embassy and Ecuador, who had previously worked for 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:41.280 the DEA, and he connected Tommy Ray to some Ecuadorian 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:44.040 police officers that he had worked with while he was 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:48.720 with the DEA. Some money exchanged hands, mister Ray says 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:52.200 that was for expenses only, But the upshot of that 0:18:52.720 --> 0:18:55.679 was that Nelson was snatched up off of the street, 0:18:56.240 --> 0:19:00.640 taken before a sham extradition hearing on the theory that 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:04.040 he was not an Ecuadorian citizen, which was untrue. The 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:07.080 sham proceeding took about fifteen minutes, and then they took 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:10.399 him from that place, suck him in a dog kennel 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:12.359 where he spent the night, and then he was taken 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:15.960 at handcuffs, placed on a plane and flowing back to Florida. 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:19.080 The date of the kidnapping was August thirtieth, two thousand 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:23.040 and two, and then the trial didn't happen until late 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:26.480 two thousand and six, so he spent four years in 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:30.200 a county jail in Polk County. You won't even imagine 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:32.720 the kind of torture that he went through two hundred 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:37.480 and eighty six of those days he spent in solitary confinement, naked, 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:41.560 with the air conditioning being blown full ice cold stadium 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:45.119 lights on twenty four hours a day, wasn't allowed to sleep, eat, 0:19:45.280 --> 0:19:49.199 and his walls were covered in human excrement that entire time. 0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:51.760 There just seems to be no bottom to this, you know, 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:55.480 But then comes the trial. So Robert Fowler's statement was 0:19:55.520 --> 0:19:58.560 withheld by the prosecution until five days before trial in 0:19:58.560 --> 0:20:02.119 two thousand and six, at which time the statement was downplayed. 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:05.200 Now it's important to remember that none of the witnesses 0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:08.119 called the trial actually witnessed the murder, and the state 0:20:08.280 --> 0:20:11.280 brought up the person seen lighting the cigarette outside the 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:13.760 building that day of the murder, trying to suggest that 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:14.560 it was Nelson. 0:20:14.720 --> 0:20:17.200 John Purvis was the witness that saw him, and he 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:20.040 gave them a sketch. First of all, Nelson Serrano did 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:22.920 not smoke cigarettes. He smoked a pipe, which everyone knew. 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:28.000 So the state actually mischaracterized his testimony from that he 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:30.679 was lighting a cigarette and he clearly saw a cigarette, 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:33.800 that it appeared that he was lighting a cigarette. The 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:37.520 other thing that they did instead of submitting this composite 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:41.760 sketch to the jury in its original form. They reworked 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:45.800 the PDF so that it changed the look of the 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:49.719 composite sketch. We have both the original composite sketch and 0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:52.879 we have the reworked one. The original sketch, which appeared 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:56.200 to be a much younger, thinner person, didn't look anything 0:20:56.400 --> 0:21:00.920 like Nelson. Serrano changed to a heavier type look, which 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:04.000 is more consistent with the way Nelson looked at trial. 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:09.000 So that was highly disturbing. There's no way that whoever 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:12.439 introduced that piece of evidence did not know that this 0:21:12.520 --> 0:21:13.240 had been altered. 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:17.119 They also outfitted this composite sketch with the kind of 0:21:17.160 --> 0:21:21.960 classes Nelson was known to wear. It's just unbelievable. I mean, 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:25.320 and what about the firearms evidence from the scene. 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:27.920 I think the most significant thing. According to the autopsies, 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:31.119 there were four people and there were a total of 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:35.040 fourteen gun shot wounds. Now, the police claimed a trial 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:39.680 that they only found twelve casings. That really isn't true 0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:43.600 because they ignored the fact that twelve casings were found 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:47.360 at one point in time, and two other thirty caliber 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:50.840 casings were found on a palette that had been moved 0:21:50.880 --> 0:21:53.920 but at the time of the murders, this palette would 0:21:53.920 --> 0:21:56.919 have been lined up with one of the hallways where 0:21:57.080 --> 0:22:01.720 one of the deceased was shot. Autopsy showed that they 0:22:01.800 --> 0:22:05.240 were what they described as through and through wounds. The 0:22:05.400 --> 0:22:10.400 state attempted to say that one single projectile made these 0:22:10.480 --> 0:22:13.960 through and through wounds, which is sort of a torturous 0:22:14.119 --> 0:22:17.720 way to try and explain too many wounds and not 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:22.080 enough casings. But not even the medical examiner who testified 0:22:22.520 --> 0:22:26.280 was willing to adopt that. We did discover as we 0:22:26.320 --> 0:22:29.800 reviewed the evidence in this case that these two thirty 0:22:29.880 --> 0:22:35.840 caliber casings had been marked for identification but never entered 0:22:35.880 --> 0:22:37.240 into evidence by the state. 0:22:37.800 --> 0:22:40.880 Now there's also this story with the chair in his office. 0:22:40.920 --> 0:22:42.120 Tell us about that. 0:22:42.200 --> 0:22:46.119 They tried to bring in a footprint on a chair, 0:22:46.359 --> 0:22:49.680 saying it was consistent with Nelson Serrano. It was wrong 0:22:49.800 --> 0:22:54.359 shoe size for one thing. But basically, if you stop 0:22:54.400 --> 0:22:57.280 and think about what's going on, the state's theory is 0:22:57.320 --> 0:23:00.879 there's a single shooter who is managing four people. But 0:23:01.040 --> 0:23:03.800 at some point, while these four people were inside the 0:23:03.880 --> 0:23:09.280 manufacturing facility, Serrano, unarmed, would have to go into his 0:23:09.600 --> 0:23:14.040 old office, stand on this chair, remove a ceiling tile 0:23:14.440 --> 0:23:18.480 and recover a gun that the prosecution claimed that he 0:23:18.600 --> 0:23:22.159 had secreted back when he was an employee there, before 0:23:22.200 --> 0:23:26.240 any dispute ever happened, and before he was cast out 0:23:26.440 --> 0:23:29.159