Speaker 1: It's two thousand and one fifty miles southwest of Chicago,
Speaker 1: Joliet Penitentiary, ring a bell it should it's the prison
Speaker 1: from the opening scene of Blues Brothers, Prisoner number n
Speaker 1: eight one seven one seven. Lee Harris is tense. He's
Speaker 1: waiting on a new selly. Lee's had his share over
Speaker 1: the past decade, and it's always a craft shoot a
Speaker 1: space seven feet by four feet with a bunk bed
Speaker 1: and an open toilet, intimately shared with another convict. There's
Speaker 1: a few ways this could go as far as Lee's concerned.
Speaker 1: Ain't none of them good? You can be sure Lee
Speaker 1: did not expect someone like Robert Chatler to walk in
Speaker 1: on the outside. These men would have never crossed paths. Lee,
Speaker 1: a black man and career scammer raised in Chicago's most
Speaker 1: notorious projects, Now pushing fifty. Robert, white Jewish kid from
Speaker 1: the suburbs, half his age, an odd ball who sought
Speaker 1: solace rescuing insects and animals. How was this gonna work?
Speaker 1: In short order? Robert would drive Lead to his wits end.
Speaker 1: He chained smoked from sun up to sundown, all while
Speaker 1: playing radio dub beetles cassettes on repeat. Lee hated smoking,
Speaker 1: and let's just say the Beatles weren't exactly his flavor.
Speaker 1: But all of that would fade away because on that day,
Speaker 1: Lee Harris was about to meet his future best friend,
Speaker 1: brother from another and the key to his freedom from
Speaker 1: iHeart Podcasts. I'm Dax stelin Ross and this is crying wolf.
Speaker 2: White victim, female, pretty wealthy black defendant. I mean, as
Speaker 2: soon as I saw it, I'm like, fuck me, this
Speaker 2: is gonna be bad.
Speaker 3: He says the police are his friends, and then that's it.
Speaker 4: They turn on it.
Speaker 1: I get nineteen years killing somebody I have never seen.
Speaker 3: They got the wrong.
Speaker 4: That at Lee's mouth was Lee's downfall.
Speaker 3: Along with dirty call.
Speaker 2: There's a list of police officers who deserve a special
Speaker 2: place in hell. As I walked down the hostage, ban said,
Speaker 2: my home.
Speaker 3: Address up came from the world of How the Techniques?
Speaker 1: Why didn't be a restaurant of grant right now?
Speaker 3: How do you want?
Speaker 2: Don't you fear? Guys?
Speaker 3: I realized from the beginning killed Dana Fidler and that
Speaker 3: person's still up here.
Speaker 1: Episode one, The Right Guy. It's the late eighties. Paula
Speaker 1: Abdul and Public Enemy are in heavy rotation on MTV.
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan has yet to win a title. Some think
Speaker 1: he never will. Oprah is still on our way to
Speaker 1: becoming an afternoon I. Lee Harris is thirty something living
Speaker 1: in Chicago's Near North Side. He's got a little boy
Speaker 1: he can't wait to teach the intricacies of softball. His
Speaker 1: own prospects aren't so bright. By his own admission, he's
Speaker 1: a petty crook running out of hustles. The one thing
Speaker 1: Lee does have going for him, besides his son, The
Speaker 1: thing that sets him apart is his charm. He could
Speaker 1: and would talk to anyone.
Speaker 4: I remember him walking up to us. You'd see a
Speaker 4: crew and it'd say, Hey, how you doing. Oh hey,
Speaker 4: mister Jordan, what you guys doing here?
Speaker 1: That's Bob Jordan, And if you're from Chicago, you might
Speaker 1: recognize his commanding voice. Bob's a news veteran with a
Speaker 1: career spanning six decades. Back in the eighties, he was
Speaker 1: a general assignment reporter for the TV station WG in Chicago.
Speaker 1: Every day he'd gather his film crew and had to
Speaker 1: cover the city's biggest story of the day.
Speaker 4: Lee was not afraid to step out and be seen
Speaker 4: be recognized, be known. If we're out doing a story,
Speaker 4: we'd want to find someone whom we could interview and say,
Speaker 4: you know, what's the problem of the day. People are
Speaker 4: many times afraid of a camera crew.
Speaker 1: But Lee wasn't. Living in the projects meant the media
Speaker 1: was usually there for one of two reasons, drugs or violence,
Speaker 1: and often both meant they were looking for a good SoundBite.
Speaker 1: For some residents, the site of reporters prompted a bline
Speaker 1: in the opposite direction. Being so amenable made Lee stand out.
Speaker 1: He stood out for other reasons too.
Speaker 4: I've been trying to think of words to describe him.
Speaker 4: Impetuous is kind of a word, because he was outside
Speaker 4: the norm. He was probably smarter than the average kid
Speaker 4: he ran around with because he knew how to work
Speaker 4: the system. And if I do this and do that,
Speaker 4: I can game the system. I might be able to
Speaker 4: use it to my advantage. But he was unpolished. He
Speaker 4: was vulnerable to his own recklessness.
Speaker 1: The same unabashed approach Lee took with journalists like Bob
Speaker 1: Jordan extended to local beat cops too.
Speaker 2: He was very affable, he was very friendly, he was
Speaker 2: very you know, he respected as we were the police,
Speaker 2: but we respected, you know, we had different lifestyles.
Speaker 1: This is Mary Siwak and her partner Joseph Roberts Signoretti,
Speaker 1: but he also goes by Bob. Back in the day,
Speaker 1: Lee was a recurring character on their beat.
Speaker 3: He's a scam artist. There's an alley off of Rush Street.
Speaker 3: They call it drug Ali Lee. He would shell fake drugs,
Speaker 3: burn eggs.
Speaker 1: You know the number dried herbs instead of weed. A
Speaker 1: regano meant whatever a hustler can entice some thrill seeking
Speaker 1: inner city tourists with.
Speaker 3: And all the suburbanites would go across and walk, you know,
Speaker 3: so a black guy coming up and telling, you know, saying, hey,
Speaker 3: do you want anything.
Speaker 1: And more often than not they'd fall for it. But
Speaker 1: once a sale was made, real drugs or not, Bob
Speaker 1: would have to step in.
Speaker 3: Sorry, Lee, you're gonna have to go to jail or
Speaker 3: or sometimes I just shag him out of there, and
Speaker 3: you tell him get out of here because you don't
Speaker 3: want to hassle with them and bring in and stuck
Speaker 3: while he did, don't want to touch them, you know.
Speaker 1: So it was a funny kind of dance back then
Speaker 1: between Lee and the police. Sometimes after a sale, Lee
Speaker 1: would hang around to get arrested on purpose. A tip
Speaker 1: to the precinct with his cop piles could be more
Speaker 1: pleasant than the wrath of a returning customer.
Speaker 2: But if he didn't do what he did, then we
Speaker 2: wouldn't do what we did right.
Speaker 3: He was job security.
Speaker 1: This love hate triangle between locals, the press, and the
Speaker 1: police could have typified daily life in any project. But
Speaker 1: Lee didn't live in just any project. He lived in
Speaker 1: one of the most infamous of them all, Cabrini Green.
Speaker 1: You've likely heard of Cabrini, even if you couldn't point
Speaker 1: to it on a map. I certainly couldn't. It's where
Speaker 1: the Colthood horror candy Man was set. It's had countless
Speaker 1: mentions in Chicago rap, and it was the backdrop for
Speaker 1: the classic black sitcom Good Times from the seventies. The
Speaker 1: title it was ironic in case you're wondering. When the
Speaker 1: first Kabrini rowhouses and towers went up in the nineteen
Speaker 1: forties and fifties, they represented optimism, the potential of public
Speaker 1: housing to provide quality homes for all. It was certainly
Speaker 1: a step up from the slum land it replaced Little Hell.
Speaker 1: The locals used to call it, who at the time
Speaker 1: were a mix of Irish, Swedish and Italian immigrants. But
Speaker 1: by the nineteen eighties, when Lee lived there, things had
Speaker 1: changed a lot. The projects had become a new kind
Speaker 1: of poverty, poverty of gangs, drugs, and violence, and Cabrini's
Speaker 1: buildings were now exclusively housing black residents.
Speaker 2: Most of the police officers didn't want, even want nothing
Speaker 2: to do with Kabrini, but it's wild.
Speaker 1: There was a different world. Crack cocaine was rife, controlled
Speaker 1: and fought over by the Mickey Cobras or the gangster disciples,
Speaker 1: some of Cabrini's most notorious gangs. Oddly enough, none of
Speaker 1: that phased Bob Ora Mary.
Speaker 2: We got along with all the gangs, the ones that
Speaker 2: hated and shot at each other. We were like their
Speaker 2: aunties or something. So it was an unusual relationship we had,
Speaker 2: and Lee was one of those people.
Speaker 1: To be clear, Lee was not in a gang, a
Speaker 1: gang banger, as they used to call it. What's interesting, though,
Speaker 1: is that he somehow managed to get along with them all.
Speaker 1: He wasn't afraid of being seen. He also knew how
Speaker 1: to disappear into the crowd. Make himself invisible or if
Speaker 1: nothing else non threatening. More than anything, Lee was a survivor,
Speaker 1: which meant being both nothing in particular and a bit
Speaker 1: of everything. This showed up in his various occupations. Being
Speaker 1: that Kabrini was right next door to some of Chicago's
Speaker 1: most affluent neighborhoods, Lee would sometimes dabble in more legitimate pursuits,
Speaker 1: like window cleaning for the luxury high rises, and when
Speaker 1: window washing and burn bags didn't cut it, there was
Speaker 1: always a quick buck to be made sharing information with
Speaker 1: the cops.
Speaker 2: We would talk to him about things, Hey Lee, do
Speaker 2: you know about this or that? Or we say hey Lee,
Speaker 2: if you hear about anything.
Speaker 1: But an inexplicable tragedy a mere few blocks from Kaberni
Speaker 1: was about to shake up the natural order of things
Speaker 1: and send chills throughout the whole of Chicago. How people
Speaker 1: endure Chicago winters has never made sense to me. A
Speaker 1: place that hovers between bone cold and brick for months
Speaker 1: on end. Then you experience the summer, and suddenly it
Speaker 1: all makes sense. Chicagoans live for the summer. It's when
Speaker 1: the city exhales, when the frozen shorelines of Lake Michigan
Speaker 1: thaw into tanning mecchas dotted with beach bums and fitness diehards,
Speaker 1: and by night becomes stages for music, fireworks, and joy.
Speaker 1: Summer in Chicago isn't just a season, It's a resurrection.
Speaker 1: Summer nineteen eighty nine was no different. Then came the
Speaker 1: night of June eighteenth.
Speaker 3: A twenty four year old woman lies in a coma tonight,
Speaker 3: the victim of an execution style shooting, apparently near her
Speaker 3: home on the Gold Coast.
Speaker 1: Dana Peitler was smart, attractive, from money as promising as
Speaker 1: they make them in America. She had just completed an
Speaker 1: internship at one of America's top banks and was about
Speaker 1: to begin graduate studies. Moments after returning home from a
Speaker 1: night out celebrating with friends, she's forced into a nearby alley,
Speaker 1: shot in the back of the head, and left for dead.
Speaker 1: The motive is unclear, although police find two ATM receipts
Speaker 1: in Dana's wallet. The time stamps indicate the withdrawals happened
Speaker 1: after she had returned home. Patrol cop Mary Siwac remembers
Speaker 1: it well.
Speaker 2: She's from wealthy family down in the Gold Coast, right
Speaker 2: by Astor Street, which is the biggest money street where
Speaker 2: the governor lives, you know, right where all the concentration
Speaker 2: of money is. So is a heater case.
Speaker 1: It was an instant heater and yes, it's exactly what
Speaker 1: you think it is. The heat was on. This kind
Speaker 1: of thing just didn't happen on the Gold Coast to
Speaker 1: a white woman. Not only was it one of the
Speaker 1: richest neighborhoods in Chicago, it was one of the richest
Speaker 1: neighborhoods in the entire country. Reporter Bob Jordan lived there
Speaker 1: around that time. He could attest to its bona fides.
Speaker 4: There was an air of security and you never felt
Speaker 4: ill at ease. So when Dana is discovered in this alley,
Speaker 4: it was a tremendous story because it broke the calm.
Speaker 1: The Dana Fightler case becomes a real life horror story
Speaker 1: that everyone is following. The media descend daily on Northwestern
Speaker 1: Memorial Hospital to get updates from Dana's neurosurgeon, and alongside
Speaker 1: fears for Dana, Chicago's residents have worked themselves into a
Speaker 1: kind of moral panic. ATMs are still a weird new
Speaker 1: invention in the eighties, Was this new technology safe? What
Speaker 1: was being compromised in the name of convenience. We found
Speaker 1: some TV footage from the time where a police superintendent
Speaker 1: no Less tells a reporter armed police won't use them.
Speaker 1: What in the devil are you guys doing standing at
Speaker 1: an ATM. And to top it all, tongues are wagging
Speaker 1: about the perpetrator. Surely this crime had been committed by
Speaker 1: a black man and was it only money he was
Speaker 1: after first days, then weeks pass and Dana holds on,
Speaker 1: The city holds its breath. The police chase down leads
Speaker 1: to feed up the chain of command. The media scramble
Speaker 1: for tidbits to satiate its audiences. Bob Jordan had a
Speaker 1: front row seat to it all. As news crews.
Speaker 4: We were in the area doing that story daily, trying
Speaker 4: to do updates, trying to find ways to work the
Speaker 4: story with new angles and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: Then out of nowhere, a woman who was out walking
Speaker 1: her dog the night of the incident comes forward. She
Speaker 1: has some vital new information. Moments before the attack, she
Speaker 1: saw Dana being led down the street by three men,
Speaker 1: three black men. After weeks of waiting for a break,
Speaker 1: the CPD finally has something and then just as news
Speaker 1: from the witness becomes known, Dana's family makes an unusual move.
Speaker 1: They put up a sizeable reward. Might the promise of
Speaker 1: hard cast shake loose some new leads, jog a few
Speaker 1: memories The fightler's one answers, so does the city.
Speaker 4: When the mayor is getting static from his constituents, then
Speaker 4: he calls the police chief and says, what the hell
Speaker 4: is going on with this fightler story? How close are
Speaker 4: you in getting this wrapped up? And then the police
Speaker 4: chief calls his neighborhood commander says, how soon are you
Speaker 4: getting it wrapped up? Net pressure all the way to
Speaker 4: the patrolman is find somebody, make some arrests.
Speaker 1: Armed with this new information from the dog walker, the
Speaker 1: CPD puts every cop in the vicinity on high alert.
Speaker 1: Even beat cops like Mary and Bob get drafted. They're
Speaker 1: summoned to an emergency briefing and their orders find any
Speaker 1: scrap of information they possibly can about that night. And
Speaker 1: this is not going to be a collaboration effort across
Speaker 1: the force. This is cop against cop. Whoever brings home
Speaker 1: the biggest scraps. It's the biggest prize.
Speaker 2: It was very doggy dog yeah, And if you want
Speaker 2: to be a police you get the bad guys done.
Speaker 2: You've got to do battle. You've got to compete.
Speaker 1: As Mary and Bob step out of the precinct, they
Speaker 1: know exactly where to head. First, the streets.
Speaker 2: There'd be thousands of people out there, you know, in
Speaker 2: the summertime. Everybody got there, everybody, and there's always somebody
Speaker 2: that saw all those people all day long, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, somebody always would see what happened.
Speaker 1: Someone perhaps like Lee Harris.
Speaker 2: He could have been there, Yeah, he could have been there.
Speaker 2: He was a contender, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Turns out finding Lee doesn't require much effort at all.
Speaker 1: Marry and Bob bump into him almost immediately. They fill
Speaker 1: him in about the crime, but also the reward twenty
Speaker 1: five large for anyone who can provide information that leads
Speaker 1: to an arrest.
Speaker 2: We're the ones that totally about it. And back then
Speaker 2: there was a lot of money, and he was a
Speaker 2: money guy. He was a you know, kind guy. Five
Speaker 2: thousand dollars okay, you know, I mean, there was a
Speaker 2: motive for him to want to find out about it
Speaker 2: because in his situation, you know, there was good money.
Speaker 1: Right, always a man to work numerous angles. Lee has
Speaker 1: also been talking to some other cops who worked the
Speaker 1: Gabrini beat. Old friends, in fact partners, James Ward and
Speaker 1: John McHugh. These guys went way back. They used to
Speaker 1: help Lee out when he got in trouble with the law.
Speaker 1: They'd loan of money sometimes. They even attended Lee's wedding
Speaker 1: back in the day. Ward and mceu are much closer
Speaker 1: to the case than Bob and Mary. They're working directly
Speaker 1: for the lead on the Fightler case, Detective Richard Zuley,
Speaker 1: a tough talking cop known for making cases and making
Speaker 1: them stick. They tell Lee some enticing insider information. They've
Speaker 1: got three suspects in the case, well known criminals from
Speaker 1: the area. The trigger man went by the street name Cheese.
Speaker 1: But with no witnesses placing them there, there's no chance
Speaker 1: of making any arrests. Lee gets thinking. A twenty five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars reward has a whole lot of burn bags
Speaker 1: and cleaning windows. He could start a new life, move
Speaker 1: his son out of Cabrini. His mind starts worrying. Cabrini,
Speaker 1: Green and the Gold Coast are just around the corner
Speaker 1: from each other. We're talking less than a mile walking distance,
Speaker 1: and the three suspects are also from the projects. It
Speaker 1: will be believable that Lee knew them. He thinks, maybe
Speaker 1: I was there the night Dana was attacked. Maybe I
Speaker 1: did see something or someone. Lee decides he does know
Speaker 1: something about the knight of the crime, and he knows
Speaker 1: who he needs to speak to about it. He head
Speaker 1: straight to Area six to find Ward, McHugh and their boss,
Speaker 1: Detective Richard Zulie. Mary was unimpressed.
Speaker 2: Those detectives are used to be called Area six. They
Speaker 2: were all primnanas. I have to admit he hurt my
Speaker 2: feelings a little bit because I thought that we had
Speaker 2: a rapport and I thought, you know, because it was
Speaker 2: a hitter case and he would have liked to been
Speaker 2: the one that, you know, solved it, because there is
Speaker 2: an elation to solving a case, getting the right guy,
Speaker 2: you know, solving it.
Speaker 1: And that was the last time that Marry and Bob
Speaker 1: ever spoke to Lee.
Speaker 2: See once he got involved like that, we disengaged because
Speaker 2: why would we be involved with him.
Speaker 1: Ward and mceue are all ears. Dana is still in
Speaker 1: a coma, fighting for her life. They want to nail
Speaker 1: this case before anyone else does, and now it looks
Speaker 1: like they might have a reliable witness putting their suspects
Speaker 1: in the frame. It's a win win. Lee is a
Speaker 1: shoe win for the reward money and the police get
Speaker 1: their suspects and maybe some promotions as well. Warden mceu
Speaker 1: are at the ready to help Lee prepare his words
Speaker 1: ahead of making his formal statement to Detective Zuli. I
Speaker 1: was having a coffee and dunkin Donuts when I saw
Speaker 1: three black guys running out.
Speaker 4: Of the yawn.
Speaker 1: Quickest twenty five k Lee would ever make. But a
Speaker 1: few days later, his friends Ward and mcew ask if
Speaker 1: he wouldn't mind coming back for another statement. A little
Speaker 1: more detail would be really helpful. Lee thinks, sure, why not.
Speaker 1: What starts out is just one statement soon becomes two,
Speaker 1: then three, four, five, six, and each time Ward and
Speaker 1: mcew reminding Lee of some helpful details from the night
Speaker 1: Dana was shot. The exact alley She was shot in,
Speaker 1: a black garage door an ivy covered wall. Before long,
Speaker 1: Lee is not just offering peripheral scraps of information about
Speaker 1: the night of the crime. He's the key to it all,
Speaker 1: the state star witness. So much so he's moved out
Speaker 1: of Cabrini for his own safety, all on the taxpayer's
Speaker 1: dollar when win right. But Ward and mcew are hungry
Speaker 1: for even more information. They need Lee to be closer
Speaker 1: to the action. Maybe he was part of the gang
Speaker 1: that at hacked Dana. They assure Lee not to worry.
Speaker 1: This is all just so they can nail Cheese and
Speaker 1: the other members of the gang. Detective Zuli gives Lee
Speaker 1: his word and so and yet another statement. Lee tells
Speaker 1: Zuli he was the fourth member of the gang. The
Speaker 1: police are getting closer and closer to closing the case,
Speaker 1: and those statements from Lee keep on coming. In total,
Speaker 1: he gives twenty two and then on the tenth of July,
Speaker 1: three weeks after the attack.
Speaker 4: After lingering in a coma for twenty one days, Dana
Speaker 4: Fightler was taken off life support.
Speaker 3: Systems and died. Police are giving out very little information.
Speaker 3: They're being very tight lip. This is a high priority
Speaker 3: case and they're being very careful.
Speaker 1: It's a tragedy for the Fightler family and for the CPD.
Speaker 1: The pressure is really on. They are now the hunt
Speaker 1: for a murderer, and thanks to Lee, they finally have
Speaker 1: the evidence that they need to make that arrest. Bob
Speaker 1: Jordan is at work one morning, waiting on his assignment
Speaker 1: for the day when the news breaks Dana Feitler's murderer
Speaker 1: has been found. But when he hears the name, it
Speaker 1: comes as a big shock. Turns out it's someone he
Speaker 1: already knows, Lee Harris.
Speaker 4: When they arrested Lee, I remember saying to my camera, man, hey,
Speaker 4: you know this guy they arrested. We've interviewed him, We've
Speaker 4: seen him around. He was always around.
Speaker 1: The switch around is baffling. The CPD's star witness has
Speaker 1: become their prime suspect. But in the end, what choice
Speaker 1: did they have? All those statements Lee was giving, all
Speaker 1: twenty two of them. With each one he was clearly
Speaker 1: incriminating himself. And then, to top it all, the dog
Speaker 1: walker that saw Dana moments before the attack. She's identified Lee,
Speaker 1: not Cheese or any other members of the gang in
Speaker 1: a lineup. Solving a heater case is like winning a championship,
Speaker 1: but instead of a parade, you get a press conference,
Speaker 1: a really big one. After weeks of waiting, wondering, and
Speaker 1: wild speculation, the entire press corps summoned camera's ready Mike's hot.
Speaker 4: Every TV station was there, all the newspapers, every one.
Speaker 1: Bob Jordan and his cameraman Mike elbow their way to
Speaker 1: the front. Everyone is thirsty for the money shot, the
Speaker 1: purp walk, that moment when the cuffed perpetrator, flanked by
Speaker 1: police officers, is finally revealed to the public.
Speaker 4: I can only imagine what that must be like to
Speaker 4: come through a door and face a whole wall of
Speaker 4: probably ten or twelve TV cameras in lights, that's how
Speaker 4: big a story. It was just the sound alone of
Speaker 4: the flashbulbs going off and the cameras rolling, and these
Speaker 4: were noisy cameras back in those days, and you know,
Speaker 4: there was a cacophony of sound in that room and
Speaker 4: the lights flashing and reporters of screaming, Lee, did you
Speaker 4: do it? Did you kill her?
Speaker 1: Did you shoot her?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 3: Where were you?
Speaker 1: Bob manages to hold his position at the front. It's
Speaker 1: enough to get Lee and I shot.
Speaker 4: I remember the look on his face. It was a
Speaker 4: look of shock and amazement, and it was like he
Speaker 4: had seen something unreal. I don't know if he saw
Speaker 4: I think he did. His eyes bulged and it was
Speaker 4: like he wanted to say something but couldn't or was
Speaker 4: too afraid, or was too in all of the moment,
Speaker 4: but he ducked his head and then was escorted away.
Speaker 1: Crying Wolf is an iHeart and Clockwork Films podcast and
Speaker 1: association with Chalk and Blade. I'm your host Dax Devlin Ross.
Speaker 1: The series producer is Sarah Stolart's. The senior producer is
Speaker 1: Laura Hyde. The serious script is written by me and
Speaker 1: by Sarah Stolart's. Bonus episodes are written and produced by
Speaker 1: me Dax Devlin Ross. Our executive producers are Christina Everett
Speaker 1: for iHeart podcasts, Naomi Harvey and Jamie Cohen for Clockwork Films,
Speaker 1: and Ruth Arns and Jason Phipps for Chalk and Blade.
Speaker 1: Sound design is by Kenny Koziak and George dre bing Hicks.
Speaker 1: Our theme music is by Kenny Koziak. Additional production support
Speaker 1: from Stephen Pate.