Speaker 1: So, Maggie, what about you? Is there anything that could
Speaker 1: make you confess to a crime you didn't commit. Um.
Speaker 1: I don't have kids, but I imagine, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: a situation where I would be looking to save somebody
Speaker 1: that I knew was for sure innocent, like a child,
Speaker 1: or maybe even my mom, or you know, maybe there
Speaker 1: would be a situation where I would falsely confessed to
Speaker 1: something to to save somebody. I had reached a point
Speaker 1: where I felt so beaten down after seeing my son
Speaker 1: and daughter go through a mental breakdown. I had just
Speaker 1: decided I'm just going to tell them whatever they want
Speaker 1: to hear from LoVa for good. This is wrongful fiction
Speaker 1: with Maggie Freeling today Martie Yang. On October four, two seven,
Speaker 1: two year old Ronnie Ryder was going about her morning
Speaker 1: at her apartment in Deerfield, Illinois. Suddenly, neighbors heard a
Speaker 1: short scream, loud bangs, and a crash, followed by silence.
Speaker 1: When police arrived, they found Ronnie lying face down on
Speaker 1: her kitchen floor in a pool of blood. A single
Speaker 1: bullet wound to the back of her head was the
Speaker 1: cause of death. She had also been shot two times
Speaker 1: in the stomach. Ronnie was seven months pregnant. The bullets
Speaker 1: killed her unborn child. At the crime scene, police found
Speaker 1: no indication of a struggle, nor were any items missing
Speaker 1: from the house. But what they did find was a
Speaker 1: threatening note inside Ronnie's purse discussing her boyfriend and baby's father, Sean.
Speaker 1: Gail Gayle was a major NFL star for the Chicago Bears,
Speaker 1: and he and Ronnie have been dating for seventeen years.
Speaker 1: The note mentioned Gail's alleged affairs with sixteen other women,
Speaker 1: including Martie Yang. Because she was on that list, police
Speaker 1: interviewed Marnie about the murder. They immediately honed in on
Speaker 1: her as a suspect. They eventually arrested her, believing she
Speaker 1: was a jealous girlfriend willing to commit murder to be
Speaker 1: with Gail, but none of the forensic evidence led back
Speaker 1: to Marnie. In fact, the neighbor said they saw a
Speaker 1: man running from the scene of the crime. At the time,
Speaker 1: I believed in the justice system. I believed that the
Speaker 1: lad would do the right thing. I no longer believe
Speaker 1: that this was a huge wake up call. My name
Speaker 1: is Marty. I've been wrongfully convicted for thirteen years. Marty
Speaker 1: Yang was born December twenty nine, nineteen sixty seven, to
Speaker 1: Larry and Francine Morar and grew up in Skokie, Illinois.
Speaker 1: She's the oldest of three children. We grew up in
Speaker 1: basically a standard two parent household for the day, you know. Um.
Speaker 1: My mother stayed home and raised us until we were
Speaker 1: a little bit older, and then she went to work
Speaker 1: for my father's company, and we had pretty much a
Speaker 1: standard standard childhood. I guess Marty graduated from Niles North
Speaker 1: High School in ninety six and went on to college
Speaker 1: at Illinois State University. That's where she met her husband,
Speaker 1: Yen Yang. I wouldn't exactly call it a blind date,
Speaker 1: because we knew each other in passing, but we were
Speaker 1: introduced formally by a mutual friend and we began dating.
Speaker 1: In college. Marnie got pregnant and gave birth to twins,
Speaker 1: Emily and Andrew In. Their younger brother, Brandon, was born
Speaker 1: four years later. A couple of years after that, Marnie
Speaker 1: and her husband divorced. I was a single parent by
Speaker 1: the time Brandon, what my youngest was, um an infant,
Speaker 1: and it was difficult financially. I always had to work
Speaker 1: like three jobs, but it was very very rewarding. My
Speaker 1: children are amazing. My mom. She was a good person.
Speaker 1: This is Emily Marnie's daughter. Whatever dream we had, she
Speaker 1: would help us pursue a She was very supportive. She
Speaker 1: would take care of our friends and the neighborhood kids, uh,
Speaker 1: whenever they got hurt. Emily especially remembers her mom loving animals.
Speaker 1: I remember her always bringing in stray dogs, cats, even squirrels.
Speaker 1: Um we had um central air in the back, and
Speaker 1: I remember there was a baby squirrel stuck under it,
Speaker 1: and I put a laundry basket over it and put
Speaker 1: some water and some snacks and and I left it there.
Speaker 1: And when I came back, Uh, it wasn't there anymore.
Speaker 1: And I was confused, and I found out that my
Speaker 1: mom had brought it inside. And did you guys keep it?
Speaker 1: We did, would bring it to the vet and everything.
Speaker 1: Martie worked in real estate, but she wasn't making enough
Speaker 1: to support three kids on her own, so she picked
Speaker 1: up jobs here and there. She worked as a waitress,
Speaker 1: and she was an aspiring fitness model too, so she
Speaker 1: occasionally did photo shoots on the side. In two thousand five,
Speaker 1: Martie was working a security job at a Chicago Bears
Speaker 1: convention when a man introduced himself as Sean Gail. She
Speaker 1: later learned he was a defensive back in the NFL
Speaker 1: and a Super Bowl champion. He was a major celebrity
Speaker 1: in the football world. I mean, at the time, it
Speaker 1: didn't mean anything to me. I'm not a sports fan.
Speaker 1: I don't care. I mean, I was there working a job,
Speaker 1: but I kept seeing him throughout the weekend, you know,
Speaker 1: and he kept talking to me and passing. So we
Speaker 1: started a conversation. Because I was also working in real
Speaker 1: estate at the time. It turned out that he said
Speaker 1: he was looking for some property, and I gave him
Speaker 1: my business card. He called me just a couple hours
Speaker 1: after the convention was over. Um, and that's how we met.
Speaker 1: You know. We had started out talking about real estate. Um.
Speaker 1: It really was not very long before he made the
Speaker 1: move towards a personal relationship. Marnie and Sean started spending
Speaker 1: time together, but she didn't consider their relationship all that serious,
Speaker 1: and her life was full enough already. I had three jobs,
Speaker 1: I had three kids. You know. It wasn't really something
Speaker 1: that I concerned myself with all that much. You know,
Speaker 1: I just I was doing me and living my life.
Speaker 1: He was doing him and living his life. She says
Speaker 1: it was a casual relationship that was never exclusive. She
Speaker 1: always expected he would be seeing other women too. One
Speaker 1: of those women was Ronnie Writer, who had been dating
Speaker 1: Gail for seventeen years. They met in Platteville, Wisconsin, while
Speaker 1: Gail was practicing with the Bears. Eventually, Ronnie left the
Speaker 1: small town she was living in to move to Chicago
Speaker 1: to be closer to Gail. On October four, two thousand seven, Ronnie,
Speaker 1: who was now seven months pregnant, was getting ready to
Speaker 1: leave her apartment for the day. At seven fifty am,
Speaker 1: her downstairs neighbor heard footsteps in Ronnie's kitchen. At seven
Speaker 1: fifty two, another neighbor leaving for work, saw a blackmail
Speaker 1: walk up the stairs to Ronnie's building. About a minute later,
Speaker 1: the neighbors heard a short scream and loud banging sounds
Speaker 1: what they described as a pop, pop, and a crash,
Speaker 1: and then silence. One of the neighbors saw a black
Speaker 1: man run through the parking lot, get into a black car,
Speaker 1: and drive away. Another called Ronnie's phone, but no one answered,
Speaker 1: so they called nine one one. When police arrived, they
Speaker 1: found Ronnie writer, laying face down on her kitchen floor
Speaker 1: in a pool of blood. There were multiple blunt force
Speaker 1: injuries to her head, and she had been shot seven times.
Speaker 1: A single shot to the back of her head was
Speaker 1: the immediate cause of death. Ronnie had also been shot
Speaker 1: twice in the stomach, killing her unborn baby. Police found
Speaker 1: no indication of a struggle and nothing was missing from
Speaker 1: the house, but they did find were fingerprints on the
Speaker 1: door knobs, which later returned without a match. Most importantly, though,
Speaker 1: police found a letter inside Ronnie's purse. It said that
Speaker 1: Ronnie should know that her boyfriend was cheating on her.
Speaker 1: The author of the letter wrote that Gail was spreading
Speaker 1: diseases and seeing other women all around the world. At
Speaker 1: the end of the letter, the author listed the names
Speaker 1: of sixteen other women, including Marnie, who Gail was apparently
Speaker 1: sleeping with. I never expected it to be exclusive relationship.
Speaker 1: I just I never found out until much much later
Speaker 1: that um there were quite as many women as there were.
Speaker 1: Marnie herself found out about all these other women well
Speaker 1: before the crime, when she also began receiving these letters.
Speaker 1: In April two thousand six, Martie received numerous harassing phone calls,
Speaker 1: and then in May of that year, the letters came.
Speaker 1: I mean I was getting letters in the mail based
Speaker 1: on you know, it was basically list lists of names
Speaker 1: and phone numbers and information on who these women were.
Speaker 1: If I wanted to know who these women are, you know,
Speaker 1: what am I dealing with here? I have children, and
Speaker 1: is there anybody or anything within the letters that I
Speaker 1: was getting that would indicate that there was something that
Speaker 1: I did be worried about? So she started researching who
Speaker 1: these women were through online background checks. She says she
Speaker 1: wanted to make sure that her family was safe, but
Speaker 1: this would later come back to bite her. Eventually, the
Speaker 1: harassment extended beyond letters and phone calls. One day in
Speaker 1: two thousand six, when Marnie was leaving Gail's house, she
Speaker 1: found dog feces smeared all over the door handle of
Speaker 1: her car, and her wiper blades were damaged. You know.
Speaker 1: At one point, I actually received a note that was
Speaker 1: left on my garage door saying you are next or
Speaker 1: I'm coming for you next, or something like that. One time,
Speaker 1: Morny remember she was out with Gail and he mentioned
Speaker 1: a woman he had gotten pregnant. He told her that
Speaker 1: he would take care of his financial responsibilities in this matter,
Speaker 1: but that he was not going to allow it to
Speaker 1: affect his life under any circumstances. And that's that's a
Speaker 1: direct quote, that much I do remember. Um. I think
Speaker 1: his exact words were that it was way too late
Speaker 1: for him to do anything about it. So he made
Speaker 1: it sound like whoever this woman was had already had
Speaker 1: a child and come back to him later with her
Speaker 1: basically with her hand out looking for money. After Ronnie's murder,
Speaker 1: Gail was immediately questioned by police. At the time of
Speaker 1: the crime around eight AM. Gail's whereabouts are unknown. He
Speaker 1: didn't have an alibi until around ten am, when he
Speaker 1: arrived at LeRoy's barber shop for a haircut. According to
Speaker 1: police interviews, Leroy, Gail's barber said that this was unusual.
Speaker 1: He never got his hair cut in the morning. For
Speaker 1: seventeen years. He had been going to LeRoy's for haircuts
Speaker 1: always in the afterno noon. Around one pm, after talking
Speaker 1: with Gail, police stopped pursuing an investigation on him. Instead,
Speaker 1: they turned their attention to interviewing his numerous alleged girlfriends,
Speaker 1: including Marnie. I thought to myself, well, I'm sure everybody
Speaker 1: is a suspect. I'm sure they're going to be questioning everybody.
Speaker 1: This is a horrible, horrible crime, and I basically just
Speaker 1: felt like, well, since we have nothing to hide, then
Speaker 1: you know, let him ask questions. I had no clue
Speaker 1: at the time it was going to snowball into anything
Speaker 1: like this. This episode is underwritten by A i G,
Speaker 1: a leading global insurance company. A i G is committed
Speaker 1: to corporate social responsibility and to making a positive difference
Speaker 1: in the lives of its employees and in the communities
Speaker 1: where we work and live. In light of the compelling
Speaker 1: need for pro bono legal assistance, and in recognition of
Speaker 1: a i g s commitment to criminal and social justice reform,
Speaker 1: the A i G Pro Bono Program provides free legal
Speaker 1: services and other support to underrepresented communities and individuals. Police
Speaker 1: also interviewed Barney's children, and they zeroed in on Martie's
Speaker 1: sixteen year old son, Andrew, five days after Ronnie and
Speaker 1: her unborn baby were killed. Andrew became a suspect when
Speaker 1: police reviewed his school attendance records and discovered that he
Speaker 1: hadn't been in school the day of the murder. Now
Speaker 1: the heat was on Marnie and her family. They were blindsided.
Speaker 1: I didn't see at the time that this was going
Speaker 1: to become some sort of twisted torture campaign. Marnie and
Speaker 1: her kids were extensively interviewed for day and hours on end.
Speaker 1: The police had taken my brothers and I from our
Speaker 1: house and brought us in. Officers George Filenko, Scott Frost,
Speaker 1: and Charles Schlettz started asking Marnie's kids about their relationship
Speaker 1: with their mom. I told them that my mom and
Speaker 1: I didn't have the best relationship. I as a young girl,
Speaker 1: I blamed her for my mom, my mom and dad divorcing.
Speaker 1: And from there, I think, in hindsight, they manipulated me.
Speaker 1: They told me that my brother and my mom both
Speaker 1: committed the murder together. They specifically told me that they
Speaker 1: knew that my mom had weapons, and that my mom
Speaker 1: and my brother cemented the murder weapon and a bucket
Speaker 1: and threw it at the bottom of Lake Michigan. And
Speaker 1: and so you you are sixteen, and you believe what
Speaker 1: the police say. Of course, they really got into my
Speaker 1: head and they made me believe it. Emily says the
Speaker 1: officers were relentless during interrogation. They They questioned me for
Speaker 1: twelve hours straight, and I kept saying that I don't
Speaker 1: know anything. And you know, after twelve hours of saying
Speaker 1: I don't know it, it really broke me. I started
Speaker 1: banging my head on the table. They would not take
Speaker 1: I don't know for an answer, you know. And once
Speaker 1: I started banging my head, I get to the table.
Speaker 1: Is when they left the room. Emily thinks this is
Speaker 1: when they started trying to figure out how to get
Speaker 1: her to talk. I hadn't seen my dad in eight years.
Speaker 1: When he left. He he said he was moving out
Speaker 1: of the state to go live with his brothers in Massachusetts.
Speaker 1: And he said I'll call you when I get there.
Speaker 1: And I never heard from him again after that. The
Speaker 1: officers told Emily they would find her father for her
Speaker 1: if she wrote a statement. And and seeing your dad
Speaker 1: was something you wanted, Yeah, it was. It was a
Speaker 1: dream for me, you know. Um. So when they said, well,
Speaker 1: we can find him for you, I I jumped that.
Speaker 1: I'm jumped at it, you know. So Emily wrote a statement. Afterwards,
Speaker 1: she said, officers frost and she lets ripped it up
Speaker 1: and said it wasn't good enough. She wrote another statement,
Speaker 1: but it still didn't meet their approval. Finally, Emily says
Speaker 1: she wrote what they wanted her to say. Andrew, Emily's
Speaker 1: twin brother, also in a similar position, but he actually
Speaker 1: ended up being accused of the murder. He said Officer
Speaker 1: Felenko threatened him by saying, quote, one of you are
Speaker 1: going to prison for the rest of your life. Will
Speaker 1: it be you or your mother. It was so bad
Speaker 1: that it got to the point where it drove Andrew
Speaker 1: um to a mental breakdown. We had to put him
Speaker 1: in a psychiatric hospital for two weeks, and as a
Speaker 1: result of that, his twin sister also ended up having
Speaker 1: a breakdown and she was in the hospital for a week.
Speaker 1: That's what these people did to my family. Emily missed
Speaker 1: her prompt because she was in a psychiatric hospital. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Martie said enough, I had reached a point where I
Speaker 1: felt so beaten down. There was nobody that could help
Speaker 1: me at that point. My parents couldn't help, They couldn't
Speaker 1: protect us. My attorney couldn't seem to protect us. I
Speaker 1: couldn't go to the police again. You know they were
Speaker 1: they were the ones that were terrorizing us. After seeing
Speaker 1: my son and daughter go through a mental breakdown, I
Speaker 1: had just decided, I'm just going to tell them whatever
Speaker 1: they want to hear. Marnie found her opportunity one day
Speaker 1: when a business associate, Christie Passion, reached out inviting her
Speaker 1: to meet at Denny's. Martie knew the police had talked
Speaker 1: to Christie and figured she could find out some information
Speaker 1: from her. At the restaurant, Martie noticed that Christine was
Speaker 1: wearing a wire. It was sticking out of her coat.
Speaker 1: So Martie decided this was her chance to save her
Speaker 1: son by falsely confessing to the murder. I remember giving
Speaker 1: my perception of how the crime played out based on
Speaker 1: the multiple interrogations that the police had done with me
Speaker 1: and the information that I had picked up from there
Speaker 1: from media accounts, you know, things like that, and come
Speaker 1: to find out later a lot of what I said
Speaker 1: was not even completely accurate. Martie left out Andrew and
Speaker 1: her made up version of events since she wanted to
Speaker 1: protect him and she alone. Was arrested in early two
Speaker 1: thousand nine. She was charged with the first degree murder
Speaker 1: of Ronnie Ryder and intentional homicide of an unborn child.
Speaker 1: The trial started in early March and lasted two weeks.
Speaker 1: The prosecutor was Assistant state's Attorney Patricia Fix. As there
Speaker 1: was no forensic evidence implicating Marnie, the prosecution presented largely
Speaker 1: circumstantial evidence at trial. Among them was a video from
Speaker 1: a shell gas station showing a black Volkswagen fleeing from
Speaker 1: the scene of the crime, which they said was the
Speaker 1: exact car Marnie had rented that week for a modeling job.
Speaker 1: They also tried to prove to the jury that a
Speaker 1: silencer was used on the gun that killed Ronnie, and
Speaker 1: that Marnie must have built a homemade silencer from items
Speaker 1: she purchased at home depot. Then there were the background
Speaker 1: checks Marty had done on the women named in the letters,
Speaker 1: and of course, Marnie's alleged confession. The prosecution also attempted
Speaker 1: to show that Marnie had sent the threatening letters her self.
Speaker 1: They cited several unsent letters nearly identical to the one
Speaker 1: found in Ronnie's purse, and address labels they claim were
Speaker 1: found in Martie's home office. Gail's own testimony also became
Speaker 1: evidence used against Martie, as did the testimony for Martie's
Speaker 1: daughter Emily. The prosecutor of path Fix came in right
Speaker 1: before I testified. And she said, you you have to
Speaker 1: to testify on on everything you made in your statement,
Speaker 1: otherwise you're you're going to get into trouble. So Emily
Speaker 1: took the stand against her mom. The state's attorney basically
Speaker 1: um forced her to testify, forced her to give fast
Speaker 1: testimony on top of it. Martie's defense attorneys were Jeffrey
Speaker 1: Lerner and William Hedrick. Their main defense was to cast
Speaker 1: doubt on Christie's credibility, as well as point out that
Speaker 1: the investor stigation was not thorough. They argued that it
Speaker 1: focused too quickly on Marnie and her family instead of
Speaker 1: following other possible suspects. This was the extent of their
Speaker 1: defense for Marnie, and I really believed that once we
Speaker 1: got to court, I really believed that the evidence or
Speaker 1: lack thereof, would speak for itself um and that the
Speaker 1: justice system would do the right thing. I had no
Speaker 1: clue that they were going to take all of these
Speaker 1: everyday things that were never really evidence in the first
Speaker 1: place and twist them into something nefarious. With a weak
Speaker 1: defense against the state's arguments. On March fifteen, two eleven,
Speaker 1: Marnie Yang was found guilty of the murders of Ronnie
Speaker 1: Ryter and her unborn child. She was sentenced to two
Speaker 1: concurrent terms of imprisonment it for the derivation of her
Speaker 1: natural life without the possibility of parole. She was thirty
Speaker 1: nine years old. During her thirteen years of incarceration, Marnie
Speaker 1: has refused to let the system drag her down. I
Speaker 1: made a decision when I first got incarcerated, and I
Speaker 1: reminded myself that I have no choice about being here.
Speaker 1: I don't have the option to just get up and leave.
Speaker 1: But what I do have is the option of allowing
Speaker 1: it to consume me and eat me up inside and
Speaker 1: become bitter and angry, or I can use this time
Speaker 1: as positively and productively as possible. And I feel like
Speaker 1: that's what I've done. Um. I'm a masth teacher. I
Speaker 1: teach maths, you know, and I try to have his
Speaker 1: pause of an impact on my immediate community as I can.
Speaker 1: But it's still a very difficult environment. Marty has filed
Speaker 1: several appeals during her time in prison, but all have
Speaker 1: been denied. But in early Jed Stone of Stone and
Speaker 1: Associates came on the case. Jed immediately noticed glaring hallmarks
Speaker 1: of a wrongful conviction. Starting with the police force in
Speaker 1: Lake County, Illinois. What do we know about the Lake
Speaker 1: County Major Crimes Task Force? They have been responsible for
Speaker 1: a myriad of wrongful convictions, documented wrongful convictions. Lake County
Speaker 1: was the epicenter of wrongful convictions in the United States,
Speaker 1: and Jed can name plenty of examples of that. Alejandro
Speaker 1: Dominguez is a freeman today, exonerated and wrongfully convicted. Juan
Speaker 1: Rivera is a freeman today, exonerated and conviction reversed. Benny
Speaker 1: Stark's exonerated and free after a wrongful conviction. Jason Strong
Speaker 1: the same all out of Lake County where Martie was convicted.
Speaker 1: Jed believed that Marty's conviction fits into this pattern, particularly
Speaker 1: her confession. There are hallmarks of false confessions. A number
Speaker 1: of wrongful convictions come about because of a confession or
Speaker 1: statement by the accused that at first blush implicates them
Speaker 1: in the crime, but uncareful analysis is shown to be
Speaker 1: a false confession, and no one did that at Marney's trial.
Speaker 1: Her description of the physical promises was wrong, her description
Speaker 1: of the order of bullets fired was wrong, and the
Speaker 1: way the body was found, as well as the way
Speaker 1: the body must have fallen was wrong. Those immutable mistakes
Speaker 1: of fact are evidence of a false confession. So Jed's
Speaker 1: team hired a false confessions expert to evaluate Martie's confession.
Speaker 1: David Thompson of Wick Lander and Associates. Yes, in fact,
Speaker 1: there are so many of them that there are now
Speaker 1: international experts in this area, and he concludes, and concludes correctly,
Speaker 1: that this has all of the hallmarks of a false confession.
Speaker 1: Another thing Jed points out where false claims made by
Speaker 1: prosecutor Patricia Fix as well as by police officers including
Speaker 1: George Flenko, Scott Frost, and Charles Schlitz. The state claims
Speaker 1: that when the police executed a search warrant, they found
Speaker 1: addressed labels in Marnie's apartment. I've seen how the police
Speaker 1: are trained to execute a search warrant and how they
Speaker 1: in fact execute search warrants. They document everything. There was
Speaker 1: no photograph of address labels. That struck me as so curious.
Speaker 1: Jed believed the address labels never existed, and the quote
Speaker 1: unsent letters prosecutors that were found in Martie's home were
Speaker 1: very simply the letters that Marnie had also been receiving.
Speaker 1: These police officers should not, must not, cannot be trusted,
Speaker 1: and the fact that these labels were never photographed is
Speaker 1: damning as to their reliability and truthfulness. There was also
Speaker 1: evidence that was never presented at trial that is exculpatory
Speaker 1: from Marnie, like the fingerprints, which were tested and did
Speaker 1: not match her. There was no evidence of Morney ever
Speaker 1: being at Ronnie's home. Marnie's new team of experts also
Speaker 1: investigated other claims the state needed trial, including that her
Speaker 1: rental car was seen on a gas station surveillance camera
Speaker 1: near the crime scene. They say in court, this video
Speaker 1: will capture a black Volkswagen Rabbit, the very car that
Speaker 1: Marni Yang rented and was driving in the neighborhood of
Speaker 1: the murder at the time of the murder. The post
Speaker 1: conviction defense team thought there might be something amiss with
Speaker 1: that piece of evidence, and so we went to the
Speaker 1: Shell gas station, looked at the video camera. And the
Speaker 1: truth is that, to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty,
Speaker 1: a video expert viewing that video says that car is
Speaker 1: not a Volkswagen Rabbit. It is not the car that
Speaker 1: was rented by miss Yang. It is not even the
Speaker 1: same make or model of the car as rented by
Speaker 1: miss Yang, and so the jury was miss lead. The
Speaker 1: evidence is unreliable and wrong. Marnie's experts also determined that
Speaker 1: it was unequivocally impossible for Marnie to have created a
Speaker 1: homemade silencer for the gun that killed Ronnie. They even
Speaker 1: had a firearms expert test the prosecution's theory, but even
Speaker 1: with his extensive experience, the expert could not physically build
Speaker 1: a silencer with those materials to fit on the gun
Speaker 1: used to kill Ronnie. The police theory that she used
Speaker 1: sea clamps from home depot to fix a silencer on
Speaker 1: the gun is foolishness. It doesn't work. It cannot be
Speaker 1: made to work under any circumstance. The investigators also discovered
Speaker 1: rolls of film taken at the crime scene that were
Speaker 1: never developed. When they were the photo showed bullet to
Speaker 1: dejectory patterns. Marnie's experts determined that at just five ft,
Speaker 1: Marnie was not physically tall enough to be the shooter.
Speaker 1: Witnesses descriptions the morning of the murder also echoed the
Speaker 1: belief that it couldn't have been Martie. Several people reported
Speaker 1: seeing a six ft tall black man in the area
Speaker 1: and even going up the stairs to Ronnie's apartment and
Speaker 1: Marnie just so that everybody knows, is a white woman
Speaker 1: who is five ft tall. So what about someone who
Speaker 1: better matches the description. When we became miss Yang's lawyers,
Speaker 1: we asked for production of the video surveillance tapes from
Speaker 1: a store next to the barbershop to see if we
Speaker 1: could accurately determined when Gail arrived and when he left.
Speaker 1: Jed believes that pat Fix either lied or misled the
Speaker 1: grand jury by saying Gail was LeRoy's barbershop at eight
Speaker 1: thirty a m. We determined that he arrived around ten o'clock,
Speaker 1: not eight thirty, and we determined that he left somewhere after.
Speaker 1: And in December of a new witness came forward with
Speaker 1: more pertinent information that again supported the claim that someone
Speaker 1: other than Marnie was the perpetrator. Jed and Martie's team
Speaker 1: filed their most recent petition with all of these details
Speaker 1: and more in December of last year. In May, the
Speaker 1: States submitted a motion to dismiss their petition. The back
Speaker 1: and forth could go on for months, and all the
Speaker 1: while Marnie will sit in prison. I firmly believe that
Speaker 1: Martey Yang is an innocent woman languishing in jail for
Speaker 1: a crime she never committed. And I firmly believe that
Speaker 1: the investor, gaistion and prosecution of her case falls into
Speaker 1: a deep disturbing pattern of wrongful convictions of innocent persons
Speaker 1: in Lake County, Illinois. Prosecutor Patricia Fix is now a
Speaker 1: Circuit court judge in the nineteenth Judicial Court in Lake County, Illinois.
Speaker 1: After her conviction, Marney and her kids last touch. Emily
Speaker 1: says she and her mom did not speak for about
Speaker 1: eight years, and you guys have a relationship now we do.
Speaker 1: We're as close as we can be. Um, She calls
Speaker 1: me her happy place. Hope that we can heals from
Speaker 1: this and her start her life again. What would her
Speaker 1: starting her life again look like? You have visions of
Speaker 1: of what you and your mom and your brothers are doing.
Speaker 1: Her cooking thanks getting dinner. My grandparents are there, and
Speaker 1: my brothers and my best friend Ah, turkey stuff being
Speaker 1: green bean cast all sweet potatoes. My mom was the
Speaker 1: one always cooking and we would always have it at
Speaker 1: her house. My mom is innocent, and I hope that
Speaker 1: sooner rather than later, we can connect and the physical
Speaker 1: together again. Marnie also hopes that the truth will come out.
Speaker 1: I did not commit this crime. I'm horrified by this crime,
Speaker 1: and I never lose sight of the collateral damage that
Speaker 1: this has m impacted everybody, everybody. I want justice in
Speaker 1: this case, for me, for Ronnie, and for everybody involved.
Speaker 1: Arnie's children, Emily, Andrew and Brandon wrote a book about
Speaker 1: their mom and her case. Searched the book, which is
Speaker 1: called My Mom Marnie. To learn more. Next time, un
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling Tammy Pool. He kept reaching
Speaker 1: for the trigger and I had my hands on the
Speaker 1: end of the barrel, and I kept thinking, it's gonna
Speaker 1: shoot me, It's gonna shoot me, and um, he of
Speaker 1: he pushed the trigger. Thank you for listening to Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction with Maggie Freeling. Please support your local innocence organizations
Speaker 1: and go to the links in our bio to see
Speaker 1: how you can help. I'd like to thank our executive
Speaker 1: producers Jason Flam and Kevin Wordis, as well as our
Speaker 1: senior producer Annie Chelsea, researcher Lila Robinson, story editor Sonya Paul,
Speaker 1: with additional production by Jeff Cleburne and Connor Hall. The
Speaker 1: music in this production is by three time OSCAR nominated
Speaker 1: composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Wrongful Conviction, as well as at Lava
Speaker 1: for Good. On all three platforms, you can also follow
Speaker 1: me on both Instagram and Twitter at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for
Speaker 1: Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one