Speaker 1: Hi there.
Speaker 2: I'm Steve Fishman with Orbit Media and we're here today
Speaker 2: with Dax Devlyn Ross. Today we're dropping the first episode
Speaker 2: of Dax's new true crime series, Crime Wolf. But before
Speaker 2: we get to that, some of you will remember Dax.
Speaker 2: He's the co founder a co founder of Orbit Media,
Speaker 2: also author, lawyer, journalist, and recently I hear a writer
Speaker 2: of science fiction. Dax and I worked together co hosting
Speaker 2: The Burden, which was Orbit's first splash in the true
Speaker 2: crime universe. I like to think I discovered Dax for podcasts.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me on the show, Steve may or
Speaker 3: may not be familiar with me from the work I've
Speaker 3: done with the one and only toast of the Town himself,
Speaker 3: Steve Fishman. So it's great to be here.
Speaker 2: So the band is back together. Unbelievable, right, you know,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six. It's what should happens, you know, it's
Speaker 2: how it should be. A few interesting tidbits about Dax
Speaker 2: before we get to the episode. All right, So see
Speaker 2: now this is this is Dax. He's always traveling. It's
Speaker 2: like a mysterious man. I can't keep up with him.
Speaker 2: I don't know what.
Speaker 3: I really can't tell you where I was this week.
Speaker 3: This was like I was in like a room. I
Speaker 3: will tell you I was at a I was in
Speaker 3: a convening where there was like security all over the floor.
Speaker 3: Like it was secure. It was a secure like you
Speaker 3: couldn't tell. You had to like give your badges when
Speaker 3: you got there, take them there to give, take your back,
Speaker 3: and you couldn't leave with your badge.
Speaker 2: See, Dax is making it sound like it's a one off,
Speaker 2: but this is how dactually. It's his life, and he
Speaker 2: won't tell you what he does. You know, he says like, uh, well,
Speaker 2: I just worked for the department, so I got no idea.
Speaker 2: I'm sure, I'm sure he's out righting wrongs.
Speaker 3: But trying to man, that's it. You know, it's a
Speaker 3: lot of wrongs to right in this world right now.
Speaker 2: And you know, as I I do like to point out,
Speaker 2: Dax is also on the pathway to perfection. You know,
Speaker 2: he's almost erased sleep as one need, pops out of
Speaker 2: bed at you know, like a quarter past midnight and
Speaker 2: does one hundred finger tip push ups. And then of
Speaker 2: course he's lucky he has to live in chef who
Speaker 2: makes him a calorie free breakfast.
Speaker 3: Well that would be great, right, Calari free. Right, that's
Speaker 3: called black coffee from a cure. That's with that.
Speaker 2: So Dax and I were last partners on our our
Speaker 2: flagship podcast, The Burden, which took I think six eight
Speaker 2: months to make.
Speaker 3: That's all.
Speaker 2: That's all took about four years to make, and it
Speaker 2: actually was really good, especially the showdown in the final episode.
Speaker 3: I still wake up thinking about it. Although people have
Speaker 3: given me flak over the you know a cloud couple
Speaker 3: of years, right, everybody has their opinions about how that
Speaker 3: should have gone down.
Speaker 2: Jax went on to host solo host a pretty brilliant
Speaker 2: podcast called Crying Wolf. I will say I think has
Speaker 2: gotten not enough attention. It's a kind of brilliant role
Speaker 2: out of a situation that we're sadly familiar with, the
Speaker 2: wrongful conviction. But in this in this instance, there's this
Speaker 2: amazing friendship at the center of it. Is that right that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is a story about two friends who meet
Speaker 3: in prison, and they meet and the meeting is fortuitous
Speaker 3: and so far as it's you know, somewhat short lived.
Speaker 3: They only are in actual cellmates for less than a year,
Speaker 3: but becoming self mates for less than a year. One guy,
Speaker 3: Robert is, you know, this young Jewish guy who's in
Speaker 3: prison because he has a drug problem. And he meets
Speaker 3: this character who has been accused of and convicted of murder,
Speaker 3: heinous murder, named Lee Harris, who's convinced and has never
Speaker 3: ever swayed from the you know, the expression of his
Speaker 3: of his innocence, and Robert listens, and when Robert gets out,
Speaker 3: he says, I'm gonna, I'm gonna look into this, and
Speaker 3: looking into this becomes the next twenty years of his life.
Speaker 3: And he finds the witness that was used against Lee,
Speaker 3: that was basically the one who sealed the deal. He
Speaker 3: finds this guy and he talks to this guy, and
Speaker 3: he finds out that this guy was a government you know, snitch,
Speaker 3: and he discovers that that Illinois, the Cook County knew it.
Speaker 3: They knew he was a snitch, and that they never
Speaker 3: revealed that to the to the jury, to the court.
Speaker 3: And so unfortunately Lee dies shortly after he gets out.
Speaker 3: He gets out in twenty twenty three. But what's left
Speaker 3: behind is like twenty years of tape because they've recorded
Speaker 3: the phone calls for years, and that becomes like the
Speaker 3: spine is that you hear this relationship between these two
Speaker 3: guys on the phone over the years.
Speaker 2: Today we're dropping the first episode of the series to
Speaker 2: listen to the rest Crying Wolf's Look for Crying Wolf
Speaker 2: wherever you get your podcasts, and if you don't like
Speaker 2: the many ads they stuff into every episode, subscribe to
Speaker 2: True Crime Clubhouse on Apple Podcasts and listen at free Enjoy.
Speaker 3: It's two thousand and one fifty miles southwest of Chicago,
Speaker 3: Joliet Penitentiary, ring a bell it should It's the prison
Speaker 3: from the opening scene of Blues Brothers. Prisoner number n
Speaker 3: eight one seven one seven. Lee Harris is tense. He's
Speaker 3: waiting on a new selly. Lee's had his share over
Speaker 3: the past decade, and it's always a crapshoot. A space
Speaker 3: seven feet by four feet with a bunk bed and
Speaker 3: an open toilet, intimately shared with another convict. There's a
Speaker 3: few ways this could go, as far as Lee's concerned,
Speaker 3: none good. You can be sure Lee did not expect
Speaker 3: someone like Robert Chatler to walk in on the outside.
Speaker 3: These men would have never cross paths. Lee, a black
Speaker 3: man and career scammer raised in Chicago's most notorious projects,
Speaker 3: now pushing fifty. Robert, a white Jewish kid from the
Speaker 3: suburbs half his age, an odd ball who sought solace
Speaker 3: rescuing insects and animals. How was this gonna work? In
Speaker 3: short order, Robert would drive Lee to his wits end.
Speaker 3: He chained smoked from sun up to sundown, all while
Speaker 3: playing radio dub Beetles cassettes on repeat. Lee hated smoking,
Speaker 3: and let's just say the Beatles weren't exactly his flavor.
Speaker 3: But all that would fade away because on that day,
Speaker 3: Lee Harris was about to meet his future best friend,
Speaker 3: brother from another and the key to his freedom from
Speaker 3: iHeart Podcasts. I'm Dax Steblin Ross and this is crying wolf.
Speaker 1: White victim, female, pretty wealthy black defendant.
Speaker 4: I mean, as soon as I saw it, I'm like,
Speaker 4: fuck me, this is gonna be bad.
Speaker 2: He says the police from his friends, and then that's it.
Speaker 5: They turn on it.
Speaker 3: I get ninety years for killing somebody I have never seen.
Speaker 6: They got the wrong That Lee's mouth was Lee's downfall.
Speaker 7: Along with dirty colls.
Speaker 1: There's a list of police officers who deserve a special
Speaker 1: place in health. As I walked down the hostel, said
Speaker 1: my home address.
Speaker 6: Upline came from the world of how the Techniques?
Speaker 5: Why didn't be your restaurant of grant? Why? How do
Speaker 5: you see?
Speaker 7: Don't you fear?
Speaker 1: Guys?
Speaker 7: I realized that I was from.
Speaker 6: The beginning, fell and killed Dana Filer, and that person's
Speaker 6: still out here.
Speaker 3: Episode one, The Right Guy. It's the late eighties. Paula
Speaker 3: Abdul and Public Enemy are in heavy rotation on MTV.
Speaker 3: Michael Jordan has yet to win a title. Some think
Speaker 3: he never will. Oprah is still on our way to
Speaker 3: becoming an afternoon icon. Lee Harris is thirty something living
Speaker 3: in Chicago's Near North Side. He's got a little boy
Speaker 3: we can't wait to teach the intricacies of softball. His
Speaker 3: own prospects aren't so bright. By his own admission, he's
Speaker 3: a petty crook running out of hustles. The one thing
Speaker 3: Lee does have going for him, besides his son, the
Speaker 3: thing that sets him apart is his charm. He could
Speaker 3: and would talk to anyone.
Speaker 5: I remember him walking up to us. You'd see your
Speaker 5: crew and it'd say, hey, how you doing. Oh hey,
Speaker 5: mister Jordan, what you guys doing here?
Speaker 3: That's Bob Jordan. And if you're from Chicago, you might
Speaker 3: recognize his commanding voice. Bob's a news veteran with a
Speaker 3: career spanning six decades. Back in the eighties, he was
Speaker 3: a general assignment reporter for the TV station WG in Chicago.
Speaker 3: Every day he'd gather his film crew and had to
Speaker 3: cover the city's biggest story of the day.
Speaker 5: Lee was not afraid to step out and be seen,
Speaker 5: be recognized, be known. If we're out doing a story,
Speaker 5: we'd want to find someone whom we could interview and say,
Speaker 5: you know, what's the problem of the day. People are
Speaker 5: many times afraid of a camera crew, but Lee wasn't.
Speaker 3: Living in the projects meant the media was usually there
Speaker 3: for one of two reasons, drugs or violence, and often
Speaker 3: both meant they were looking for a good SoundBite. For
Speaker 3: some residents, the site of reporters prompted a bline in
Speaker 3: the opposite direction. Being so amenable made Lee stand out.
Speaker 3: He stood out for other reasons too.
Speaker 5: I've been trying to think of words to describe him.
Speaker 5: Impetuous is kind of a word, because he was outside
Speaker 5: the norm. He was probably smarter than the average kid
Speaker 5: he ran around with because he knew how to work
Speaker 5: the system, and if I do this and do that,
Speaker 5: I can gain the system. I might be able to
Speaker 5: use it to my advantage. But he was unpolished. He
Speaker 5: was vulnerable to his own recklessness.
Speaker 3: The same unabashed approach Lee took with journalists like Bob
Speaker 3: Jordan extended to local beat coops too.
Speaker 1: He was very affable, he was very friendly, He was
Speaker 1: very you know, he respected as we were the police,
Speaker 1: but we respected, you know, we had different lifestyles.
Speaker 3: This is Harry Siwak and her partner Joseph Roberts Signoretti,
Speaker 3: but he also goes by Bob. Back in the day,
Speaker 3: Lee was a recurring character on their beat.
Speaker 6: He's a scam artist. There's an alley off of Rush Street.
Speaker 6: They call it Drug Alley Lee. He would sell fake drugs,
Speaker 6: burd bags.
Speaker 3: You know, the number dried herbs instead of weed. A
Speaker 3: regano meant whatever. A hustler can entice some thrill seeking
Speaker 3: inner city tourists with.
Speaker 6: And all the suburbanites would go across and walk, you know,
Speaker 6: so a black guy coming up and telling, you know, saying, hey,
Speaker 6: do you want anything.
Speaker 3: And more often than not they'd fall for it. But
Speaker 3: once a sale was made, real drugs are not. Bob
Speaker 3: would have to step in.
Speaker 6: The Sorry, Lee, you're gonna have to go to jail
Speaker 6: or or sometimes they just shag them out of there
Speaker 6: and you tell them get out of here because you
Speaker 6: don't want to hassle with them, and bray and stuck
Speaker 6: while he did, don't want to touch them, you know.
Speaker 3: So it was a any kind of dance back then
Speaker 3: between Lee and the police. Sometimes after a saale, Lee
Speaker 3: would hang around to get arrested on purpose. A trip
Speaker 3: to the precinct with his cop piles could be more
Speaker 3: pleasant than the wrath of a returning customer.
Speaker 1: But if he didn't do what he did, then we
Speaker 1: wouldn't do what we did right.
Speaker 6: He was job security.
Speaker 3: This love hate triangle between locals, the press, and the
Speaker 3: police could have typified daily life in any project. But
Speaker 3: Lee didn't live in just any project. He lived in
Speaker 3: one of the most infamous of them all, Cabrini Green.
Speaker 3: You've likely heard of Cabrini even if you couldn't point
Speaker 3: to it on a map. I certainly couldn't. It's where
Speaker 3: the Colthood horror candy Man was set. It's had countless
Speaker 3: mentions in Chicago rap and it was the backdrop for
Speaker 3: the classic black sitcom Good Times from the seventies. The
Speaker 3: title it was ironic in case you're wondering. When the
Speaker 3: first Cabrini rowhouses and towers went up in the nineteen
Speaker 3: forties and fifties, they represented optimism, the potential of public
Speaker 3: housing to provide quality homes for all. It was certainly
Speaker 3: a step up from the slum land it replaced Little
Speaker 3: Hell the locals used to call it, who at the
Speaker 3: time were a mix of Irish, Swedish and Italian immigrants.
Speaker 3: But by the nineteen eighties, when Lee lived there, things
Speaker 3: had changed a lot. The projects had become a new
Speaker 3: kind of poverty, poverty of gangs, drugs, and violence, and
Speaker 3: Cabrini's buildings were now exclusively housing black residents.
Speaker 1: Most of the police officers didn't want, even want nothing
Speaker 1: to do with Kabrini.
Speaker 3: It was wild.
Speaker 1: It was a different world.
Speaker 3: Crack cocaine was rife, controlled and fought over by the
Speaker 3: Mickey Cobras or the gangster disciples, some of Cabrini's most
Speaker 3: notorious gangs. Oddly enough, none of that phased Bob or Mary.
Speaker 1: We got along with all the gangs, the ones that
Speaker 1: hated and shot at each other. We were like their
Speaker 1: aunties or something. So it was an unusual relationship we
Speaker 1: had and Lee was one of those people.
Speaker 3: To be clear, Lee was not in a gang, a
Speaker 3: gangbanger as they used to call it. What's interesting, though,
Speaker 3: is that he somehow managed to get along with them all.
Speaker 3: He wasn't afraid of being seen. He also knew how
Speaker 3: to disappear into the crowd, make himself invisible or if
Speaker 3: nothing else, non threatening. More than anything, Lee was a survivor,
Speaker 3: which meant being both nothing in particular and a bit
Speaker 3: of everything. This showed up in his various occupations. Being
Speaker 3: that Kabrini was right next door to some of Chicago's
Speaker 3: most affluent neighborhoods, Lee would sometimes dabble in more legitimate pursuits,
Speaker 3: like window cleaning for the luxury high rises, and when
Speaker 3: window washing and burn bags didn't cut it, there was
Speaker 3: always a quick buck to be made sharing information with
Speaker 3: the cops.
Speaker 1: We would talk to him about things, Hey Lee, do
Speaker 1: you know about this or that? Or he said, hey, Lee,
Speaker 1: if you hear about anything.
Speaker 3: But an inexplicable tragedy a mere few blocks from Caribeania
Speaker 3: was about to shake up the natural order of things
Speaker 3: and send chills throughout the whole of Chicago. How people
Speaker 3: endure Chicago winters has never made sense to me. A
Speaker 3: place that hovers between bone cold and brick for months
Speaker 3: on end. Then you experience the summer, and suddenly it
Speaker 3: all makes sense. Chicagoans live for the summer. It's when
Speaker 3: the city exhales, when the frozen shorelines of Lake Michigan
Speaker 3: thaw into tanning mecchas dotted with beach bums and fitness diehards,
Speaker 3: and by night becomes stages from music, fireworks and joy.
Speaker 3: Summer in Chicago isn't just a season, It's a resurrection.
Speaker 3: Summer nineteen eighty nine was no different. Then came the
Speaker 3: night of June eighteenth.
Speaker 7: A twenty four year old woman lies in a coma tonight,
Speaker 7: the victim of an execution style shooting, apparently near her
Speaker 7: home on the Gold Coast.
Speaker 3: Dana Peitler was smart, attractive, from money as promising as
Speaker 3: they make them in America. She had just completed an
Speaker 3: internship at one of America's top banks and was about
Speaker 3: to begin graduate studies. Moments after returning home from a
Speaker 3: night out celebrating with friends, She's forced into a nearby alley,
Speaker 3: shot in the back of the head, and left for dead.
Speaker 3: The motive is unclear, although police find two ATM receipts
Speaker 3: in Dana's wallet. The time stamps indicate the withdrawals happened
Speaker 3: after she had returned home. Patrol cop Mary sya Way
Speaker 3: remembers it, well.
Speaker 1: She's from wealthy family down in the Gold Coast, right
Speaker 1: by Astro Street, which is the biggest money street where
Speaker 1: the governor lives, you know, right where all the concentration
Speaker 1: of money is. So it was a heater case.
Speaker 3: It was an instant heater and yes, it's exactly what
Speaker 3: you think it is. The heat was on. This kind
Speaker 3: of thing just didn't happen on the Gold Coast to
Speaker 3: a white woman. Not only was it one of the
Speaker 3: richest neighborhoods in Chicago, it was one of the richest
Speaker 3: neighborhoods in the entire country. Reporter Bob Jordan lived there
Speaker 3: around that time. He could attest to its bona fides.
Speaker 5: There was an air of security and you never felt
Speaker 5: ill at ease. So when Dana is discovered in this alley,
Speaker 5: it was a tremendous story because it broke the calm.
Speaker 3: The Dana Fightler case becomes a real life horror story
Speaker 3: that everyone is following. The media descend daily on Northwestern
Speaker 3: Memorial Hospital to get updates from Dana's neurosurgeon, and alongside
Speaker 3: fears for Dana, Chicago's residents have worked themselves into a
Speaker 3: kind of moral panic. ATMs are still a weird new
Speaker 3: invention in the eighties. Was this new technology safe? What
Speaker 3: was being compromised in the name of convenience? We found
Speaker 3: some TV footage from the time where a police superintendent
Speaker 3: Holess tells a reporter armed police won't use them. What
Speaker 3: in the devil are you guys doing standing at an ATM?
Speaker 3: And to top it all, tongues are wagging about the perpetrator.
Speaker 3: Surely this crime had been committed by a black man
Speaker 3: and was it only money he was after? First days,
Speaker 3: then weeks pass and Dana holds on. The city holds
Speaker 3: its breath. The police chase down leads to feed up
Speaker 3: the chain of command. The media scramble for tidbits to
Speaker 3: satiate its audiences. Bob Jordan had a front row seat
Speaker 3: to it all.
Speaker 5: As news crews. We were in the area doing that
Speaker 5: story daily, trying to do updates, trying to find ways
Speaker 5: to work the story with new angles and that sort
Speaker 5: of thing.
Speaker 3: Then, out of nowhere, a woman who was out walking
Speaker 3: her dog the night of the incident comes forward. She
Speaker 3: has some vital new information. Moments before the attack, she
Speaker 3: saw Dana being led down a street by three men,
Speaker 3: three black men. After weeks of waiting for a break,
Speaker 3: the CPD finally has something. And then just as news
Speaker 3: from the witness becomes known, Dana's family makes an unusual move.
Speaker 3: They put up a sizeable reward. Might the promise of
Speaker 3: hard cast shake loose some new leads jog a few
Speaker 3: memories the fighters. One answers the city when the.
Speaker 5: Mayor is getting static from his constituents. Then he calls
Speaker 5: the police chief and says, what the hell's going on
Speaker 5: with this fight er story? How close are you in
Speaker 5: getting this wrapped up? And then the police chief calls
Speaker 5: his neighborhood commander and says, how soon are you getting
Speaker 5: it wrapped up? That pressure all the way to the
Speaker 5: patrolan is find somebody, make some arrests.
Speaker 3: Armed with this new information from the dogwalker, the CPD
Speaker 3: puts every cop in the vicinity on high alert, even beat.
Speaker 3: Cops like Mary and Bob get drafted. They're summoned to
Speaker 3: an emergency briefing and their orders find any scrap of
Speaker 3: information they possibly can about that night. And this is
Speaker 3: not going to be a collaboration effort across the force.
Speaker 3: This is cop against cop. Whoever brings home the biggest scraps,
Speaker 3: it's the biggest prize.
Speaker 1: It was very doggy dove.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And if you want to be the police, you get
Speaker 1: the bad guys, then you've got to do battle. You've
Speaker 1: got to compete.
Speaker 3: As Mary and Bob step out of the precinct, they
Speaker 3: know exactly where the head first, the streets.
Speaker 1: There'd be thousands of people out there, you know, in
Speaker 1: the summertime, everybody be out there, everybody, and there's always
Speaker 1: somebody that saw all those people all day long, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Somebody always would see what happened.
Speaker 3: Someone perhaps like Lee Harris.
Speaker 1: He could have been there. Yeah, he could have been there.
Speaker 1: He was a contender, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Turns out finding Lee doesn't require much effort at all.
Speaker 3: Mary and Bob bump into him almost immediately. They fill
Speaker 3: him in about the crime, but also the reward twenty
Speaker 3: five large for anyone who can provide information that leads
Speaker 3: to an arrest.
Speaker 1: We're the ones that totally about it.
Speaker 4: And back then there was a lot of money, and
Speaker 4: he was a money guy. He was a you know,
Speaker 4: can guy five thousand dollars okay, you know, I mean
Speaker 4: there was a motive for him to want to find
Speaker 4: out about it.
Speaker 1: Because in his situation, you know, there was good money.
Speaker 3: Right, always a man to work numerous angles. Lee has
Speaker 3: also been talking to some other cops who worked the
Speaker 3: Gabrini beat. Old friends, in fact partners, James Ward and
Speaker 3: John McHugh. These guys went way back. They used to
Speaker 3: help Lee out when he got in trouble with the law.
Speaker 3: They'd loan him money sometimes. They even attended Lee's wedding
Speaker 3: back in the day. Ward and mceu are much closer
Speaker 3: to the case than Bob and Mary. They're working directly
Speaker 3: for the lead on the Fightler case, Detective Richard Zuley,
Speaker 3: a tough talking cop known for making cases and making
Speaker 3: them stick. They tell Lee some enticing insider information. They've
Speaker 3: got three suspects in the case, well known criminals from
Speaker 3: the area. The trigger man went by the street name Cheese,
Speaker 3: but with no witnesses placing them there, there's no chance
Speaker 3: of making any arrests Lee gets thinking a twenty five
Speaker 3: thousand dollars reward has a whole lot of burn bags
Speaker 3: and cleaning windows. He could start a new life, move
Speaker 3: his son out of Cabrini. His mind starts worrying. Cabrini,
Speaker 3: Green and the Gold Coast are just around the corner
Speaker 3: from each other. We're talking less than a mile walking distance.
Speaker 3: And the three suspects are also from the projects. It
Speaker 3: will be believable that Lee knew them. He thinks, maybe
Speaker 3: I was there the night Dana was attacked. Maybe I
Speaker 3: did see something or someone. Lee decides he does know
Speaker 3: something about the knight of the crime, and he knows
Speaker 3: who he needs to speak to about it. He heads
Speaker 3: straight to Area six to find Ward McHugh and their boss,
Speaker 3: Detective Richard Zulie. Mary was unimpressed.
Speaker 1: Those detectives are used to be called Area six. They
Speaker 1: were all priman honas. I have to admit he hurt
Speaker 1: my feelings a little bit because I thought that we
Speaker 1: had a rapport and I thought, you know, because it
Speaker 1: was a heater case and he would have liked to
Speaker 1: been the one that you know solved it, because there
Speaker 1: is an elation to solving a case, getting the right guy,
Speaker 1: you know, solving it.
Speaker 3: And that was the last time that Marry and Bob
Speaker 3: ever spoke to Lee.
Speaker 1: See once he got involved like that, we disengaged because
Speaker 1: why would we be involved with him?
Speaker 3: Ward and mckue are all ears. Dana is still in
Speaker 3: a coma, fighting for her life. They want to nail
Speaker 3: this case before anyone else does, and now it looks
Speaker 3: like they might have a reliable witness putting their suspects
Speaker 3: in the frame. It's a win win. Lee is a
Speaker 3: shoe win for the reward money and the police get
Speaker 3: their suspects and maybe some promotions as well. Warden and
Speaker 3: mcew are at the ready to help Lee prepare his
Speaker 3: words ahead of making his formal statement to Detective Zuli.
Speaker 3: I was having a coffee and dunkin Donuts when I
Speaker 3: saw three black guys running out.
Speaker 2: Of the out.
Speaker 3: Quickest twenty five k Lee whatever make But a few
Speaker 3: days later, his friends Warden mcew ask if he wouldn't
Speaker 3: mind coming back for another statement. A little more detail
Speaker 3: would be really helpful. Lee thinks, sure, why not? What
Speaker 3: starts out is just one statement soon becomes two, then three, four, five, six,
Speaker 3: and each time warden mcew reminding Lee of some helpful
Speaker 3: details from the night Dana was shot, the exact alley
Speaker 3: she was shot in, a black garage door, an ivy
Speaker 3: covered wall. Before long, Lee is not just offering peripheral
Speaker 3: scraps of information about the night of the crime. He's
Speaker 3: the key to it all, the state star witness. So
Speaker 3: much so he's moved out of Cabrini for his own safety,
Speaker 3: all on the taxpayer's dollar way win right, But Ward
Speaker 3: and McHugh are hungry for even more information. They need
Speaker 3: Lee to be closer to the action. Maybe he was
Speaker 3: part of the gang that attacked Dana. They assure Lee
Speaker 3: not to worry. This is all just so they can
Speaker 3: nail Cheese and the other members of the gang. Detective
Speaker 3: Zuli gives Lee his word and so and yet another statement.
Speaker 3: Lee tells Zuli he was the fourth member of the gang.
Speaker 3: The police are getting closer and closer to closing the case,
Speaker 3: and those statements from Lee keep on coming. In total,
Speaker 3: he gives twenty two and then on the tenth of July,
Speaker 3: three weeks after the attack.
Speaker 7: After lingering in a coma for twenty one days. Dana
Speaker 7: Fightler taken off life support systems and died. Police are
Speaker 7: giving on very little information. They're being very tight lip.
Speaker 7: This is a high priority case and they're being very careful.
Speaker 3: It's a tragedy for the Fightler family and for the CPD.
Speaker 3: The pressure is really on. They are now on the
Speaker 3: hunt for a murderer, and thanks to Lee, they finally
Speaker 3: have the evidence that they need to make that arrest.
Speaker 3: Bob Jordan is at work one morning waiting on his
Speaker 3: assignment for the day when the news breaks Dana Feitler's
Speaker 3: murderer has been found, but when he hears the name,
Speaker 3: it comes as a big shock. Turns out it's someone
Speaker 3: he already knows, Lee Harris.
Speaker 5: When they arrested Lee, I remember saying to my camera, man, hey,
Speaker 5: you know this guy. They're arrested. We've interviewed him, We've
Speaker 5: seen him around. He was always around. The switch around
Speaker 5: is baffling. The CPD's star witness has become their prime suspect.
Speaker 5: But in the end, what choice did they have? All
Speaker 5: those statements Lee was giving, all twenty two of them.
Speaker 5: With each one he.
Speaker 3: Was clearly incriminating himself and then, to top it all,
Speaker 3: the dog walker that saw Dana moments before the attack.
Speaker 3: She has identified Lee, not Cheese or any other members
Speaker 3: of the gang in a lineup. Solving a heater case
Speaker 3: is like winning a championship, but instead of a parade,
Speaker 3: you get a press conference, a really big one. After
Speaker 3: weeks of waiting, wondering and wild speculation, the entire press
Speaker 3: corps summoned. Camera's ready, Mike's hot.
Speaker 5: Every TV station was there, all the newspapers, everyone.
Speaker 3: Bob Jordan and his cameraman Mike elbow their way to
Speaker 3: the front. Everyone is thirsty for the money shot, the
Speaker 3: purp walk, that moment when the cuffed perpetrator, flanked by
Speaker 3: police officers, is finally revealed to the public.
Speaker 5: I can only imagine what that must be like to
Speaker 5: come through a door and face a whole wall of
Speaker 5: probably ten or twelve TV cameras in lights. That's how
Speaker 5: big a story. It was just the sound alone of
Speaker 5: the flashbulbs going off and the cameras rolling, and these
Speaker 5: were noisy cameras back in those days, and you know,
Speaker 5: there was a cacophony of sound in that room and
Speaker 5: the lights flashing, and reporters of screaming, Lee, did you
Speaker 5: do it? Did you kill her?
Speaker 3: Did you shoot her?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 2: Where were you?
Speaker 3: Bob manages to hold his position at the front. It's
Speaker 3: enough to get Lee and I shot.
Speaker 5: Remember the look on his face. It was a look
Speaker 5: of shock and amazement, and it was like he had
Speaker 5: seen something unreal. I don't know if he saw me.
Speaker 5: I think he did. His eyes bulged and it was
Speaker 5: like he wanted to say something but couldn't or was
Speaker 5: too afraid, or was too in awe of the moment.
Speaker 5: But he ducked his head and then was escorted away.
Speaker 3: Crying Wolf is an iHeart and Clockwork Films podcast in
Speaker 3: association with Chalk and Blade. I'm your host Dax Devlin Ross.
Speaker 3: The series producer is Sarah Stolart's. The senior producer is
Speaker 3: Laura Hyde. The serious script is written by me and
Speaker 3: by Sarah Stolart's. Bonus episodes are written and produced by
Speaker 3: me Dax Devlin Ross. Our executive producers are Christina Everett
Speaker 3: for iHeart Podcasts, Naomi Harvey and Jamie Cohen for Clockwork Films,
Speaker 3: and Ruth Barnes and Jason Phipps for Chalk and Blade.
Speaker 3: Sound design is by Kenny Koziak and George dre bing Hicks.
Speaker 3: Our theme music is by Kenny Koziak. Additional production support
Speaker 3: from Stephen Pate