Speaker 1: Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura and I writer.
Speaker 2: And I'm Steve Drusen.
Speaker 1: So far, we've told you false confession stories that span
Speaker 1: the United States, from urban Chicago to rural Nebraska. Today,
Speaker 1: we'll take you across the globe to New Zealand with
Speaker 1: a story that still hits way too close to home.
Speaker 1: A sixteen year old boy who confessed to a rape
Speaker 1: and murder he didn't commit. His wrongful conviction allowed the
Speaker 1: real offender, a prolific serial rapist, to assault dozens of
Speaker 1: other women, while a teenager languished behind bars after making
Speaker 1: a murder. Came out season two, Steve and I have
Speaker 1: had an opportunity to travel around the globe talking to
Speaker 1: audiences about the problem of false confessions and the need
Speaker 1: for criminal justice reform. We've spoken everywhere from the United
Speaker 1: States to the United Das Kingdom, to Ireland to Australia.
Speaker 1: Can you remember this guy, Steve, who traveled around Australia
Speaker 1: with us?
Speaker 2: Oh God, this guy, this guy was beautiful. What was
Speaker 2: his name, Jimon? His name was Simon. Simon. Simon was
Speaker 2: like a roadie from the nineteen seventies, always wearing black
Speaker 2: T shirts and deep into the heavy metal scene.
Speaker 1: Somehow, poor Simon gets assigned to the lawyers who are
Speaker 1: traveling around talking about false confessions. One of my personal
Speaker 1: points of pride though, is that by the end of
Speaker 1: this trip around Australia, he seemed to like what we
Speaker 1: were trying to do, so we had a great time
Speaker 1: with him. But Simon kept asking us, as did everybody
Speaker 1: else we met around Australia. Have you heard about Tana Pora?
Speaker 1: Have you heard about New Zealand's Brendon Dassy And that's
Speaker 1: exactly who Tana is.
Speaker 2: Police officers around the world are often trained in very
Speaker 2: similar ways about how to interrogate suspects, and so I
Speaker 2: expected and was beginning to discover false confessions in places
Speaker 2: like Japan and Korea and other Commonwealth countries like Australia
Speaker 2: and New Zealand and Canada.
Speaker 1: These are stories that hit home around the globe, whether
Speaker 1: it's for you know, social justice driven lawyers or heavy
Speaker 1: metal roadies. You know Tanapora, Brendan Dacy. We all know
Speaker 1: someone vulnerable like them, and we can all see them
Speaker 1: need to do justice in cases like these. Tanapora's story
Speaker 1: starts about eight thousand miles away from where Steve and
Speaker 1: I are sitting right now in the United States. It
Speaker 1: starts in South Auckland. That's an urban area on the
Speaker 1: southern edge of New Zealand's largest city, Auckland. It's home
Speaker 1: to a large minority population, including Mao Reed's, the indigenous
Speaker 1: Polynesian population of New Zealand. Parts of South Auckland can
Speaker 1: have negative connotations too often. It's associated with poverty and crime.
Speaker 1: When our story starts in nineteen ninety two, South Auckland
Speaker 1: was home to a nine year old woman named Susan Burdette.
Speaker 1: Susan lived alone in a tidy house on Paw Road.
Speaker 1: She worked days as an account's clerk at a chemical
Speaker 1: manufacturing company, and on the evening of March twenty third,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two, Susan leaves her weekly bowling league meet
Speaker 1: up and drives home under a night of beautiful stars.
Speaker 1: Susan's a hard worker, so when she doesn't show up
Speaker 1: at work the next few days, her colleagues get concerned.
Speaker 1: They call her friend Steve eventually to find out if
Speaker 1: he knows where she is. Steve gets worried and he
Speaker 1: ends up going over to Susan's house That Wednesday, March
Speaker 1: twenty fifth, at about twelve forty pm, he finds the
Speaker 1: front door unlocked, goes inside and is greeted with a
Speaker 1: horrible sight. Susan is lying horizontally on her waterbed and
Speaker 1: she's clearly dead. The upper half of her body is
Speaker 1: wrapped in a duvet and there's a wooden baseball bet
Speaker 1: lying on the bed next to her. Her legs are
Speaker 1: dangling off the side of the bed and there crossed.
Speaker 1: Someone whoever did this had positioned her that way. The
Speaker 1: police arrived, they remove the duvet and they find that
Speaker 1: Susan had been beaten badly about the head, very likely
Speaker 1: with the baseball bat. She'd also been sexually assaulted, and
Speaker 1: there's plenty of DNA left behind seamen, as well as
Speaker 1: a bloody smudge mark on a light switch. Susan's hands
Speaker 1: were covered with defensive wounds, which indicates that she'd fought
Speaker 1: back against her attacker, and her friends later identified the
Speaker 1: baseball bat as belonging to Susan. She had kept it
Speaker 1: next to her bed for her own protection. The police
Speaker 1: begin by investigating Susan's other friends, but DNA and alibis
Speaker 1: clear them all and the investigation quickly stalls. The pressure
Speaker 1: is building building, that is until about a week after
Speaker 1: the murder. That's when police get a call from a
Speaker 1: woman named Terry McLoughlin and she tells them a story
Speaker 1: about her then sixteen year old nephew, a shaggy haired,
Speaker 1: baby faced mawory kid named Tana Poora.
Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about Tana for a bit. Tana had
Speaker 2: it rough growing up. His mother died when he was
Speaker 2: a young boy, and his father left shortly afterwards. He
Speaker 2: then got passed around from family member to family member
Speaker 2: and ultimately ended up in his aunt Terry's house.
Speaker 1: A few days after Susan Burdett's murder made headlines, Tana
Speaker 1: and some friends found a baseball bat in the local
Speaker 1: park and they were joking about it being the murder weapon.
Speaker 1: Back at Aunt Terry's house, Tana kept talking about the bat.
Speaker 1: Tana had a history of run ins with the law,
Speaker 1: nothing really serious, but enough for Terry to want him
Speaker 1: out of her house. She called the police over and over,
Speaker 1: insisting that Tana knew something about Susan Burdett's murder. But
Speaker 1: police quickly come to the conclusion that Tana and his
Speaker 1: buddies were just over excited teens who were talking shit.
Speaker 1: They interviewed Tana, they take his DNA, they even execute
Speaker 1: a search warrant, but Tana and his friends are ruled
Speaker 1: out exclusively as Susan Burdett's killers. The DNA doesn't match,
Speaker 1: the search warrant turns up nothing, and while Tana does
Speaker 1: have a record, there is nothing in his background that
Speaker 1: would suggests this level of violence or depravity.
Speaker 2: Now let's fast forward almost exactly twelve months to March eighteenth,
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety three. We're almost a year out now from
Speaker 2: the discovery of Susan Burdett's body in the course of
Speaker 2: police investigations. That's a lifetime, and this is the only
Speaker 2: unsolved homicide from nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 1: Tana Pora is seventeen years old. Now he still has
Speaker 1: that babyface, but his police record has grown. During a
Speaker 1: routine interview with Tana about a car theft, police get
Speaker 1: an anonymous phone tip about Susan Burdett's murder. This caller
Speaker 1: links the murder to a local gang called the Mongrel Mob,
Speaker 1: a gang Tana is rumored to have connections with, so
Speaker 1: the police decide to keep him at the station for questioning.
Speaker 1: His interrogation begins at nine and continues for the next
Speaker 1: four days.
Speaker 2: The police have Tana Pora in the interrogation room and
Speaker 2: he's telling multiple different stories. The stories don't make any sense,
Speaker 2: and it's not an interrogation with banging of the table
Speaker 2: or raised voices or threats or even promises to unite.
Speaker 3: A comment that you're gonna tell us more?
Speaker 2: Is that correct? Okay? Well, tell us this is a
Speaker 2: seventeen year old kid who is highly suggestible and eager
Speaker 2: to please the authorities. They're plying him with cigarettes and
Speaker 2: fast food and drinks.
Speaker 3: You had spring raw buckdog chips and drink.
Speaker 2: Is that correct?
Speaker 1: The detectives even mentioned twenty thousand dollars as a reward
Speaker 1: for information about Susan Burdett's rape and murder. Tana's story
Speaker 1: keeps evolving and the camera keeps getting turned on and off.
Speaker 2: You said you were going to tell us everything first.
Speaker 1: Tana tells the police that he drove two other men
Speaker 1: to Susan's house and waited outside while they went into attacker.
Speaker 2: Are you telling us about a person called dog raping
Speaker 2: this woman? Did you hear any more or see any more?
Speaker 2: I was outside in the carabeene.
Speaker 1: Eventually he changes that story.
Speaker 3: I thought what you've said so fair that you climbed
Speaker 3: it in the bedroom window and you've gone through to
Speaker 3: open the door up for the other two.
Speaker 1: All right, Now he's climbing in through one of Susan
Speaker 1: Burdett's windows and letting the other two in through the
Speaker 1: front door.
Speaker 2: And you were in there.
Speaker 1: You could see quite clearly what was happening, Is that right?
Speaker 2: Okay? I was just watching and you were just watching, okay.
Speaker 1: And in the end, after four days, Tana confesses to
Speaker 1: being in the room, to actually holding Susan down while
Speaker 1: his two associates raped her.
Speaker 2: And you were in the room some other's time while
Speaker 2: this was happening.
Speaker 3: Is it right? You were holding Susan down.
Speaker 2: And that last story, the one that ultimately seals Tana's fate.
Speaker 2: It comes after a break in the tea room, where
Speaker 2: of course, the cameras are turned off at.
Speaker 1: The suggestion of the police. Tana identifies this to supposed
Speaker 1: accomplices as senior members of the Mongrel Mob, that local gang.
Speaker 1: The police bring in those two individuals that Tana had named,
Speaker 1: but their DNA doesn't match the DNA found on Susan's body,
Speaker 1: they're cleared and they're released. Things don't go as smoothly
Speaker 1: for Tana. He's arrested based on his confession. He's charged
Speaker 1: with Susan Burdette's rape and murder, and fourteen long months later,
Speaker 1: prosecutors try Tana Porra for participating in the murder of
Speaker 1: Susan Burdett along with two unknown accomplices.
Speaker 2: And let's stop right here for a minute. This is
Speaker 2: round one of the battle of these two titans of evidence,
Speaker 2: confessions versus DNA. DNA seemed to clear Tanapora of any
Speaker 2: rolling this crime, but it's the confessions that ultimately lead
Speaker 2: to his conviction.
Speaker 1: On June sixteenth, nineteen ninety four, a jury took less
Speaker 1: than ninety minutes to Convictaan Apora of rape and murder.
Speaker 1: He received a life sentence and was shipped off to prison.
Speaker 1: At the same time, the New Zealand Police are beginning
Speaker 1: a focused investigation into six rapes that had occurred between
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight and nineteen ninety two in the Auckland area,
Speaker 1: including Susan Burdette's rape. Now, these attacks were all similar
Speaker 1: enough that some police officers began to worry that they
Speaker 1: had a serial rapist on their hands. All of them
Speaker 1: involved a lone wolf attacker who broke into women's homes,
Speaker 1: wrapped their heads in blankets or duveys, and repositioned them
Speaker 1: so that they lay sideways across the edge of the
Speaker 1: bed during the attack. And by April nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 1: a few years after Tana's conviction, the investigation into these
Speaker 1: rapes linked them all, including Susan Burdett's attack, to the
Speaker 1: DNA of the same person, a man named Malcolm Raywa.
Speaker 2: Now who is Malcolm Rewa? First of all, he's twenty
Speaker 2: years older than Tana Porra. And while I usually try
Speaker 2: to avoid characterizing my fellow humans like this, Raywa is
Speaker 2: a monster. He's a terrifying figure, a prolific serial rapist.
Speaker 1: He's the kind of predator that women worry about. He's
Speaker 1: the worst nightmare. Raywak committed his first rape in the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies. His wife was in labor giving birth to
Speaker 1: their child at the time, so Raywa took the opportunity
Speaker 1: to sexually assault a nurse in a hospital bed. Unbelievable
Speaker 1: four and.
Speaker 2: A half years in prison he spent for that awful crime.
Speaker 1: So he gets out of prison and apparently rapes again.
Speaker 1: From then on, over the dozens of rapes that he
Speaker 1: went on to commit, rey Wa started developing a pattern
Speaker 1: an mo O. He'd carefully select his victims who tended
Speaker 1: to be single women, professionals who were home alone. He'd
Speaker 1: stake out their homes in advance and plan his attacks meticulously,
Speaker 1: and then always the same thing, a surprise attack after
Speaker 1: the woman had fallen asleep, a physical attack first to
Speaker 1: subdue her, then the blanket or duvet around her head,
Speaker 1: and a rape at the side of the bed.
Speaker 2: And Raya would hide in their homes. He would wait
Speaker 2: for them to get into bed and begin to fall asleep,
Speaker 2: and then he would attack.
Speaker 1: Ray Wall apparently suffered from a rectile dysfunction, which is
Speaker 1: why he positioned his victims in a way that allowed
Speaker 1: him to maintain sexual contact during his attacks. That's also
Speaker 1: why he acted alone. He didn't exactly want an audience.
Speaker 1: Ray was arrested on May thirteenth, nineteen ninety six. It's
Speaker 1: a pretty dramatic sting operation. Actually, the police had been
Speaker 1: planning this for quite some time. When he tries to
Speaker 1: run police dogs wrestle this guy to the ground. Now,
Speaker 1: the police remember that Tana Pora had already confessed to
Speaker 1: one of the rapes to which Reywa is tied by DNA,
Speaker 1: so they immediately ask him if he knows Tana Pura.
Speaker 1: Raywa is crystal clear never met him. Based on the
Speaker 1: arrest of Malcolm Rawa, the Court of Appeals throws out
Speaker 1: Tana's conviction in nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 2: Never met him. Now, at this point in time, where
Speaker 2: you have a prolific serial rapist operating in the same
Speaker 2: neighborhood as the Burdette murder and his DNA is at
Speaker 2: the crime scene and he's telling you I don't know Tanapura,
Speaker 2: most prosecutors and police officers would throw their hands up
Speaker 2: and say we can't go forward with the reprosecution of
Speaker 2: Tana Pura. We have to free him.
Speaker 1: But instead Tana is retried, and if you've listened to
Speaker 1: this podcast, you know what's coming. Prosecutors change their theory
Speaker 1: of the case and argue at Tana's second trial that
Speaker 1: he and Rewa raped and killed Susan Burdett together, even
Speaker 1: though Rewa had denied knowing Tana, even though Reywa always
Speaker 1: acted alone, and even though Rewa would never have wanted
Speaker 1: some teenager there to witness his sexual dysfunction.
Speaker 2: So now we have round two of a battle between
Speaker 2: confession evidence and DNA evidence, except this time we know
Speaker 2: whose DNA it is. It's the DNA of a serial
Speaker 2: rapist named Malcolm Rewa. Will Tana's confession bring him down
Speaker 2: or will the jury side with the science and recognize
Speaker 2: that Tana Pora and Malcolm Rewa had never met?
Speaker 1: Sure enough, despite all hopes that the DNA evidence would
Speaker 1: be an enough to clear Tana, Tana was convicted a
Speaker 1: second time of raping and murdering Susan Burdett and sent
Speaker 1: back to his life sentence. Meanwhile, Malcolm Rewa himself stood
Speaker 1: trial for three months in nineteen ninety eight on what
Speaker 1: amounted to forty five counts of rape involving twenty seven
Speaker 1: different women. His trial ended with convictions for sexually assaulting
Speaker 1: twenty five of them, including Susan Burdett. Just like Tana,
Speaker 1: he was shipped off to prison for decades. Now, this
Speaker 1: is justice for Rewa, but for Tana Porra it's anything but.
Speaker 1: And for years Tana served as time with little hope
Speaker 1: of freedom, and things might have stayed bleak for him
Speaker 1: had it not been for a man named Tim McKinnell.
Speaker 2: Now who is.
Speaker 3: Tim McKinnell at the moment in time is self employed,
Speaker 3: private and vistigator. But when I finished university I joined
Speaker 3: the police. As a twenty two year old.
Speaker 2: Tim mckinnall started out his career as a cop, A
Speaker 2: good cop, one of the best cops hoops. Tim had
Speaker 2: become a member of the South Auckland Police Force in
Speaker 2: the late nineteen nineties, eventually rising to junior detective by
Speaker 2: the year two thousand. That year, the force had been
Speaker 2: divided over the case of Tanapura.
Speaker 3: A lot of chat went on and the police bar
Speaker 3: at the time, and there was a real disconnect between
Speaker 3: two different groups of people. People that thought Tana Porter
Speaker 3: was a guilty man and had been involved in the
Speaker 3: ripe and murder of Susan Beidett, and there was another
Speaker 3: camp of experienced police officers who thought that he was
Speaker 3: an innocent man.
Speaker 2: In fact, Tim remembers seeing all manner of drunken arguments
Speaker 2: at police bars and he was struck by the passion
Speaker 2: of those who believed in Tanapura.
Speaker 1: Tim never forgot those arguments or his own growing doubt
Speaker 1: about Tana's guilt even after he eventually left the police force,
Speaker 1: and as many retired officers do, he became a private investigator.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and seven, Tim attended a local conference
Speaker 1: on wrongful convictions and false confessions, and that conference brought
Speaker 1: up those old, lingering questions that Tim had about Tana's case.
Speaker 1: The last straw came when Tim was diagnosed in his
Speaker 1: thirties with a rare blood disorder, not exactly a death sentence,
Speaker 1: but the kind of health scare that led him to
Speaker 1: reevaluate his priorities and seek out more meaningful work like
Speaker 1: freeing the innocent. Eventually, Tim decided to take the plunge.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and nine, he visited Tana Pora, who
Speaker 1: was then thirty four years old in prison. Tana was
Speaker 1: no longer that teenage car thief Tim had read about.
Speaker 1: He was polite, well mannered, surprisingly gentle, even warm. Tim
Speaker 1: begins to feel an urge to help this guy.
Speaker 2: But there's the matter of Tana's confession. Tim starts by
Speaker 2: digging up videotapes of Tana's interrogation, and they're not easy
Speaker 2: to find. They're on old VHS tapes in boxes in
Speaker 2: police departments. But he gets them and he sits down
Speaker 2: to watch them, and he is blown away by what
Speaker 2: he saw.
Speaker 3: When you examine what he was able to say on
Speaker 3: day one, in the first few interviews on tape, and
Speaker 3: you compare that to what he was able to say
Speaker 3: four days later, there are marked differences. There were some
Speaker 3: very particular things that happened in Susan's house that the
Speaker 3: offender would know, and it's clear from the interviews that
Speaker 3: Tana Porter had no idea about any of them.
Speaker 1: Despite four days worth of trying, Tina just was not
Speaker 1: able to tell a story that matched what actually happened.
Speaker 1: When police asked him to describe Susan Burdette, he says
Speaker 1: she was chubby, even though she was actually quite athletic.
Speaker 1: Tina is asked to draw a picture of how he
Speaker 1: left Susan's body. Remember she'd been found horizontally with her
Speaker 1: legs dangling over the side of the bed, but he
Speaker 1: draws her lying vertically on the bed. When he was
Speaker 1: asked whether there was anything special about Susan's bed, Tena
Speaker 1: can't come up with the fact that it was a
Speaker 1: wider bat.
Speaker 3: And so one of the questions that arises about that
Speaker 3: is how did he come to know things on day
Speaker 3: four that he didn't know on day one.
Speaker 1: The interrogators take Tina on a field trip to Susan
Speaker 1: Burdett's street so that he can point out details of
Speaker 1: the crime to them in person, and they videotaped the
Speaker 1: whole thing.
Speaker 3: He started giving them directions that were taking them away
Speaker 3: from her house, so they helpfully tried to direct him
Speaker 3: back towards her house. It was pretty clear on tape
Speaker 3: that he still had no idea where he was going
Speaker 3: and wasn't able to identify anything familiar. In the end,
Speaker 3: they took him to the outside of the house where
Speaker 3: Susan had been raped murdered and asked him if he
Speaker 3: recognized anything, and again he didn't, so the police officer
Speaker 3: and it's really chilling, really chilling to watch it. He said, Look,
Speaker 3: it's clear you don't recognize what it is you're looking for,
Speaker 3: So do you think it would help if I showed
Speaker 3: you house? And that's an extraordinary thing for a police
Speaker 3: officer to do.
Speaker 2: For Tim, that's it. This was a false confession. He
Speaker 2: was motivated, fired up, and he would not rest until
Speaker 2: Tina Poora was cleared. But he needs to present more
Speaker 2: evidence to the lawyers and other people he wants to
Speaker 2: get involved in this case.
Speaker 3: So Tana's case isn't one that was only scarred by
Speaker 3: false confession. There were the other issues that were beginning
Speaker 3: to arise with the involvement of Tana's family.
Speaker 2: Tina's cousin became a key witness for the prosecution against Tana.
Speaker 2: She claimed that she had seen Tina with Rewa on
Speaker 2: multiple occasions, including once at Tina's girlfriend's home.
Speaker 1: But Tim was able to discredit Martha's testimony.
Speaker 3: There was evidence of paid witnesses, including his cousin and
Speaker 3: his auntie. Those family members gave evidence against him, and
Speaker 3: we know that at least one of them was paid
Speaker 3: five thousand dollars for her trouble.
Speaker 1: Tim tracks down Fiona, Tina's girlfriend, and Fiona says that
Speaker 1: she has no idea who Malcolm Rawell was and that
Speaker 1: he was never in her home. From his time on
Speaker 1: the police force, Tim was well acquainted with the various
Speaker 1: gangs operating around South Auckland, so for him, one piece
Speaker 1: of the prosecution's argument was clearly ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Malcolm Rawa was a senior member of the Highway sixty
Speaker 3: one Motorcycle Club Mortal enemies of the Mongrel Mob, and
Speaker 3: Sotana Porter as somebody who was supposedly involved with the
Speaker 3: Mungrel Mob going to Susan Burdette's house late one night
Speaker 3: with a senior member of the Highway sixty ones to
Speaker 3: commit a brutal rape and murder. Anybody that knows anything
Speaker 3: about gang culture in New Zealand will tell you that
Speaker 3: that's just nonsense.
Speaker 1: Tim doesn't stop there. He also starts assembling an all
Speaker 1: star team of experts, starting with an Icelandic professor and
Speaker 1: former detective himself, Geesley good Johnson, who was a professor
Speaker 1: by that time in London. Now Geasley essentially created the
Speaker 1: field of falls confession science. He's the father of everything
Speaker 1: we're talking about during this podcast. And after Tim sends
Speaker 1: him Tane's interrogation videos, Gezley agrees to write a report
Speaker 1: deconstructing Tana's statements and deeming them unreliable.
Speaker 2: Next, Tim enlists the help of respected local New Zealand
Speaker 2: journalist named Phil Taylor. Phil had questioned the stage case
Speaker 2: against Tana for years and is happy to help, and
Speaker 2: Phil delivers in twenty twelve as the case for Tana's
Speaker 2: innocence is building. Phil releases a bombshell article titled Innocent
Speaker 2: Man in Jail for twenty Years, and in it, Chook Henwood,
Speaker 2: the detective who had developed the original criminal profile of
Speaker 2: Malcolm Rewa, says the cops got it horribly wrong in
Speaker 2: Susan Burdett's case. Tana had nothing to do with this. Now,
Speaker 2: this is a huge deal because chuk Henwood is the
Speaker 2: most famous criminal profiler in New Zealand, a bit like
Speaker 2: John Douglas of The Mind Hunter fame.
Speaker 3: For somebody like chuk Henwood to come out and express
Speaker 3: a family held conviction that Tana Porter was innocent was
Speaker 3: hugely important in terms of public perception and momentum for
Speaker 3: our appeal work on Tana's case.
Speaker 2: And in the middle of this, there's this remarkable moment
Speaker 2: when Susan Burdett's brother Jim comes forward and says, I
Speaker 2: too believe that Tana Pora is innocent, and he actually
Speaker 2: meets with Tana Pora. It's this incredible moment of reconciliation
Speaker 2: and grace.
Speaker 1: Momentum is building across the board, but there's still one
Speaker 1: more piece. Can Tim provide a better understanding, a better
Speaker 1: explanation of why Tana confessed to a crime he didn't commit.
Speaker 3: Documentary make it called Michael Bennett making a documentary about
Speaker 3: Tana's case. Perhaps the most significant development in twenty years
Speaker 3: occurred because the person that had been watching it was
Speaker 3: a woman called doctor Valerie McGinn.
Speaker 1: Doctor McGinn provides Tim with the answer he needs. She
Speaker 1: writes reports saying, your clients, mister Tana Pora sounds very
Speaker 1: similar to many people with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. She
Speaker 1: even attaches a journal article that details how individuals with
Speaker 1: FASD are at an increased risk of getting arrested.
Speaker 3: And more importantly, people that have it can be impulsive,
Speaker 3: They suggestible, they eager to please figures of authority, and
Speaker 3: so when you look at those types of behaviors and
Speaker 3: then you consider the position Taaner was in when he
Speaker 3: was in the police station in nineteen ninety three, it
Speaker 3: almost makes it inevitable that he was going to confess
Speaker 3: to something.
Speaker 1: Doctor mcginnon confirms categorically that Tena suffers from an FASD disorder,
Speaker 1: he was uniquely susceptible to falsely confessing in the interrogation room.
Speaker 3: One of the things that really bothered me about Tana's
Speaker 3: case is we could never understand why he did what
Speaker 3: he did, the things he said, and the people he implicated.
Speaker 3: It just none of it made sense to us and
Speaker 3: we couldn't explain that to the courts. And so once
Speaker 3: we got this diagnosis of feder work whole spectrum disorder,
Speaker 3: it all became clear. It was the final piece of
Speaker 3: the puzzle and we finally understood what it was we
Speaker 3: were dealing with.
Speaker 1: And that does it. All the pieces are assembled for
Speaker 1: Tim and his team to appeal Tena's conviction, and they
Speaker 1: bring the case in November of twenty fourteen to the
Speaker 1: Privy Council in London, the final Court of Appeal where
Speaker 1: Commonwealth countries like New Zealand can bring cases like Tena's.
Speaker 2: It's the court of last resort and it's staffed with
Speaker 2: senior judge some of the best and brightest minds in
Speaker 2: the entire Commonwealth.
Speaker 1: Now this is Tina's last shot, and his lawyers put
Speaker 1: his fa SD disorder at the front of their case,
Speaker 1: arguing that judges in the nineteen ninety four and two
Speaker 1: thousand trials weren't aware of his disability and if they
Speaker 1: had been, they would have ruled differently.
Speaker 3: There was a big group of people that gathered at
Speaker 3: Michael Bennett, the documentary maker's house, waiting for that decision
Speaker 3: to be announced, and it was an extraordinary moment. We
Speaker 3: only got to tell Taneer about an hour before the
Speaker 3: whole world found out that he had his conviction quashed
Speaker 3: and he was no longer a rapist and murderer. It
Speaker 3: was incredibly emotional for him.
Speaker 1: On March third, twenty fifteen, in the case of Poorra
Speaker 1: versus the Queen, the Council of rules that Tina's confessions
Speaker 1: must be thrown out and they quashed his conviction for
Speaker 1: the rape and murder of Susan Burdett. Two weeks later,
Speaker 1: the Crown prosecutors dropped their case and declined to retry Tina,
Speaker 1: and after more than twenty years, Tina Porra was officially exonerated.
Speaker 3: You know what his first concern was for was for
Speaker 3: the police officers that had interviewed him. He didn't want
Speaker 3: their reputations to be tarnished because of what had happened.
Speaker 3: One of his first thoughts was for other people, and
Speaker 3: that was pretty cool.
Speaker 1: In so many of these wrongful conviction cases, you see
Speaker 1: people go through so much pain and They have every
Speaker 1: rate to be better, resentful, angry, all of those things,
Speaker 1: but so often you see them express, at least publicly,
Speaker 1: these incredible acts of grace. It's almost as though they've
Speaker 1: lived through so much pain they don't want to cause anymore.
Speaker 2: In twenty sixteen, Tina received a sum of money to
Speaker 2: compensate him for the time he had spent in prison
Speaker 2: for a crime he did not commit. He also received
Speaker 2: an apology from the New Zealand government.
Speaker 3: Tyana grew up in prison. He was there for twenty
Speaker 3: two years and he struggles every day. We keep in contact,
Speaker 3: but life isn't great for him. The money makes some
Speaker 3: things easier, but it doesn't repair the psychological damage. It
Speaker 3: doesn't bring the years back, and it doesn't his life
Speaker 3: easy now. It is incredibly difficult to watch him struggle
Speaker 3: through life after everything he's been through.
Speaker 1: Tana, we salute your sheer endurance, your will to keep
Speaker 1: on fighting and surviving and living through this ordeal from
Speaker 1: the other side of the planet. Know that we won't
Speaker 1: forget your name or what you've been through, and all
Speaker 1: of us together we're fighting to make sure it doesn't
Speaker 1: happen again. And that's the story of Tana Pora. Next
Speaker 1: week's episode takes us to El Paso, Texas, where a
Speaker 1: total stranger became invested in the case of Daniel Viegas
Speaker 1: and turned out to be a savior. Till then, Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening. Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions is the production of
Speaker 1: Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number One.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to our executive producer Jason and the team
Speaker 1: at Signal Company Number One. Executive producer Kevin wardis senior
Speaker 1: producer and Pope, and additional production and editing by Connor Hall.
Speaker 1: Our music was composed by Jay Ralph. You can follow
Speaker 1: me on Instagram or Twitter at Laura Nyrider, and you.
Speaker 2: Can follow me on Twitter at s Drizzen.
Speaker 1: For more information on the show, visit wrongfulconvictionpodcast dot com
Speaker 1: and be sure to follow the show on Instagram at
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on
Speaker 1: Twitter at wrong Conviction