WEBVTT - #120 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Teina Pora 0:00:01.560 --> 0:00:05.160 Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura and I writer. 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:06.280 And I'm Steve Drusen. 0:00:07.440 --> 0:00:10.280 So far, we've told you false confession stories that span 0:00:10.440 --> 0:00:15.320 the United States, from urban Chicago to rural Nebraska. Today, 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:18.279 we'll take you across the globe to New Zealand with 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:20.959 a story that still hits way too close to home. 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:23.919 A sixteen year old boy who confessed to a rape 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:27.560 and murder he didn't commit. His wrongful conviction allowed the 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:31.960 real offender, a prolific serial rapist, to assault dozens of 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:47.640 other women, while a teenager languished behind bars after making 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:49.800 a murder. Came out season two, Steve and I have 0:00:49.800 --> 0:00:53.159 had an opportunity to travel around the globe talking to 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:55.520 audiences about the problem of false confessions and the need 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:59.120 for criminal justice reform. We've spoken everywhere from the United 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:02.200 States to the United Das Kingdom, to Ireland to Australia. 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:05.040 Can you remember this guy, Steve, who traveled around Australia 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:05.720 with us? 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:09.280 Oh God, this guy, this guy was beautiful. What was 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:12.480 his name, Jimon? His name was Simon. Simon. Simon was 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:17.440 like a roadie from the nineteen seventies, always wearing black 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:21.720 T shirts and deep into the heavy metal scene. 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:24.880 Somehow, poor Simon gets assigned to the lawyers who are 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:27.600 traveling around talking about false confessions. One of my personal 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:29.520 points of pride though, is that by the end of 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:31.760 this trip around Australia, he seemed to like what we 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:33.720 were trying to do, so we had a great time 0:01:33.720 --> 0:01:36.959 with him. But Simon kept asking us, as did everybody 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:40.039 else we met around Australia. Have you heard about Tana Pora? 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:44.520 Have you heard about New Zealand's Brendon Dassy And that's 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:46.000 exactly who Tana is. 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:49.800 Police officers around the world are often trained in very 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:54.280 similar ways about how to interrogate suspects, and so I 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:58.960 expected and was beginning to discover false confessions in places 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:05.200 like Japan and Korea and other Commonwealth countries like Australia 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:07.320 and New Zealand and Canada. 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:11.960 These are stories that hit home around the globe, whether 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:15.480 it's for you know, social justice driven lawyers or heavy 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:19.400 metal roadies. You know Tanapora, Brendan Dacy. We all know 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:22.640 someone vulnerable like them, and we can all see them 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:29.640 need to do justice in cases like these. Tanapora's story 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:32.400 starts about eight thousand miles away from where Steve and 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:35.360 I are sitting right now in the United States. It 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:38.520 starts in South Auckland. That's an urban area on the 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:42.080 southern edge of New Zealand's largest city, Auckland. It's home 0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:46.320 to a large minority population, including Mao Reed's, the indigenous 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:50.320 Polynesian population of New Zealand. Parts of South Auckland can 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:54.959 have negative connotations too often. It's associated with poverty and crime. 0:02:56.040 --> 0:02:59.080 When our story starts in nineteen ninety two, South Auckland 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:02.600 was home to a nine year old woman named Susan Burdette. 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:06.360 Susan lived alone in a tidy house on Paw Road. 0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:09.440 She worked days as an account's clerk at a chemical 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:12.760 manufacturing company, and on the evening of March twenty third, 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:16.320 nineteen ninety two, Susan leaves her weekly bowling league meet 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:19.639 up and drives home under a night of beautiful stars. 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:24.480 Susan's a hard worker, so when she doesn't show up 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:27.680 at work the next few days, her colleagues get concerned. 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:30.440 They call her friend Steve eventually to find out if 0:03:30.440 --> 0:03:33.800 he knows where she is. Steve gets worried and he 0:03:33.919 --> 0:03:36.480 ends up going over to Susan's house That Wednesday, March 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:40.040 twenty fifth, at about twelve forty pm, he finds the 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:43.640 front door unlocked, goes inside and is greeted with a 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:48.520 horrible sight. Susan is lying horizontally on her waterbed and 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:51.840 she's clearly dead. The upper half of her body is 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:55.000 wrapped in a duvet and there's a wooden baseball bet 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:57.760 lying on the bed next to her. Her legs are 0:03:57.880 --> 0:04:00.920 dangling off the side of the bed and there crossed. 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:05.880 Someone whoever did this had positioned her that way. The 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:08.680 police arrived, they remove the duvet and they find that 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:11.560 Susan had been beaten badly about the head, very likely 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:14.680 with the baseball bat. She'd also been sexually assaulted, and 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:18.440 there's plenty of DNA left behind seamen, as well as 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:22.440 a bloody smudge mark on a light switch. Susan's hands 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:25.159 were covered with defensive wounds, which indicates that she'd fought 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:28.520 back against her attacker, and her friends later identified the 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:31.840 baseball bat as belonging to Susan. She had kept it 0:04:31.960 --> 0:04:35.960 next to her bed for her own protection. The police 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:39.919 begin by investigating Susan's other friends, but DNA and alibis 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:44.440 clear them all and the investigation quickly stalls. The pressure 0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:47.479 is building building, that is until about a week after 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:49.800 the murder. That's when police get a call from a 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:53.279 woman named Terry McLoughlin and she tells them a story 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:57.080 about her then sixteen year old nephew, a shaggy haired, 0:04:57.240 --> 0:05:00.400 baby faced mawory kid named Tana Poora. 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:04.040 Well, let's talk about Tana for a bit. Tana had 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:06.520 it rough growing up. His mother died when he was 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:10.520 a young boy, and his father left shortly afterwards. He 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:14.120 then got passed around from family member to family member 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:17.000 and ultimately ended up in his aunt Terry's house. 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:21.120 A few days after Susan Burdett's murder made headlines, Tana 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:23.599 and some friends found a baseball bat in the local 0:05:23.640 --> 0:05:26.320 park and they were joking about it being the murder weapon. 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:30.400 Back at Aunt Terry's house, Tana kept talking about the bat. 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:33.160 Tana had a history of run ins with the law, 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:36.280 nothing really serious, but enough for Terry to want him 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:39.600 out of her house. She called the police over and over, 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:45.440 insisting that Tana knew something about Susan Burdett's murder. But 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:48.400 police quickly come to the conclusion that Tana and his 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:52.080 buddies were just over excited teens who were talking shit. 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:56.120 They interviewed Tana, they take his DNA, they even execute 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:59.480 a search warrant, but Tana and his friends are ruled 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:04.400 out exclusively as Susan Burdett's killers. The DNA doesn't match, 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:07.719 the search warrant turns up nothing, and while Tana does 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:10.279 have a record, there is nothing in his background that 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:12.839 would suggests this level of violence or depravity. 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:17.320 Now let's fast forward almost exactly twelve months to March eighteenth, 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:21.320 nineteen ninety three. We're almost a year out now from 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:24.839 the discovery of Susan Burdett's body in the course of 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:28.840 police investigations. That's a lifetime, and this is the only 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:32.440 unsolved homicide from nineteen ninety two. 0:06:32.680 --> 0:06:35.800 Tana Pora is seventeen years old. Now he still has 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:39.560 that babyface, but his police record has grown. During a 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:42.960 routine interview with Tana about a car theft, police get 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:47.560 an anonymous phone tip about Susan Burdett's murder. This caller 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:50.920 links the murder to a local gang called the Mongrel Mob, 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:54.599 a gang Tana is rumored to have connections with, so 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:57.680 the police decide to keep him at the station for questioning. 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:02.360 His interrogation begins at nine and continues for the next 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:03.320 four days. 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:08.520 The police have Tana Pora in the interrogation room and 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:13.800 he's telling multiple different stories. The stories don't make any sense, 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:17.080 and it's not an interrogation with banging of the table 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:23.760 or raised voices or threats or even promises to unite. 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:26.080 A comment that you're gonna tell us more? 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:30.760 Is that correct? Okay? Well, tell us this is a 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:35.040 seventeen year old kid who is highly suggestible and eager 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:39.520 to please the authorities. They're plying him with cigarettes and 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:41.720 fast food and drinks. 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:46.360 You had spring raw buckdog chips and drink. 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:47.160 Is that correct? 0:07:47.360 --> 0:07:50.440 The detectives even mentioned twenty thousand dollars as a reward 0:07:50.560 --> 0:07:54.480 for information about Susan Burdett's rape and murder. Tana's story 0:07:54.600 --> 0:07:58.600 keeps evolving and the camera keeps getting turned on and off. 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:01.720 You said you were going to tell us everything first. 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:04.240 Tana tells the police that he drove two other men 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:07.880 to Susan's house and waited outside while they went into attacker. 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:12.200 Are you telling us about a person called dog raping 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:15.400 this woman? Did you hear any more or see any more? 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:17.880 I was outside in the carabeene. 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:19.880 Eventually he changes that story. 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:23.040 I thought what you've said so fair that you climbed 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:25.600 it in the bedroom window and you've gone through to 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:27.240 open the door up for the other two. 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:30.960 All right, Now he's climbing in through one of Susan 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:33.600 Burdett's windows and letting the other two in through the 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:34.080 front door. 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:35.480 And you were in there. 0:08:35.960 --> 0:08:38.520 You could see quite clearly what was happening, Is that right? 0:08:40.040 --> 0:08:43.600 Okay? I was just watching and you were just watching, okay. 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:47.240 And in the end, after four days, Tana confesses to 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:50.920 being in the room, to actually holding Susan down while 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:52.480 his two associates raped her. 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:54.440 And you were in the room some other's time while 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:55.040 this was happening. 0:08:55.160 --> 0:08:58.920 Is it right? You were holding Susan down. 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:04.280 And that last story, the one that ultimately seals Tana's fate. 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:08.280 It comes after a break in the tea room, where 0:09:08.280 --> 0:09:11.120 of course, the cameras are turned off at. 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:13.960 The suggestion of the police. Tana identifies this to supposed 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:18.439 accomplices as senior members of the Mongrel Mob, that local gang. 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:21.600 The police bring in those two individuals that Tana had named, 0:09:22.000 --> 0:09:25.480 but their DNA doesn't match the DNA found on Susan's body, 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:29.920 they're cleared and they're released. Things don't go as smoothly 0:09:30.000 --> 0:09:34.240 for Tana. He's arrested based on his confession. He's charged 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:39.000 with Susan Burdette's rape and murder, and fourteen long months later, 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:43.280 prosecutors try Tana Porra for participating in the murder of 0:09:43.320 --> 0:09:46.360 Susan Burdett along with two unknown accomplices. 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:49.000 And let's stop right here for a minute. This is 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:53.280 round one of the battle of these two titans of evidence, 0:09:54.000 --> 0:10:00.000 confessions versus DNA. DNA seemed to clear Tanapora of any 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:05.360 rolling this crime, but it's the confessions that ultimately lead 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:06.920 to his conviction. 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:11.000 On June sixteenth, nineteen ninety four, a jury took less 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:14.280 than ninety minutes to Convictaan Apora of rape and murder. 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:17.840 He received a life sentence and was shipped off to prison. 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:29.440 At the same time, the New Zealand Police are beginning 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:33.880 a focused investigation into six rapes that had occurred between 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:37.840 nineteen eighty eight and nineteen ninety two in the Auckland area, 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:42.040 including Susan Burdette's rape. Now, these attacks were all similar 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:45.200 enough that some police officers began to worry that they 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:48.400 had a serial rapist on their hands. All of them 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:52.480 involved a lone wolf attacker who broke into women's homes, 0:10:52.800 --> 0:10:56.640 wrapped their heads in blankets or duveys, and repositioned them 0:10:56.720 --> 0:10:58.960 so that they lay sideways across the edge of the 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:03.199 bed during the attack. And by April nineteen ninety six, 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:07.120 a few years after Tana's conviction, the investigation into these 0:11:07.200 --> 0:11:11.960 rapes linked them all, including Susan Burdett's attack, to the 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:18.080 DNA of the same person, a man named Malcolm Raywa. 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:21.720 Now who is Malcolm Rewa? First of all, he's twenty 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:25.720 years older than Tana Porra. And while I usually try 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:30.360 to avoid characterizing my fellow humans like this, Raywa is 0:11:30.800 --> 0:11:36.160 a monster. He's a terrifying figure, a prolific serial rapist. 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:39.960 He's the kind of predator that women worry about. He's 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:43.360 the worst nightmare. Raywak committed his first rape in the 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:47.080 nineteen seventies. His wife was in labor giving birth to 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:50.360 their child at the time, so Raywa took the opportunity 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:55.199 to sexually assault a nurse in a hospital bed. Unbelievable 0:11:55.559 --> 0:11:55.959 four and. 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:59.079 A half years in prison he spent for that awful crime. 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:02.480 So he gets out of prison and apparently rapes again. 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:05.400 From then on, over the dozens of rapes that he 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:08.640 went on to commit, rey Wa started developing a pattern 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:12.959 an mo O. He'd carefully select his victims who tended 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:16.160 to be single women, professionals who were home alone. He'd 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:20.120 stake out their homes in advance and plan his attacks meticulously, 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:24.400 and then always the same thing, a surprise attack after 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:27.320 the woman had fallen asleep, a physical attack first to 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:29.920 subdue her, then the blanket or duvet around her head, 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:32.240 and a rape at the side of the bed. 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:36.440 And Raya would hide in their homes. He would wait 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:40.040 for them to get into bed and begin to fall asleep, 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:41.559 and then he would attack. 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:45.480 Ray Wall apparently suffered from a rectile dysfunction, which is 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:48.400 why he positioned his victims in a way that allowed 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:52.120 him to maintain sexual contact during his attacks. That's also 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:55.400 why he acted alone. He didn't exactly want an audience. 0:12:56.240 --> 0:13:00.240 Ray was arrested on May thirteenth, nineteen ninety six. It's 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:03.080 a pretty dramatic sting operation. Actually, the police had been 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:06.560 planning this for quite some time. When he tries to 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:10.520 run police dogs wrestle this guy to the ground. Now, 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:13.560 the police remember that Tana Pora had already confessed to 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:16.800 one of the rapes to which Reywa is tied by DNA, 0:13:17.200 --> 0:13:20.800 so they immediately ask him if he knows Tana Pura. 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:26.319 Raywa is crystal clear never met him. Based on the 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:29.559 arrest of Malcolm Rawa, the Court of Appeals throws out 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:31.520 Tana's conviction in nineteen ninety nine. 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:35.400 Never met him. Now, at this point in time, where 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:39.000 you have a prolific serial rapist operating in the same 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:43.200 neighborhood as the Burdette murder and his DNA is at 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:47.000 the crime scene and he's telling you I don't know Tanapura, 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:51.679 most prosecutors and police officers would throw their hands up 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:55.520 and say we can't go forward with the reprosecution of 0:13:55.600 --> 0:13:57.520 Tana Pura. We have to free him. 0:13:57.960 --> 0:14:01.280 But instead Tana is retried, and if you've listened to 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:06.120 this podcast, you know what's coming. Prosecutors change their theory 0:14:06.160 --> 0:14:09.480 of the case and argue at Tana's second trial that 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:14.440 he and Rewa raped and killed Susan Burdett together, even 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:18.559 though Rewa had denied knowing Tana, even though Reywa always 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:22.600 acted alone, and even though Rewa would never have wanted 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:26.080 some teenager there to witness his sexual dysfunction. 0:14:26.520 --> 0:14:30.360 So now we have round two of a battle between 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:35.400 confession evidence and DNA evidence, except this time we know 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:39.000 whose DNA it is. It's the DNA of a serial 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:43.600 rapist named Malcolm Rewa. Will Tana's confession bring him down 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:47.880 or will the jury side with the science and recognize 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:51.160 that Tana Pora and Malcolm Rewa had never met? 0:14:56.280 --> 0:14:59.720 Sure enough, despite all hopes that the DNA evidence would 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:03.160 be an enough to clear Tana, Tana was convicted a 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:06.800 second time of raping and murdering Susan Burdett and sent 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:11.240 back to his life sentence. Meanwhile, Malcolm Rewa himself stood 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:14.320 trial for three months in nineteen ninety eight on what 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:18.680 amounted to forty five counts of rape involving twenty seven 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:23.080 different women. His trial ended with convictions for sexually assaulting 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:28.160 twenty five of them, including Susan Burdett. Just like Tana, 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:32.080 he was shipped off to prison for decades. Now, this 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:35.760 is justice for Rewa, but for Tana Porra it's anything but. 0:15:36.600 --> 0:15:39.160 And for years Tana served as time with little hope 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:41.680 of freedom, and things might have stayed bleak for him 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:45.400 had it not been for a man named Tim McKinnell. 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:46.200 Now who is. 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:48.720 Tim McKinnell at the moment in time is self employed, 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:52.880 private and vistigator. But when I finished university I joined 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:55.280 the police. As a twenty two year old. 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:58.400 Tim mckinnall started out his career as a cop, A 0:15:58.440 --> 0:16:01.320 good cop, one of the best cops hoops. Tim had 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:04.040 become a member of the South Auckland Police Force in 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:08.640 the late nineteen nineties, eventually rising to junior detective by 0:16:08.640 --> 0:16:11.720 the year two thousand. That year, the force had been 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:14.040 divided over the case of Tanapura. 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:17.160 A lot of chat went on and the police bar 0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:20.920 at the time, and there was a real disconnect between 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:23.720 two different groups of people. People that thought Tana Porter 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:26.320 was a guilty man and had been involved in the 0:16:26.440 --> 0:16:28.760 ripe and murder of Susan Beidett, and there was another 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:32.840 camp of experienced police officers who thought that he was 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:34.120 an innocent man. 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:38.480 In fact, Tim remembers seeing all manner of drunken arguments 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:42.120 at police bars and he was struck by the passion 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:44.280 of those who believed in Tanapura. 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:48.400 Tim never forgot those arguments or his own growing doubt 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:52.400 about Tana's guilt even after he eventually left the police force, 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:56.239 and as many retired officers do, he became a private investigator. 0:16:56.800 --> 0:16:56.960 Now. 0:16:57.000 --> 0:17:00.000 In two thousand and seven, Tim attended a local conference 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:04.200 on wrongful convictions and false confessions, and that conference brought 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:07.639 up those old, lingering questions that Tim had about Tana's case. 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:11.679 The last straw came when Tim was diagnosed in his 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:15.479 thirties with a rare blood disorder, not exactly a death sentence, 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:17.919 but the kind of health scare that led him to 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:22.439 reevaluate his priorities and seek out more meaningful work like 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:26.720 freeing the innocent. Eventually, Tim decided to take the plunge. 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:30.240 In two thousand and nine, he visited Tana Pora, who 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:34.199 was then thirty four years old in prison. Tana was 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:36.919 no longer that teenage car thief Tim had read about. 0:17:37.520 --> 0:17:42.960 He was polite, well mannered, surprisingly gentle, even warm. Tim 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:45.440 begins to feel an urge to help this guy. 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:50.160 But there's the matter of Tana's confession. Tim starts by 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:53.919 digging up videotapes of Tana's interrogation, and they're not easy 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:58.359 to find. They're on old VHS tapes in boxes in 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:02.200 police departments. But he gets them and he sits down 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:05.960 to watch them, and he is blown away by what 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:06.639 he saw. 0:18:06.880 --> 0:18:09.919 When you examine what he was able to say on 0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:13.560 day one, in the first few interviews on tape, and 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:16.040 you compare that to what he was able to say 0:18:16.560 --> 0:18:19.840 four days later, there are marked differences. There were some 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:23.280 very particular things that happened in Susan's house that the 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:26.080 offender would know, and it's clear from the interviews that 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:29.440 Tana Porter had no idea about any of them. 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:32.800 Despite four days worth of trying, Tina just was not 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:35.560 able to tell a story that matched what actually happened. 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:39.879 When police asked him to describe Susan Burdette, he says 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:43.000 she was chubby, even though she was actually quite athletic. 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:45.679 Tina is asked to draw a picture of how he 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:49.240 left Susan's body. Remember she'd been found horizontally with her 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:51.760 legs dangling over the side of the bed, but he 0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:55.119 draws her lying vertically on the bed. When he was 0:18:55.160 --> 0:18:58.160 asked whether there was anything special about Susan's bed, Tena 0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:00.399 can't come up with the fact that it was a 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:01.240 wider bat. 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:03.119 And so one of the questions that arises about that 0:19:03.280 --> 0:19:05.359 is how did he come to know things on day 0:19:05.400 --> 0:19:09.040 four that he didn't know on day one. 0:19:09.320 --> 0:19:12.720 The interrogators take Tina on a field trip to Susan 0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:15.879 Burdett's street so that he can point out details of 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:18.480 the crime to them in person, and they videotaped the 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:19.120 whole thing. 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:22.240 He started giving them directions that were taking them away 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:26.560 from her house, so they helpfully tried to direct him 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:29.640 back towards her house. It was pretty clear on tape 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:32.200 that he still had no idea where he was going 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:37.480 and wasn't able to identify anything familiar. In the end, 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:40.240 they took him to the outside of the house where 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:43.920 Susan had been raped murdered and asked him if he 0:19:44.000 --> 0:19:47.440 recognized anything, and again he didn't, so the police officer 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:52.360 and it's really chilling, really chilling to watch it. He said, Look, 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:55.000 it's clear you don't recognize what it is you're looking for, 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:56.720 So do you think it would help if I showed 0:19:56.720 --> 0:20:00.639 you house? And that's an extraordinary thing for a police 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:01.199 officer to do. 0:20:09.680 --> 0:20:12.679 For Tim, that's it. This was a false confession. He 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:16.440 was motivated, fired up, and he would not rest until 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:20.879 Tina Poora was cleared. But he needs to present more 0:20:21.080 --> 0:20:24.240 evidence to the lawyers and other people he wants to 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:25.680 get involved in this case. 0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:28.959 So Tana's case isn't one that was only scarred by 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:31.879 false confession. There were the other issues that were beginning 0:20:31.880 --> 0:20:34.960 to arise with the involvement of Tana's family. 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:40.000 Tina's cousin became a key witness for the prosecution against Tana. 0:20:40.800 --> 0:20:45.280 She claimed that she had seen Tina with Rewa on 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:49.520 multiple occasions, including once at Tina's girlfriend's home. 0:20:49.840 --> 0:20:52.959 But Tim was able to discredit Martha's testimony. 0:20:53.160 --> 0:20:57.560 There was evidence of paid witnesses, including his cousin and 0:20:57.600 --> 0:21:01.560 his auntie. Those family members gave evidence against him, and 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:03.200 we know that at least one of them was paid 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:04.719 five thousand dollars for her trouble. 0:21:05.000 --> 0:21:08.919 Tim tracks down Fiona, Tina's girlfriend, and Fiona says that 0:21:08.960 --> 0:21:12.159 she has no idea who Malcolm Rawell was and that 0:21:12.240 --> 0:21:15.240 he was never in her home. From his time on 0:21:15.280 --> 0:21:18.200 the police force, Tim was well acquainted with the various 0:21:18.280 --> 0:21:22.480 gangs operating around South Auckland, so for him, one piece 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:25.480 of the prosecution's argument was clearly ridiculous. 0:21:25.680 --> 0:21:29.040 Malcolm Rawa was a senior member of the Highway sixty 0:21:29.040 --> 0:21:34.000 one Motorcycle Club Mortal enemies of the Mongrel Mob, and 0:21:34.040 --> 0:21:38.040 Sotana Porter as somebody who was supposedly involved with the 0:21:38.119 --> 0:21:43.440 Mungrel Mob going to Susan Burdette's house late one night 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:46.879 with a senior member of the Highway sixty ones to 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:50.359 commit a brutal rape and murder. Anybody that knows anything 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:52.679 about gang culture in New Zealand will tell you that 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:53.680 that's just nonsense. 0:21:56.200 --> 0:21:59.320 Tim doesn't stop there. He also starts assembling an all 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:03.439 star team of experts, starting with an Icelandic professor and 0:22:03.560 --> 0:22:07.880 former detective himself, Geesley good Johnson, who was a professor 0:22:07.920 --> 0:22:12.000 by that time in London. Now Geasley essentially created the 0:22:12.000 --> 0:22:15.400 field of falls confession science. He's the father of everything 0:22:15.440 --> 0:22:18.720 we're talking about during this podcast. And after Tim sends 0:22:18.800 --> 0:22:22.760 him Tane's interrogation videos, Gezley agrees to write a report 0:22:22.960 --> 0:22:26.560 deconstructing Tana's statements and deeming them unreliable. 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:31.120 Next, Tim enlists the help of respected local New Zealand 0:22:31.160 --> 0:22:35.160 journalist named Phil Taylor. Phil had questioned the stage case 0:22:35.200 --> 0:22:38.239 against Tana for years and is happy to help, and 0:22:38.320 --> 0:22:42.480 Phil delivers in twenty twelve as the case for Tana's 0:22:42.480 --> 0:22:48.840 innocence is building. Phil releases a bombshell article titled Innocent 0:22:49.040 --> 0:22:53.480 Man in Jail for twenty Years, and in it, Chook Henwood, 0:22:53.560 --> 0:22:57.280 the detective who had developed the original criminal profile of 0:22:57.320 --> 0:23:00.520 Malcolm Rewa, says the cops got it horribly wrong in 0:23:00.560 --> 0:23:05.080 Susan Burdett's case. Tana had nothing to do with this. Now, 0:23:05.119 --> 0:23:08.320 this is a huge deal because chuk Henwood is the 0:23:08.320 --> 0:23:12.080 most famous criminal profiler in New Zealand, a bit like 0:23:12.240 --> 0:23:14.639 John Douglas of The Mind Hunter fame. 0:23:14.960 --> 0:23:17.840 For somebody like chuk Henwood to come out and express 0:23:17.960 --> 0:23:21.359 a family held conviction that Tana Porter was innocent was 0:23:21.480 --> 0:23:26.479 hugely important in terms of public perception and momentum for 0:23:26.520 --> 0:23:28.120 our appeal work on Tana's case. 0:23:28.480 --> 0:23:32.200 And in the middle of this, there's this remarkable moment 0:23:32.600 --> 0:23:37.560 when Susan Burdett's brother Jim comes forward and says, I 0:23:37.800 --> 0:23:42.160 too believe that Tana Pora is innocent, and he actually 0:23:42.240 --> 0:23:47.360 meets with Tana Pora. It's this incredible moment of reconciliation 0:23:47.680 --> 0:23:48.240 and grace. 0:23:48.760 --> 0:23:51.960 Momentum is building across the board, but there's still one 0:23:51.960 --> 0:23:55.720 more piece. Can Tim provide a better understanding, a better 0:23:55.760 --> 0:23:59.200