Speaker 1: This episode of Wrongful Conviction contains discussion of sexual assault.
Speaker 1: Please listen with caution and care.
Speaker 2: At five a m. On August third, nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 2: at the Good Times Tavern in Green Bay, Wisconsin, the
Speaker 2: opening bartender discovered that the lights were still on, the
Speaker 2: safe was open and empty, and the previous night's bartender,
Speaker 2: Sandra Lyson, her car was still in the parking lot.
Speaker 2: The following day, her body was discovered in a forest
Speaker 2: about thirty miles north of Green Bay. She had been
Speaker 2: fatally strangled, and seamen was collected in a rape kit.
Speaker 2: Investigators interviewed people who had gone to the tavern that night,
Speaker 2: including thirty one year old Bobby Bentz along with his
Speaker 2: brother David. The case went cold for nearly twelve years
Speaker 2: until David Bentz was in prison for an unrelated crime
Speaker 2: and allegedly confessed to a cellmate that he'd killed Sandra
Speaker 2: Lyson with his brother Bobby. This is wrongful Conviction. The
Speaker 2: Fox Foundation is proud to support this episode of wrongful
Speaker 2: Conviction and the work of After Innocence, a nonprofit that
Speaker 2: helps hundreds of people nationwide rebuild their lives after wrongful
Speaker 2: incarceration each year. Innocent people are released after spending years
Speaker 2: behind bars for crimes they didn't commit. Nearly all of
Speaker 2: them leave prison with nothing more than the clothes on
Speaker 2: their backs, with no help or compensation from the state
Speaker 2: as they face the steep challenges of rebuilding their lives
Speaker 2: after wrongful imprisonment. After Innocence is changing that After Innocence
Speaker 2: helps exoneries get and make good use of essential services
Speaker 2: like health care, dental care, mental health support, legal aid,
Speaker 2: financial counseling, and more. Since twenty sixteen, they've brought that
Speaker 2: help to more than eight hundred exoneries across forty six states,
Speaker 2: working tirelessly to ensure that no one released after wrongful
Speaker 2: incarceration is left behind. Learn more at after dash innocence
Speaker 2: dot org and join after Innocence to support exoneries as
Speaker 2: they rebuild their lives. Welcome back to wrongful Conviction. I'm
Speaker 2: Lauren Bright Pacheco, and this story takes us to Green Bay, Wisconsin,
Speaker 2: where a bartending mother of two was tragically taken from
Speaker 2: her children, while another mother lost two of her boys
Speaker 2: to the system. And today Bobby Bent joins us, thank
Speaker 2: you for being here.
Speaker 1: You're welcome.
Speaker 2: We also have this attorney from the Great North Innocence Project,
Speaker 2: Jim Mayer. Welcome, thank you very much, and later we
Speaker 2: will speak to his brother David as well. Now, Bobby,
Speaker 2: you guys grew up in Green Bay, which is a
Speaker 2: big sports town. Were you and your brother into sports.
Speaker 3: When we were We all got together and played to
Speaker 3: the ball around, football, baseball when we were kids.
Speaker 2: Were you too competitive with one another?
Speaker 1: Well, we're pretty close together a.
Speaker 2: Year apart, right, yeah. And who's the big brother.
Speaker 3: I got old brother Eddie too, David the oldest brother
Speaker 3: of me, Lauren.
Speaker 4: I was going to mention one thing if you wanted
Speaker 4: some more filled in detail about their childhood. They did
Speaker 4: live together on a farm, a foster home kind of
Speaker 4: during their high school years, where they did a lot
Speaker 4: of work on a farm. Is kind of interesting.
Speaker 3: We would clean all the pens out and the gutter
Speaker 3: and it was a rough childhood.
Speaker 2: From what we understand. There were substance abuse issues at
Speaker 2: home that resulted in the boys moving to foster care.
Speaker 2: But by the time of this crime, Bobby was thirty
Speaker 2: one years old and despite suffering from intellectual disabilities, both
Speaker 2: Bobby and David were doing well.
Speaker 3: I was an East Side of Green Bay, and I
Speaker 3: worked at a grocery store. I'm a driver, legad my
Speaker 3: own car. I always went to work. I was a
Speaker 3: meat wrapper clerk. I cleaned the meat room up really good,
Speaker 3: and my boss really enjoyed my work. I had to
Speaker 3: adopt for ten years.
Speaker 2: And what was David doing at the time.
Speaker 3: Dave had a house on State Tree in Green Bay,
Speaker 3: and he had a garage who worked on cars self employee.
Speaker 3: He had an auto salvage business. I helped him to
Speaker 3: pull motors out and put other motors in, clean them
Speaker 3: out and junk them. And you sell cars to it.
Speaker 3: I helped them all once a while.
Speaker 2: So you guys both like cars.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh cars.
Speaker 2: Now, the night that this happened, you guys had been
Speaker 2: to the bar, which was called the Good Times Tavern
Speaker 2: to buy beer.
Speaker 3: I went and had a soda, and then I bought
Speaker 3: a case of beer. I went back to David's Houston.
Speaker 3: Then after that he went home.
Speaker 2: And you were upset because you realized you may have
Speaker 2: been overcharged for the beer.
Speaker 1: Davi was upset.
Speaker 2: David believed that the bar's price for a case of
Speaker 2: beer should have aligned more closely with that of a
Speaker 2: typical retailer, so we called the Good Times Tavern to
Speaker 2: voice his outrage, but nothing further. According to the other bargoers,
Speaker 2: the closing bartender, Sandra Lison, kicked everyone out by about
Speaker 2: two am. They also mentioned a stranger in a flannel's
Speaker 2: shirt which seemed off due to the balmy August weather,
Speaker 2: and then around five AM, a Good Times Tavern employee
Speaker 2: named Robert Miller came in to get the day started.
Speaker 4: The man who came in to clean the Good Times
Speaker 4: Tavern in the morning noticed that something was wrong. The
Speaker 4: Sunday night bartender Sandra Lyson. Her pack of cigarettes was
Speaker 4: sitting on the bar, her car was still in the
Speaker 4: parking lot. The tavern had not been locked and the
Speaker 4: safe was opened, so clearly something had gone wrong, and
Speaker 4: Sandra Lyson was nowhere to be seen, so he called the.
Speaker 2: Police and then her body was found.
Speaker 4: The body was found about forty eight hours later in
Speaker 4: a wooded area in a state forest about thirty miles
Speaker 4: or so north of Green Bay.
Speaker 2: Curiously, the first responders reported not seeing any drag marks,
Speaker 2: so perhaps the attack occurred somewhere else. Additionally, she was clothed,
Speaker 2: but there were leaves and other debris inside her undergarments.
Speaker 4: The medical examiner actually came out to investigate and examine
Speaker 4: the body formed the conclusion that the victim had likely
Speaker 4: been beaten and sexually assaulted and the cause of death
Speaker 4: was strangulation. So a rape kit was performed. They took
Speaker 4: samples and they did detect the presence of seamen, which
Speaker 4: was recovered from the victim's leg and underclothing and dress,
Speaker 4: and also from a vaginal swab.
Speaker 2: Now I know that Bobby, you mentioned that David had
Speaker 2: been upset about the cost of the beer from the
Speaker 2: night before. So when did the police question you?
Speaker 3: A couple of days later? This is where you at
Speaker 3: the bar of the night you a mission. I remember
Speaker 3: seeing her and the bar I've seen man, but I
Speaker 3: remember seeing her.
Speaker 2: Did you think anything else of it? No, we're not
Speaker 2: sure what happened to any other leads that the police
Speaker 2: were following, but the case went cold for about four years,
Speaker 2: at which time sandra license purse was discovered in the
Speaker 2: woods about ten miles south of Green Bay, so in
Speaker 2: the opposite direction of where the body was discovered, and
Speaker 2: who even knows when the purse was deposited there. And
Speaker 2: then another seven years passed during which time David Bentce
Speaker 2: was convicted of an unrelated crime and his cellmate Gary
Speaker 2: Swinby alleged that David Bentce was saying disturbing things in
Speaker 2: his sleep like quote, killed the bitch Bob unquote.
Speaker 4: As you mentioned, this cellmate of David's came forward and
Speaker 4: claimed that he'd been saying things in his sleep. The
Speaker 4: staff at the prison encouraged the cellmate to engage David
Speaker 4: in conversation when he woke up. This all leads to
Speaker 4: the cellmate making a statement to and authorities indicating that
Speaker 4: he says David had confessed to the crime and implicated
Speaker 4: his brother Bobby as well. I think people who have
Speaker 4: prior convictions are always an easier target for a wrongful conviction,
Speaker 4: as are people who may have particular psychological or intellectual vulnerabilities.
Speaker 4: You know, those people sometimes get preyed upon. They're not
Speaker 4: able to defend themselves adequately, and they're at much greater
Speaker 4: risk of a false confession, of a wrongful conviction, of
Speaker 4: all kinds of bad outcomes in the criminal legal system.
Speaker 2: David agreed to speak with us about his unrecorded interrogation
Speaker 2: in which investigators confronted him with what his cellmate had
Speaker 2: alleged this guy.
Speaker 5: I think he thought he could get something out of it.
Speaker 1: What staff.
Speaker 5: I never talked to my sleep, never have. When a
Speaker 5: tectives came and questioned me, as you said I could
Speaker 5: get up any time of water, they said, I can
Speaker 5: get up any time of wan. And I know I
Speaker 5: was alive because they were going to be going till
Speaker 5: they got a confession. I was in it room for
Speaker 5: seven hours.
Speaker 2: You know, we know that best practic this is no
Speaker 2: more than four hours should somebody be interrogated. And after
Speaker 2: six hours the incidences of false confessions skyrocket.
Speaker 5: They won't let me go.
Speaker 1: So we know you did it. We know you did it.
Speaker 5: So I said anything to get out of her.
Speaker 4: We don't know one hundred percent because this was an
Speaker 4: unrecorded interrogation. This was, from all accounts, an aggressive interrogation,
Speaker 4: one that was designed to secure a confession to try
Speaker 4: to solve this cold case. David says several times that
Speaker 4: he was at home on the night Desander license disappears
Speaker 4: that he didn't know what happened to her, But at
Speaker 4: the same time, when they would confront him with the
Speaker 4: statement from the cellmate, he would say things like you've
Speaker 4: got it right there. It's in black and white. And
Speaker 4: so it was sort of a conversation that started going
Speaker 4: in circles.
Speaker 2: So it wasn't a clearer confession that would.
Speaker 4: Be putting it generously, but they made the decision that
Speaker 4: that was close enough to a confession to focus once
Speaker 4: again on the Vince brothers.
Speaker 2: Do you remember, Bobby, when you heard that your brother
Speaker 2: had been accused of talking in his sleep and it
Speaker 2: named you.
Speaker 3: I remember people talking about it, but he never talks
Speaker 3: in his sleep.
Speaker 2: But now they have a false confession from David, and
Speaker 2: then they go to you, Bobby, and say you're under arrest.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: They rested me at my apartment. They said you're under
Speaker 3: arrest for the murder of Sandral License. And I had
Speaker 3: my girlfriend in my house too with me, and she's, honey,
Speaker 3: no go, I said I have to, So you put
Speaker 3: the couch on me.
Speaker 2: What went through your head? Did you think that this
Speaker 2: was some big mistake?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I was.
Speaker 1: I was scared and upset.
Speaker 2: And sometime between as a rest and trial, the state
Speaker 2: found someone who was willing to claim they'd heard Bobby
Speaker 2: confess as well.
Speaker 1: That was Joan Andrews.
Speaker 4: So this witness told the court in Bobby's trial that
Speaker 4: she had been giving him a ride to go and
Speaker 4: visit his mother up north in the direction of the
Speaker 4: Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and that during that ride he
Speaker 4: had somehow confessed to being involved in Sandra License murder.
Speaker 4: Of course, what also came out at the trial, though
Speaker 4: it didn't end up making any difference, was the fact
Speaker 4: that his mother had never lived up in that area,
Speaker 4: in fact, lived south of Green Bay.
Speaker 2: If I'm not mistaken, yep, okay, So can you tell me,
Speaker 2: Jim about the DNA evidence that they were aware of
Speaker 2: before the brothers even were put on trial.
Speaker 4: Well, as you can recall, in nineteen eighty seven, at
Speaker 4: the time that the murder happened and the body was recovered,
Speaker 4: DNA testing was not quite as advanced and widespread. And
Speaker 4: then if we fast forward the twelve years to and
Speaker 4: they are thinking about charging the Vince brothers, they realize
Speaker 4: we've got this rich source of DNA from the crime scene.
Speaker 4: They get a search warrant to take samples from Bobby
Speaker 4: and David to compare against the profile from the semen
Speaker 4: left at the crime scene. And when they did that comparison,
Speaker 4: both brothers were excluded as the source of the semen.
Speaker 2: So of course they called off the trial and let
Speaker 2: the brothers.
Speaker 4: Go right, No, that we wouldn't be here if that
Speaker 4: had happened. But of course they were at a crossroads.
Speaker 4: Do we go with the physical evidence, which we know
Speaker 4: is strongly indicative of a sexual assault and strongly suggesting
Speaker 4: that the person whose bodily fluids are at the crime
Speaker 4: scene is the person responsible. Or do they abandon that
Speaker 4: and go after these two guys who have no connection
Speaker 4: to the crime based on the physical evidence, and they
Speaker 4: chose the latter. They chose to go after Bobby and David.
Speaker 4: The state very strongly argued at both trials, this is
Speaker 4: obviously not a sexual assault. This is simply a robbery
Speaker 4: and a murder. Any previous thoughts that this may be
Speaker 4: a sexual assault were pure speculation and not true.
Speaker 2: Remember, the body was discovered clothed, but with leaves and
Speaker 2: other debris in the undergarments, suggesting that the body was
Speaker 2: likely unclothed outdoors. Then there was semen collected from her leg,
Speaker 2: clothing and inside her body. So the theory was that
Speaker 2: the sperm came from consensual sex that occurred prior to
Speaker 2: her fourteen hour bartending shift, and that she simply let
Speaker 2: the seamen just live on her leg and clothing. And
Speaker 2: then they called experts to the stand to corroborate that theory.
Speaker 4: They present a testimony from a couple of different experts
Speaker 4: about when the semen would have been deposited based on
Speaker 4: the condition they found it in, and what the medical
Speaker 4: examiner said on the witness stand was this most likely
Speaker 4: was deposited either after the death up to twenty four
Speaker 4: hours after the death, most likely recent and what the
Speaker 4: specific words were, seventy five percent likelihood that the sperm
Speaker 4: was left there within twenty four hours of the death,
Speaker 4: which makes it very implausible that this was a consensual
Speaker 4: sexual encounter because she was working a twelve to fourteen
Speaker 4: hour bartending shift right before this event. You know, she
Speaker 4: got up in the morning, she went to a bartending shift,
Speaker 4: and it was implausible enough that she would have had
Speaker 4: this sexual encounter and not cleaned up or anything. But still,
Speaker 4: even so, in the closing argument, the prosecutor twisted those
Speaker 4: words around and said it was most likely between twenty
Speaker 4: four and forty eight hours when it was deposited. At
Speaker 4: least that's what he said at Bobby's trial, and so
Speaker 4: I read that transcript and I just get angry. I
Speaker 4: don't know that that made the difference, but it makes
Speaker 4: you think that sometimes this is a game of inches
Speaker 4: and prosecutors and everyone involved in the system needs to
Speaker 4: be scrupulously honest when they're talking about the evidence.
Speaker 2: Bobby, tell me about the trial from your perspective.
Speaker 3: Well, when I went to court, I was really upset.
Speaker 3: And the guy that said David talking and sleep, his
Speaker 3: name was Gary Swenbee.
Speaker 1: He got out.
Speaker 3: I couldn't cross examine him because he got killed in
Speaker 3: a car accident a month before my trial. I couldn't
Speaker 3: cross examine a piece of paper, you know. So I
Speaker 3: didn't get a fair trial in Green Bay at all.
Speaker 2: All right, So take me to the moment of the
Speaker 2: verdict guilty.
Speaker 3: The judge said, I send you to the prison the
Speaker 3: rest of your natural life. I just broke down in tears.
Speaker 3: I just broke down, and the daughter stood up in court.
Speaker 3: I said, I'm sorry for what happened, but I said,
Speaker 3: I did not kill your mom. Well, it's really nasty
Speaker 3: in there, and it's filthy, and the medical hsu A
Speaker 3: health department is terrible. I went to the hospital almost
Speaker 3: every week by resis squad from the prison.
Speaker 1: I got asthma real bad.
Speaker 2: Were you guys held anywhere near one another?
Speaker 3: We're at Green Bay together for a few years. I
Speaker 3: was in a dorm with Dave. You're so glad to
Speaker 3: see me when I came in.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, a lot of people form relationships
Speaker 2: like brothers when they're serving time together. But was it
Speaker 2: somewhat of a comfort that you guys were in the
Speaker 2: same place even though you were both living the same nightmare?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Did you guys think that it was just a matter
Speaker 2: of time before they realized they had made a mistake?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it took a few.
Speaker 2: Years, fortunately for both of them. David's case was picked
Speaker 2: up by the Wisconsin Innocence Project. After all, despite his
Speaker 2: previous conviction, he too had been wrongfully convicted of this crime,
Speaker 2: and there was biological evidence that could exonerate him and
Speaker 2: his brother. They secured additional DNA testing in two thousand
Speaker 2: and six.
Speaker 4: Additional testing had shown that there was male blood on
Speaker 4: the victim's dress, and the person who deposited the blood
Speaker 4: on the victim's dress was the same person who deposited
Speaker 4: the semen. So that really strongly supported the initial conclusion
Speaker 4: that this was a sexual assault and that the person.
Speaker 4: It sounds crazy that I even have to say it,
Speaker 4: that most likely the man whose blood and semen was
Speaker 4: on the crime scene was responsible for the crime. So
Speaker 4: the Wisconsin Innocence Projects sought post conviction relief for David.
Speaker 4: They tried to get his conviction tossed out, get him
Speaker 4: a new trial. The state opposed relief for David. This
Speaker 4: is just speculation to say that this man's blood and
Speaker 4: semen on the victim are indicative of sexual assault. And
Speaker 4: the court unfortunately agreed with the state, denied the motion
Speaker 4: that was affirmed on appeal and the bench Brothers would
Speaker 4: spend another fifteen years in prison after that decision was made.
Speaker 2: That decision seems completely divorced from reality, and this was
Speaker 2: obviously a major setback. How do you come up with
Speaker 2: more convincing evidence than that, Well, that's what the Great
Speaker 2: North Innocence Projects set out to do in twenty eighteen, and.
Speaker 4: So we set out to test every piece of physical
Speaker 4: evidence remaining at that crime scene, every bloodstain, every hair,
Speaker 4: everything we could get a profile from, and nothing from
Speaker 4: that crime scene of this supposedly very intimate physical crime.
Speaker 4: Nothing from that scene connected either Bobby or David Bince
Speaker 4: to the murder, but what we did see was the
Speaker 4: same unknown male profile that kept coming up.
Speaker 2: Since the unknown male profile cannot be identified in CODIS,
Speaker 2: they tried another path. The lab was able to develop
Speaker 2: a special kind of DNA profile, which can be used
Speaker 2: to trace ancestry through public genealogical databases. They worked with
Speaker 2: a genealogist going through birth, death and other public records
Speaker 2: to close in on the origin of this profile. It
Speaker 2: took almost five years.
Speaker 4: After a long, long stretch of doing that work and
Speaker 4: almost giving up, we finally were able to narrow the
Speaker 4: search to one family that had three male children who
Speaker 4: were all of suitable age and living in the Green
Speaker 4: Bay area at the time of the crime. One of
Speaker 4: those three was William Hendrix, and he immediately stood out
Speaker 4: because of his past. He had prior convictions for sexual assault.
Speaker 4: Their victim in that case said that he had threatened
Speaker 4: to strangle her at some point, which, of course was
Speaker 4: sandra License cause of death. He had just been released
Speaker 4: from prison less than a year before Sandra Lyson was abducted.
Speaker 4: We also know that he previously lived about thirty to
Speaker 4: forty miles north of Green Bay, so that he would
Speaker 4: have driven by that state forest where the body was
Speaker 4: found many many times as he went back and forth
Speaker 4: between that old place where he lived and Green Bay.
Speaker 4: And at the time of the abduction, he lived in
Speaker 4: the neighborhood of the Good Times Tavern.
Speaker 2: But once they'd made this potential match, they needed to
Speaker 2: compare the DNA profile with a sample from William Hendrix himself. However,
Speaker 2: Hendrix had died in April of two thousand.
Speaker 4: After securing a court order to exhume the body, it
Speaker 4: was transported to the Brown County Medical Examiner's office and
Speaker 4: samples were taken and then sent off to the lab
Speaker 4: for DNA analysis.
Speaker 2: And when they came back.
Speaker 4: I'll never forget the day that they came back with
Speaker 4: the results testing the femur that was taken from the
Speaker 4: body and comparing it to the crime scene evidence, and
Speaker 4: the number that was given to us by the Wisconsin
Speaker 4: State Crime Lab was that this was a match with
Speaker 4: a likelihood of one in three hundred and twenty nine trillion.
Speaker 2: Beyond a doubt. How did you share the news with Bobby?
Speaker 4: We called Bobby that day, and I'm looking at him
Speaker 4: because I'm sure he remembers that phone call. He's smiling,
Speaker 4: so blessed and we finally got the truth. And I
Speaker 4: was really emotion on the phone. I chears in my
Speaker 4: eyes and just emotional. I could hardly talk. We said,
Speaker 4: we knew this was gonna be happen, but now it
Speaker 4: finally has. You're gonna be able to go home soon.
Speaker 3: It would just say happy, said feeling, But it's a
Speaker 3: good feeling. I told the guys just keep your head
Speaker 3: up and keep the faith. And one guy, she let
Speaker 3: me give you a hug. And I know you're not
Speaker 3: a gilt I told you from the get go. I
Speaker 3: wouldn't hurt him fly, I would never kill anybody. Backed
Speaker 3: myself and left everything behind and just grow up my
Speaker 3: paperwork and all that stuff. And boy was I blessed
Speaker 3: to have good attorneys out of Teat like you and
Speaker 3: Chris Well.
Speaker 4: There's no better days than the day that someone like
Speaker 4: Bobby walks out of prison and you can be there
Speaker 4: to enjoy it with him. And so it was, you know,
Speaker 4: I think he said it best. It was happy, sad.
Speaker 4: You're so pleased to see him free. You're so happy
Speaker 4: to see him on the outside, but you're also struck
Speaker 4: by the enormity of the loss and the suffering and
Speaker 4: the years that he can never get back. So it's
Speaker 4: it's bittersweet. But it was a really, really a wonderful
Speaker 4: day and it was great to drive Bobby away from
Speaker 4: that prison. While he was eating his barbecue chips, drinking
Speaker 4: his son what was it coke?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and having served out his sentence for his prior conviction,
Speaker 2: David was now also free from his wrongful conviction.
Speaker 5: When I was walking on I didn't know that the
Speaker 5: Innocent Project was coming to pick me up.
Speaker 6: And I walk outside there was an Innocent Project, Rachel
Speaker 6: and Zoe and mister Keuneham. There was like three carfuls
Speaker 6: of people out there.
Speaker 1: Take your time.
Speaker 6: I was emotional. My mom just pushed it over the
Speaker 6: edge when she had two sons locked up for a
Speaker 6: GRAM and they commit and she was here to see this.
Speaker 6: You never got a takeod by her.
Speaker 3: Not my mom said before she passed away. My sister
Speaker 3: brought her up to visit me and she says that
Speaker 3: I hope you out some day, asked Mom, today I
Speaker 3: get out of Printon, You'll be Dan for joy in
Speaker 3: heaven and I lost my niece to my sister's daughter
Speaker 3: horrible drunk driver car act. Horrible car accident, and I
Speaker 3: was in there for my niece and every birthday's and
Speaker 3: visit them like I used to.
Speaker 2: Now, I want to talk to you guys about that,
Speaker 2: and I'll ask you Jim first. You know, we've been
Speaker 2: asking people a lot about the concept of accountability. I
Speaker 2: know that you know there's a monetary aspect, but that
Speaker 2: doesn't buy back time. I think of twenty five years
Speaker 2: for each of you for something that you were innocent
Speaker 2: of the entire time. But it also seems in this
Speaker 2: case that that was known even before they set foot
Speaker 2: and trial. When you look at a case like this, Jim,
Speaker 2: where do you point blame?
Speaker 4: That's a really difficult question. I guess I would have
Speaker 4: to start by saying where I don't point blame and
Speaker 4: where I want to give credit. There's the current Brown
Speaker 4: County District Attorney. They weren't involved in the original prosecution.
Speaker 4: This guy was not involved in David's previous petition for
Speaker 4: post conviction relief. So when we came forward and we
Speaker 4: said we wanted to do more testing in this case,
Speaker 4: the current Brown County District Attorney said, go ahead, test
Speaker 4: whatever you want. I won't oppose it. I'll stipulate to it.
Speaker 4: And he could have opposed us, he could have stood.
Speaker 1: In our way.
Speaker 4: We would have had to bring a motion in court,
Speaker 4: and we very well may have lost that motion. The
Speaker 4: testing never would have happened, and Bobby and David would
Speaker 4: still be in prison. But he didn't. He said go
Speaker 4: ahead and test. I won't stand in your way. And
Speaker 4: then finally when we came to them with the results
Speaker 4: of the testing and the genealogy and the lead of
Speaker 4: William Hendrix, they agreed with us that this was significant,
Speaker 4: that the case needed to be reopened and reinvestigated. And
Speaker 4: then once we confirmed it didn't happen as quickly as
Speaker 4: I had hoped that. Once we confirmed that William Hendrix
Speaker 4: was the one, they agreed with us and stipulated to
Speaker 4: vacating the conviction and freeing. These men want to give
Speaker 4: credit where credit is due. I appreciate their approach to
Speaker 4: the case.
Speaker 2: It is inspiring to know that there are people in
Speaker 2: positions of power who are ready and willing to acknowledge
Speaker 2: that mistakes happen, even though they didn't necessarily happen on
Speaker 2: their watch.
Speaker 4: We need more of that. We need more of that
Speaker 4: among prosecutors. We need them to take their role as
Speaker 4: a minister of justice seriously and not simply as being
Speaker 4: someone whose job is to convict convict. We need prosecutors
Speaker 4: who are willing to look at the evidence and do
Speaker 4: the right thing in every case. And we need an
Speaker 4: informed public who makes electoral decisions for these offices based
Speaker 4: on that, not simply based on who can say their
Speaker 4: toughest on crime.
Speaker 2: Amen to that. And so now I'd like to ask
Speaker 2: for what you want people to take away from this story.
Speaker 4: When I think about what happened to them when they
Speaker 4: were initially convicted and then again when they sought post
Speaker 4: conviction relief over fifteen years ago, I just think about
Speaker 4: the fact that the state is asking everyone to believe
Speaker 4: something that's really unbelievable. That you've got a crime scene
Speaker 4: with the victim whose clothing is partially removed, where you've
Speaker 4: got blood and semen from a man on that crime scene,
Speaker 4: and you've got debris underneath the victim's underclothing.
Speaker 1: You know what happened.
Speaker 4: If we had known who that person was at the time,
Speaker 4: that person would have been prosecuted, but we didn't know
Speaker 4: who that person was, and somebody had to pay. And
Speaker 4: that is the kind of thinking that we need to
Speaker 4: get away from the idea that it's more important that
Speaker 4: someone pay than that we get the right person. We
Speaker 4: talk a lot in this country about the expression it's
Speaker 4: better to let ten guilty people go free than to
Speaker 4: put one innocent person in prison. But if you actually
Speaker 4: do a poll in the United States, many people really
Speaker 4: don't believe that to be true. In fact, most people
Speaker 4: think it's just as bad to allow a guilty person
Speaker 4: go free as it is to allow an innocent person
Speaker 4: to be imprisoned, and a substantial number of people even
Speaker 4: think that it's worse to let a guilty person go
Speaker 4: free than it is to imprison an innocent person. Forgetting,
Speaker 4: of course, that every time an innocent person is imprisoned,
Speaker 4: that means, by definition, the guilty person has gone free.
Speaker 4: It's important for everyone in the system, including the jurors,
Speaker 4: to take their oaths and their duties very seriously. We
Speaker 4: have these burdens for a reason is to protect people's rights.
Speaker 3: I want people to believe that I'm not guilty, that
Speaker 3: I'm really innocent of this I want people who believe
Speaker 3: that they see the truth. Because wrongful convictions are terrible
Speaker 3: Wisconsin and the justice system is terrible. I want people
Speaker 3: who believe that I'm a good person.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
Speaker 2: to this and all Lava for Good podcasts one week
Speaker 2: early and add free by subscribing to Lava for Good
Speaker 2: Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'd like to thank our production team,
Speaker 2: Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as executive producers
Speaker 2: Jason Vlahm, Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Clyburn. The
Speaker 2: music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR
Speaker 2: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across
Speaker 2: all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at
Speaker 2: Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram at
Speaker 2: Lauren Bright Pacheco. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava
Speaker 2: for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One.
Speaker 1: We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported
Speaker 1: in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed
Speaker 1: by the individuals featured in this show are their own
Speaker 1: and do not necessarily reflect those of lava for good,