WEBVTT - Police Girl 0:00:10.880 --> 0:00:15.880 Last time on ear witness. 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:16.200 Short and Tony Rich and Jeff got a shriff's office. 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:22.240 I'm at the Sheriff's office headquarters along with Yorlanda Michelle Chambers. 0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:26.120 Yolanda was reluctant. She didn't want to talk. Okay, now, 0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:28.040 you mentioned to me that you heard what you thought 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:28.880 was three shots. 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:31.720 But when we heard that, we were like, we know 0:00:31.800 --> 0:00:32.400 what it was. 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:36.160 We had to keep at her and we had to pull. 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:39.879 Like polite Carlo jumping man's gold. 0:00:39.920 --> 0:00:40.440 It's cold. 0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:44.559 It's cold, you know, Yelanda, we need this, and sometimes 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:47.640 we'd have to be stern, you know, and firm trying 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:48.639 to shake her. 0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:51.720 You know, did he have anything on his hand that 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:52.280 you told me? 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:53.360 Blood? Blood? 0:00:54.240 --> 0:00:56.040 Sometimes we'd have to be soft. 0:00:56.280 --> 0:00:58.600 What you have already told me during the times that 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:01.000 I have interviewed you, is that the truth? 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:04.360 Whatever were to get this information out of her, No, 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:05.759 it's not the truth. 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:06.240 No. 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:09.560 So what she's saying she would live and I would live. 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:10.680 That's a life. 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:12.920 That's a that's a shame. 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:20.440 I believe everything Lena told me, No, Helma, Helna. But 0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:24.160 Yolanda told a lot of truth. Why she was trying 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:26.040 to hide it by telling lies. 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:36.479 What did it say again? 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:41.280 Aia a Foura Ivan Oak Street up a dirt road 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:43.840 toward the beginning of the Power of Arms. 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:48.440 My producer Marra and I are in Bessemer, a suburb 0:01:48.600 --> 0:01:53.800 west of Birmingham. This back road is remote, no houses 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:59.120 or businesses nearby, just undeveloped land stretching under a bright 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:01.080 blue sky. 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:02.200 I bet it was this. 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:07.680 There's a dirt path underneath a stretch of power lines 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:12.480 that cuts through dense, overgrown shrubbery. I wonder if she 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:14.680 how far down the dirt road she was. 0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:18.679 Oh, it was kind of pretty back here. 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:24.480 Yeah, there's nothing remarkable about this spot. It's a place 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:28.960 you'd drive past and not even notice. But this is 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:32.720 where on Valentine's Day of two thousand and nine, some 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:37.359 people writing four wheelers found the body of Yolanda Chambers. 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:42.880 I'm still not really sure why I wanted to come 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:46.560 here or what I was hoping to learn. I just 0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:51.000 felt like I needed to see it. There are no 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:55.280 clues here about what happened to Yolanda Chambers, why she 0:02:55.480 --> 0:03:04.680 was killed, or who did it. After the investigation into 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:09.280 Deputy Bill Hardy's murder ended, Yolanda would continue to work 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:13.560 with police as an informant, and that ongoing contact with 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:16.920 law enforcement may have contributed to her murder. 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:44.400 Do you he my man. 0:03:48.360 --> 0:04:03.200 Lab Hads, my Fy Sousa in this. 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:12.920 O tears? I want to. 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:16.920 See a reblation. 0:04:20.360 --> 0:04:30.800 I want to know who you am reation in this 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:46.680 inspiration to the word who's holding stup udo, who's holding stand? 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:58.839 I'm Beth Shelburne. This is ear witness, Chapter three, Police Girl. 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:05.360 I'd like to talk about Yolanda. 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:05.880 Okay. 0:05:07.279 --> 0:05:10.719 I've talked to Detective Tony Richardson for over seven hours 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:14.479 about this case, and he uses a certain adjective to 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:17.440 describe Yolanda Chambers over and over again. 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:21.359 She was street small, you remember, I say Yolanda was 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:25.280 very street wise, street wise. 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:29.280 I'm telling you, if you ever met her fifteen years old, 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:31.120 she knew more about the street than I did. 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:37.200 The Dictionary definition of street smart or street wise is 0:05:37.240 --> 0:05:40.719 a shrewd awareness of how to survive based on living 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:45.559 a difficult life. But Yolanda was just fifteen years old. 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:52.840 Detective Tony Richardson questioned Yolanda at least twenty five times 0:05:53.080 --> 0:05:59.200 when he led the investigation into Deputy Harty's murder. Most 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:03.039 key witnesses and murder investigations are questioned a few times, 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:09.240 but twenty five that many police interviews is almost unheard of. 0:06:09.760 --> 0:06:13.760 And throughout these interviews, Yolanda changed her story about the 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:19.919 night of the murder hundreds of times. Research shows that 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:24.839 child witnesses are more easily influenced by police intimidation than adults, 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:30.240 and children entangled in criminal cases also face more adverse 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:36.680 psychological consequences. But knowing all this, I still wondered what 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:40.960 exactly was going on that made Yolanda change her story 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:52.800 so many times. Do you get nervous, like knocking on 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:54.280 somebody's door unannounced? 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:58.240 I think so, yeah, just because I don't want to 0:06:58.480 --> 0:06:59.640 like freak people out. 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:01.280 I know that I wouldn't feel weird. 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:05.960 Marra and I went on a drive searching for the 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:08.560 one person we knew of who could give us a 0:07:08.600 --> 0:07:13.680 fuller picture of Yolanda Chambers life, someone who has never 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:18.400 spoken publicly about this case, the person who got Yolanda 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:21.000 involved with police in the first place. 0:07:26.720 --> 0:08:00.920 Hey, we're looking for miss Rosa Hardy her mom. 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:03.040 Can we talk to you for just a second. 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:07.239 My name is Beth, I'm a journalist and this is Mara, 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:12.240 and we're working on a project about Deputy Bill Hardy, 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:15.000 and we're hoping to talk to you. 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:19.360 We pull up to a low rise apartment complex in Huntsville, 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:23.480 two hours north of Birmingham. Outside the first floor apartment, 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:26.640 we see big pots of alo vera plants and leafy 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:30.240 elephant ears. The front door is open, and through the 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:33.480 screen door we see a woman wearing a blue dress 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:37.720 sitting on an overstuffed leather couch, almost like she's waiting 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:38.679 for us to arrive. 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:41.760 Hey, I don't know. 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:45.600 I'm sorry to just show up unannounced, but we didn't have. 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:49.000 A known er. I understand because when that happened, I 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:52.640 was living in Birmingham, and since then I lived in Cincinnati. 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:53.680 Forgive me. 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:54.360 You're welcome. 0:08:55.440 --> 0:08:59.000 Rosa lets us into her tidy apartment. There's a painted 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:03.040 wooden sign on the wall that says there is always, always, 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:07.400 always something to be thankful for, and a paper program 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:10.559 from Yolanda's funeral sits on the coffee table next to 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:15.520 framed family photos. Well, I appreciate you letting us in, 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:18.960 just a showing up unannounced, but we're, like I said, 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:23.240 working on a project about Deputy Bill Hardy's murder, and 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:25.720 so we were just reaching out to people that knew 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:30.880 him and wondered, you know, if you could share anything 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:34.840 about him that you knew. Y'all's relationship, well, I met 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:39.040 him through his wife, Diane. Even though Rosa and Deputy 0:09:39.040 --> 0:09:43.280 Bill Hardy share a last name, they aren't related. Patricia 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:47.880 Diane Hardy is Bill Hardy's widow. Rosa sometimes refers to 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:52.480 her as pat but mostly calls her Diane. 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:54.480 Anne and all of us we grew up together in 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:57.160 Selma because her mom used to do our hair. My 0:09:57.240 --> 0:10:00.640 mother had three girls and three boys, and her mother, 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:03.800 Miss Belly, she did our hair every two weeks, so 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:04.959 we were friends. 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:09.719 Rosa and Patricia both eventually moved to Birmingham, where Patricia 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:13.480 marries Bill Hardy and they all remain close friends. 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:16.680 I and I talked all the time on the phone, 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:21.000 but after that happened and Yolando was involved, she kind 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:24.880 of shout away from me, I don't know why you know? 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:28.720 And then how did your daughter get wrapped up? 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:31.280 Okay the case, let me tell you what happened. 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:35.240 I gotta tell you everything because I'm not a liar, 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:36.800 so I gotta tell you the truth. 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:41.320 Rosa begins by going way back to the first time 0:10:41.559 --> 0:10:45.160 she and Yolanda were separated, when Rosa was arrested and 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:47.080 charged with drug possession. 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:49.840 And I ended up catching a case going It took. 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:54.800 While Julia Touttweiler Prison for Women is the only maximum 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:59.679 security women's prison in Alabama. Rosa pleaded guilty and was 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:03.439 sent there for three years. During this time, eight year 0:11:03.480 --> 0:11:06.800 old Yolanda went to live with Rosa's mother and Selma. 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:11.480 When Rosa was released in nineteen ninety one, Yolanda told 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:14.280 her that she'd been sexually abused by a neighbor. 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:18.720 She said, this guy there used to molest her. My 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:20.880 mom would have him to come over and help her 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:24.520 with her homework, and he molested her. So when I 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:28.000 got back mentally, she was all messed up. 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:32.000 Yolanda was twelve years old, and. 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:34.440 It was a rock between a hard place because my 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:37.280 mother said it didn't happen. But I told my mother 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:41.560 these exact words. I said, I wasn't there to protect 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:44.560 my daughter, and if she told me something happened to her, 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:49.000 I believe it. But then after that, you know, she 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:51.240 would run away from me A lot after I came 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:55.959 home from prison. She would run away and I ended 0:11:56.040 --> 0:11:59.480 up letting mistake at her because I was nervous about 0:11:59.520 --> 0:12:02.800 it when she ended up in Falster tear and when 0:12:02.840 --> 0:12:10.079 she would go to Falster caere she will run away. 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:14.760 When she's fourteen years old, Yolanda is hospitalized after attempting 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:18.920 suicide and receives a few months of counseling, and then 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:23.480 the next year, when she's fifteen years old, Yolanda officially 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:27.160 becomes a ward of the state, living full time and 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:31.880 foster care and group homes. The state is supposed to 0:12:31.920 --> 0:12:34.480 be in charge of her care, but according to an 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:38.160 assessment ordered by a county social worker, they don't know 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:49.920 where she is for several months that summer. On the 0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:53.320 night of Hardy's murder, Yolanda is staying with a friend 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:56.880 at the apartment where to Forrest Johnson and ardregas Ford 0:12:57.200 --> 0:13:00.240 pick her up around two in the morning. A few 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:03.920 hours later, police stop them at the Super eight motel 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:06.880 and tell them they're looking into the murder of a 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:07.760 police officer. 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:12.280 So when I talked to her the next day, I 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:14.520 was employed at Adamson Ford. 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:16.439 I was the receptionist there. 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:20.480 When Rosa gets to work that day, she reads in 0:13:20.520 --> 0:13:24.880 the newspaper that their family friend, Deputy Bill Hardy, has 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:28.840 been shot and killed. A little while later, she gets 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:32.640 a call from Yolanda, so you know, last. 0:13:32.440 --> 0:13:36.319 Night someone killed Bill over at the hotel because he 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:41.840 was moonlight and over there, and leads for her exact words, 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:46.160 she's a mommy, I know who did? I say? 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:46.600 You do? 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:52.440 Rosa says. Yolanda didn't give her names. But after the call, 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:56.439 Rosa tells a police officer that her daughter has information 0:13:56.520 --> 0:13:57.280 about the murder. 0:13:58.240 --> 0:14:00.600 Because I just felt like I owed that to you know, 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:03.080 like I say, we were good friends. We weren't strangers, 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:06.320 and we grew up together in Sell and I just 0:14:06.360 --> 0:14:08.439 felt like, you know, I should have. I was supposed 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:09.360 to let somebody know. 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:15.120 Sometime after talking with police, Rosa hires an attorney to 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:17.840 pursue the twenty thousand dollars in reward money. 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:19.720 Was she ever. 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:24.400 Compensated for them? No, And I thought that after I 0:14:24.520 --> 0:14:27.440 had told them, because they did say, you know, there 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:28.280 was some compensation. 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:29.960 They never did give me nothing. 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:35.280 Law enforcement rewards are set up to entice people in 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:41.000 tough financial situations, people like Rosa and Yolanda. Police say 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:44.640 rewards are necessary to penetrate the culture of silence and 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:48.680 communities impacted by crime, but they can also be a 0:14:48.720 --> 0:14:52.280 means to manipulate because it's up to police to decide 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:56.080 whether the information is valuable enough to merit the reward. 0:14:56.920 --> 0:15:00.240 That means detectives can dangle the money while they work 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:09.320 with witnesses, but then choose to never pay it. To 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:14.480 state the obvious, Yolanda is extremely vulnerable when detectives first 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:18.520 bring her in for questioning. In a clinical analysis she 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:22.760 underwent that year, a psychologist wrote that Yolanda was friendly 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:26.760 and outgoing, but could also be verbally aggressive and manipulative. 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:32.680 She also observed that Yolanda was attention seeking, especially with men. 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:38.600 For over a year, detectives question Yolanda at different foster 0:15:38.720 --> 0:15:42.920 homes and shelters, sometimes pulling her out of class, a 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:46.000 pattern that frustrated Yolanda because she was trying to get 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:50.960 her ged. It seems like police were really relentless with her. 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:57.680 They were, they were, and she would call me each 0:15:57.760 --> 0:16:01.920 day when she would be away. She said, Mama, they 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:06.080 coming again today. I said for what she said, I 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:09.880 don't know, Mama. Do you think that they pressured her? 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:14.160 Sure they did, Sure they did. What you got for 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:17.520 is You've got to tell us something. I remember saying that. 0:16:19.440 --> 0:16:22.400 She just told me, Mama, you shouldn't even say in anything. 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:24.760 Those were her words all the time. 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:37.360 Yolanda's statements about the night Deputy Hardy was murdered lead 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:41.960 to four people charged with capital murder, including to Forrest 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:48.040 Johnson and ardregas Ford. But because Yolanda keeps changing her story, 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:52.520 in the fall of nineteen ninety six, ardregas Ford's attorney, 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:56.920 Richard Jaffey asks for a hearing. He wants to examine 0:16:57.000 --> 0:17:03.160 Yolanda's testimony and competency as a witness. The transcript from 0:17:03.200 --> 0:17:07.600 this hearing is extraordinary, so we asked actors to read 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:12.719 for Judge Alfred Bayhackle and Yolanda Chambers. Richard Jaffey agreed 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:18.639 to read his own words. The hearing begins, Yolanda takes 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:22.960 the stand and is sworn in. Richard Jaffey starts by 0:17:23.040 --> 0:17:25.720 asking her why she keeps changing her story. 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:31.679 Were you there at the Crown Starling, No, sir, you 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:36.440 were not there. No, sir, what made you change your 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:41.040 mind and say and lie and say you were there? 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:46.200 Because the pressure they was telling me, you know, don't 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:47.600 you know you can go to jail for this, and 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:49.639 that's all I was thinking. That's all I had on 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:53.359 my mind. Jail. I don't want to go, and you know, 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:55.400 they was just telling me, you know you was there. 0:17:55.480 --> 0:17:57.320 You know we can find out evidence that she was there, 0:17:57.359 --> 0:17:59.040 and just all the pressure that was put on me. 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:01.600 So after they was putting all the pressure on me, 0:18:01.880 --> 0:18:04.240 I went on and said I was there. I said, 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:06.040 maybe if I go on and say I was there, 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:08.199 maybe all the threats and everything will end about me 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:09.440 going to jail as a juvenile. 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:14.680 At this point in time, Yolanda has testified in front 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:18.359 of the grand jury and at multiple pre trial hearings. 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:23.600 She has also missed one important court date. Judge Bae 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:25.720 Hackle questions her directly. 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:26.960 And which hearing? 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:28.919 Did you not show up at the one that they 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:30.920 had last Monday? I don't know which. 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:35.920 Why didn't you show up cause because. 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:37.879 I didn't want to get up there and lie. Do 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:39.160 you feel threatened by anyone? 0:18:39.560 --> 0:18:42.119 Has anyone threatened you so that you'd gone into having. 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:44.800 I felt threatened by the police because they seemed like 0:18:44.800 --> 0:18:46.199 they was the ones that was against me. 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:58.040 Later, Jaffy questions her about what happened when detectives stopped 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:00.440 the tape recorder during interviews. 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:08.960 After he you know, somebody put so much pressure on me. 0:19:09.119 --> 0:19:11.600 And then they get to saying, well, Yolanda, you know 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:14.720 you was there because such and such said this, and 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:16.720 this person was here, and I know you was with 0:19:16.840 --> 0:19:19.160 this person. I'm gonna, quite naturally go on and say 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:21.600 whatever the person wants me to say, whether it's a 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:23.920 truth or whether it's a lie. I'm whatever the person 0:19:23.960 --> 0:19:25.919 wants me to say, I'm gonna go on and say it. 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:28.720 And there was so much stress and pressure on me, 0:19:28.800 --> 0:19:30.560 and I couldn't have my mama around when they was 0:19:30.640 --> 0:19:33.000 questioning me or my attorney, so I just went with 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:37.000 the flow. Whatever they wanted me to say, I would 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:37.359 say it. 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:41.240 How do you feel. 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:45.640 About what you've done to our Dregis Ford and too 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:46.720 far As Johnson. 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:52.960 I'm sorry for doing it, but I didn't know any better, 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:58.119 and I feel like I was even though I was lying. 0:19:58.600 --> 0:20:00.440 I feel like I was taking advantage of of two 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:03.399 because my own mother wasn't even there to be a 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:06.040 comforter for me. Because every time they came and got me, 0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:08.639 they wouldn't let my mom come in with me. I 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:11.560 always had to go with them, but I was property 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:16.280 of them. 0:20:16.640 --> 0:20:20.879 At the hearing, Jeffy argues that Yolanda's testimony should have 0:20:20.960 --> 0:20:23.000 put an end to the state's case. 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:26.960 They should have dropped the case. They should have dropped the. 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:30.360 Case at the point where she had already perjured herself 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:34.199 at the preliminary hearing and at the grand jury, and 0:20:34.240 --> 0:20:38.520 now she's saying, I perjured myself. So how do you ethically, 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:42.840 if you're a prosecutor, take a death penalty case, even 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:46.480 a shoplifting case to trial, if all you've got is 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:48.480 pured testimony. 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:49.920 How do you do that? 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:54.560 But after the hearing is over, Judge Alfred ba Haackle 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:59.719 makes his decision. He chooses not to accept Yolanda's recantation 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:04.359 and denies the motion to dismiss the charges. The case 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:10.320 moves forward as if this hearing never happened. More than 0:21:10.359 --> 0:21:14.679 twenty five years after this hearing, Detective Tony Richardson and 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:19.439 I discussed this moment when Yolanda said under oath that 0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:22.280 police pressured her to change her story. 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:27.000 The rule of an interrogation is you interrogate, And part 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:31.680 of an interrogation is you lean on people, you put 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:32.919 pressure on them. 0:21:33.480 --> 0:21:36.800 You want them to feel that pressure. You know, you 0:21:36.800 --> 0:21:37.840 don't threadn no more or. 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:39.720 Anything like that, but you want them to feel that 0:21:39.840 --> 0:21:43.720 pressure that you leaning on them. And you want that pressure, 0:21:44.480 --> 0:21:48.000 as O saying goes burst of pipe, so that they 0:21:48.040 --> 0:21:50.040 will start to overflowing. 0:21:49.800 --> 0:21:52.520 And telling you, well, where does that leave the truth? 0:21:52.760 --> 0:21:58.440 I mean, she's clearly perjured herself somewhere, because she's testified 0:21:58.520 --> 0:22:01.359 that she was there and will witness the murder on 0:22:01.440 --> 0:22:05.240 multiple occasions, and then she testifies on the stand in 0:22:05.280 --> 0:22:07.919 court that she's made the whole thing up and she 0:22:08.000 --> 0:22:11.600 did it because of pressure. And y'all have been coercing her. 0:22:11.960 --> 0:22:14.800 If we had been coercing her and pressuring her. And 0:22:15.200 --> 0:22:18.359 I'm sure that that happens or has happened in the PA. 0:22:18.480 --> 0:22:20.800 Let's say that happened in the early eighteen hundreds. Okay, 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:26.840 nobody in the modern age does that anyway. Let's say 0:22:26.920 --> 0:22:30.560 that she was pressuring the course, did she tell things 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:32.880 that she couldn't have known that unless. 0:22:32.520 --> 0:22:34.120 She was there? Yes? 0:22:35.720 --> 0:22:36.120 Like what? 0:22:36.440 --> 0:22:37.560 Well, like for. 0:22:37.480 --> 0:22:43.200 Instance, the scenario about how it happened, the scenario about 0:22:43.240 --> 0:22:46.200 how the deputy came out of the back of the hotel. 0:22:46.200 --> 0:22:47.480 We know the deputy came out of the back of 0:22:47.480 --> 0:22:49.600 the hotel. We're not telling her this. She came in 0:22:49.720 --> 0:22:50.320 and told us. 0:22:50.440 --> 0:22:51.720 But that was in the newspaper. 0:22:51.800 --> 0:22:52.880 No no, no, no, no, no, no no. 0:22:54.200 --> 0:22:57.720 It was in the newspaper. Hardy was killed at the 0:22:57.760 --> 0:23:00.919 back entrance of the hotel, and this was reported and 0:23:01.000 --> 0:23:04.720 the first article published the day of the murder. It 0:23:04.800 --> 0:23:07.399 was also on the news the morning of his death. 0:23:08.080 --> 0:23:10.840 A reporter gestures to the hotel's back door. 0:23:10.920 --> 0:23:12.239 The work as hard as they can on this. 0:23:12.320 --> 0:23:14.760 We are at the back door of the Crown Sterling Suites. 0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:17.120 Where forty nine year old William Hardy was found shot 0:23:17.200 --> 0:23:25.960 twice in the head. Not so, what I'm saying is 0:23:26.280 --> 0:23:30.119 here you have Yolanda Chambers, who, after all these years, 0:23:30.520 --> 0:23:33.080 from day one, has been called a liar. And I'll 0:23:33.119 --> 0:23:35.479 be the first to tell she is or she was. 0:23:37.040 --> 0:23:41.440 But as an investigator, you have to sort through this. 0:23:41.760 --> 0:23:44.720 You have to figure out what's the truth in this 0:23:45.960 --> 0:23:47.600 to help build a case. 0:24:08.640 --> 0:24:13.240 Throughout my conversation with Rosa Hardy, she expresses regret about 0:24:13.280 --> 0:24:16.360 involving Yolanda and Deputy Hardy's murder investigation. 0:24:17.680 --> 0:24:21.280 She resented the fact that I even mentioned it. So 0:24:21.440 --> 0:24:24.719 we didn't really communicate about it. But in the end, 0:24:24.760 --> 0:24:27.800 you know, I felt so many times, even after she died, 0:24:27.880 --> 0:24:29.840 that you know, I just had a lot to do 0:24:29.960 --> 0:24:34.320 with how she ended up. I don't know if I 0:24:34.359 --> 0:24:36.840 did the right thing by speaking up. Looked like it 0:24:37.000 --> 0:24:38.240 just missed the boy life. 0:24:40.280 --> 0:24:43.800 At seventeen, Yolanda got pregnant and gave birth to a 0:24:43.840 --> 0:24:47.560 baby girl. Rosa says the child's father was never part 0:24:47.560 --> 0:24:50.600 of their lives. Yolanda would go on to have a 0:24:50.640 --> 0:24:53.200 second child, a son, with another partner. 0:24:54.760 --> 0:24:56.520 Such a beautiful picture of hers. 0:24:56.680 --> 0:24:58.280 Yeah, she was a really pretty girl. 0:24:58.440 --> 0:25:00.880 She was, and she got I mixed up in all 0:25:01.000 --> 0:25:02.520 kind of stuff, I tell you. 0:25:03.480 --> 0:25:06.879 Rosa shows us pictures of Yolanda where she appears happy, 0:25:07.280 --> 0:25:12.720 smiling holding her babies. In one photo, a large tattoo 0:25:12.800 --> 0:25:18.280 of a jaguar is visible on Yolanda's chest. Rosa tells 0:25:18.359 --> 0:25:22.040 us after she got Yolanda involved in this case, their 0:25:22.080 --> 0:25:25.600 relationship was never the same, estranged. 0:25:25.920 --> 0:25:29.639 And she was fear me to me, call me a 0:25:29.720 --> 0:25:33.720 bitch in front of anybody. But we were not close 0:25:33.800 --> 0:25:35.920 at all. 0:25:36.040 --> 0:25:40.240 According to Rosa, the baby boy's father wanted to marry Yolanda, 0:25:40.560 --> 0:25:44.240 but he wanted her to get sober first. By then, 0:25:44.640 --> 0:25:49.840 Yolanda had developed a debilitating dependence on heroin to get by. 0:25:50.119 --> 0:25:53.920 Yolanda sometimes worked at a strip club in Birmingham's West End. 0:25:54.600 --> 0:25:57.840 She was also arrested several times for theft and writing 0:25:57.880 --> 0:26:02.440 bad checks, but she wasn't sent to rehab or sentenced 0:26:02.480 --> 0:26:07.640 to prison for these charges. Instead, Yolanda leveraged the one 0:26:07.720 --> 0:26:14.480 relationship where she felt she had some value the police. 0:26:14.800 --> 0:26:17.119 I might be talking too much, but I'm going to 0:26:17.200 --> 0:26:24.440 tell you this. I found out that she was snitching 0:26:24.520 --> 0:26:28.080 on drug dealers and they were paying her. The FBI, 0:26:30.359 --> 0:26:32.640 they gave her money. They would come by the apartment 0:26:32.680 --> 0:26:37.240 and give her money. So eventually I ran across from 0:26:37.240 --> 0:26:39.439 one that had come to the apartment one time, and 0:26:39.520 --> 0:26:42.080 I had told them that they needed to take care 0:26:42.080 --> 0:26:45.240 of my daughter, and they said that they would. 0:26:47.160 --> 0:26:51.959 Rosa says that police were knowingly supporting Yolanda's addiction with 0:26:52.119 --> 0:26:56.400 no regard for her health or the incredible risks she 0:26:56.480 --> 0:27:00.840 was taking informing on drug dealers. My producer spoke with 0:27:00.960 --> 0:27:02.480