Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty eight, roommates Chris Ochoe and Richard Danziger
Speaker 1: worked at two different Pizza Hut locations in Austin, Texas.
Speaker 1: When a robbery, rape, and murder occurred at another location
Speaker 1: in the early morning hours of October twenty fourth, Nancy
Speaker 1: Dupriest led in a man disguised as a repairman, who
Speaker 1: would later admit to committing the crime alone. However, before
Speaker 1: this spontaneous admission of guilt, the lack of forced entry
Speaker 1: led police to focus on other Pizza Hut employees. Several
Speaker 1: were brought to a notorious interrogator, Detective Hector Polanco, including
Speaker 1: Chris Ochoa. As we commonly see in pattern and practice
Speaker 1: from investigators all over the country, Polanco lied about crime
Speaker 1: scene evidence, polygraph results, and made threats of the death
Speaker 1: penalty and prison rape. To coerce a statement from a
Speaker 1: frightened young man, Chris gave false statements implicating himself and
Speaker 1: Richard Danziger to avoid Polanco's threats of a death sentence.
Speaker 1: The prosecution passed off primitive and inconclusive DNA test results,
Speaker 1: as well as dubious hair microscopy as evidence of guilt,
Speaker 1: but Chris's false confession was really all they needed to
Speaker 1: set both of them away for life. Both Chris and
Speaker 1: Richard languished in prison until the Wisconsin Innis's Project was
Speaker 1: finally able to present modern DNA test results that only
Speaker 1: corroborated what the real rapist and killer had been confessing
Speaker 1: to multiple authorities as early as nineteen ninety six. This
Speaker 1: is Wrongful Conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction today's episode.
Speaker 1: I guess if you were to say, can you point
Speaker 1: to a case that highlights everything that's wrong with our system,
Speaker 1: you could easily say, let's talk about the case of
Speaker 1: Chris Ochoa, sometimes referred to is the Pizza Hut case.
Speaker 1: But we have the man here today himself in person
Speaker 1: with us. Chris o'choa. I'm very honored to have you
Speaker 1: here today on the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Jason. Joining us today is John Pray. John is a
Speaker 1: retired clinical professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School,
Speaker 1: was a driving force in the exoneration of Chris o'choa
Speaker 1: and has been a force for good for many years
Speaker 1: for many different innocent people. So John, I'm very very
Speaker 1: grateful to you for being here today as well.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me'm I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 1: And this case, like many of our cases, involves a
Speaker 1: young man Chris, who was twenty two years old at
Speaker 1: the time, who had never had any real issues, was
Speaker 1: an honor student editor of the high school literary magazine.
Speaker 1: Sort of mild mannered guy. You're still a mild matter guy,
Speaker 1: Chris winchesday amazingly.
Speaker 2: Unless you give me in a court room a story.
Speaker 1: Well said, so says I mentioned was a good kid,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to say you, at twenty two years old,
Speaker 1: you're still a kid. But there were forces of evil
Speaker 1: that were overwhelming in this instance, right, Not just the
Speaker 1: evil that was perpetrated on the victim in this case,
Speaker 1: in what is a grotesque crime by anybody's definition, but
Speaker 1: also the evil compounded on itself by virtue of the
Speaker 1: fact that Detective Hector Polanco was the detective who railroaded Chris,
Speaker 1: who allowed the actual perpetrator to remain free. It's hard
Speaker 1: to overstate the misdeeds that he committed, not just in
Speaker 1: your case, but in many others. John, Can you tell
Speaker 1: us about this Polonco character and what his history tells us.
Speaker 1: And this is even before Chris ever had the misfortune
Speaker 1: of coming on to his radar.
Speaker 3: We didn't know about mister Polanco until we got involved
Speaker 3: with Chris's case, of course, but I think we were
Speaker 3: investigating that we had learned that he had had a
Speaker 3: history of playing somewhat loose with the facts. I guess
Speaker 3: you could say on some other cases.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean his name featured prominently and in the
Speaker 1: most sinister ways in the cases of Alan Causey, Bruce Bowser,
Speaker 1: Richard osase Edia, a Nigerian student who falsely confessed if.
Speaker 3: I remember right. One of them was called the Yogurt
Speaker 3: shop cases. I think he had been instrumental in creating
Speaker 3: some false confessions in that case.
Speaker 1: The infamous Yogurt Chop murders took place in December nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety one, where four girls were murdered and the crimate
Speaker 1: remained unsolved for eight years, And that's when police announced
Speaker 1: the rest of four suspects who had come under the
Speaker 1: radar after very suspicious confessions that were very similar to
Speaker 1: Chris's and that were not coincidentally conducted by Detective Polanco.
Speaker 3: So we knew that he had some kind of history,
Speaker 3: and we do know that he was in charge of
Speaker 3: the case for Chris and led that interrogation. There were
Speaker 3: other people in the room at the same time, but
Speaker 3: I think he was the I think he called himself
Speaker 3: the bogey man.
Speaker 1: Let's just say that Chris, being sort of a mild
Speaker 1: mannered honor student, was not prepared in any way when
Speaker 1: he was interrogated by Detective Bilanco. Now let's go back
Speaker 1: to the crime itself, Okay, because this crime I think
Speaker 1: really shocked the local community, and brace yourself. On October
Speaker 1: twenty fourth of nineteen eighty eight, a twenty year old
Speaker 1: girl named Nancy the Priest was working alone in a
Speaker 1: Pizza Hut restaurant in Austin, Texas, and it was during
Speaker 1: her shift that the store was robbed. The Pizza Hut
Speaker 1: was robbed, and she was tied up with her bra
Speaker 1: raped and then shot in the head. Now, when this happened, you,
Speaker 1: of course lived in the area. Where were you and
Speaker 1: your co defendant, Richard Danziger I'm talking about, of course,
Speaker 1: where were you, guys? And when did you first hear
Speaker 1: about this?
Speaker 2: Well, me and Richard worked at different pizza huts when
Speaker 2: the crime happened. So when that crime happened, Richard was
Speaker 2: late for a shift at his pizza hut. So they
Speaker 2: called the apartment and I didn't answer the phone. One
Speaker 2: of my other roommates censored it. You know, I heard
Speaker 2: the phone, I rolled back to sleep, and then I
Speaker 2: woke up and I turned on the news, and that's
Speaker 2: when I saw the coverage. So I was shocked as
Speaker 2: much as everybody else in Austin, and particularly that I
Speaker 2: was an employee at another pizza hut.
Speaker 1: And police they began investigating pizza hut workers because they believed,
Speaker 1: I don't know whether they had reason to believe it,
Speaker 1: but they did believe that a master key was used
Speaker 1: to gain entry to the restaurant. And of course, where
Speaker 1: this starts to, you know, really go downhill fast, is
Speaker 1: that a few days later, an employee at the pizza
Speaker 1: hut saw you, Chris and Richard, who was only an
Speaker 1: eighteen year old kid at this time, right, eating pizza,
Speaker 1: drinking beer in the restaurant and raising a toast, or
Speaker 1: so they thought to the victim in this case, in
Speaker 1: her honor. And you guys worked at different pizza huts
Speaker 1: in the area, and so this was when detectives had
Speaker 1: this sort of Eureka moment or whatever, and decided that
Speaker 1: you must be good for it, because otherwise, why else
Speaker 1: would you be acting this way. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: obviously nothing like evidence. So what happened next?
Speaker 2: Several days later, two Austin detectives went to the pizza
Speaker 2: hut where I worked at in downtown Austin. It was
Speaker 2: not Polanco. It was some white detective and this female
Speaker 2: Espanily detective that showed up. They wanted to ask me
Speaker 2: questions about a burgery, so they drove me to the
Speaker 2: police station. They asked me some maybe two or three
Speaker 2: questions about some burglary, which was nothing, but it didn't
Speaker 2: take about five minutes, and then they shifted me to
Speaker 2: what I now know is the interrogation room. After they left,
Speaker 2: then barges in Hector Bolanco, and he looks me up
Speaker 2: and down. Look, I mean, he looks me from head
Speaker 2: to toe and he tells me, do you know what
Speaker 2: they called me on street in Spanish? And I have
Speaker 2: no idea, So that he tells me that they call
Speaker 2: him the boogeyman. I guess he's trying to instill fear
Speaker 2: in me. Then he starts asking me questions about the
Speaker 2: pizza robbery, and I tell him I don't know anything
Speaker 2: about it. And then he starts launching into this if
Speaker 2: you know something about this crime or this murder or
Speaker 2: this robbery, and if you don't cooperate with us, you're
Speaker 2: going to get the death penalty. He started using the
Speaker 2: death penalty from right off the top. If you don't
Speaker 2: tell us, you're going to die. And I mean, it
Speaker 2: was relentless, and I kept saying, I don't know what
Speaker 2: you're talking about. If I knew what, I would certainly cooperate,
Speaker 2: but I don't know anything. And this is a turgetion.
Speaker 2: It took hours. He would walk out, and then another detective,
Speaker 2: the poor good cop after Malaysia, so saying, hey, my
Speaker 2: partners are hot head, just tell us what you know
Speaker 2: and then you can go home. He walks out and
Speaker 2: walks Polanco again starts threatening me with a death penalty.
Speaker 2: At some point he walks out and a female spanded
Speaker 2: detective and this is I think a couple of hours
Speaker 2: into the interrogation, asked, what do you think I can
Speaker 2: have an attorney? And she said no. She got rips
Speaker 2: that you can't have one. So you're officially charged. So
Speaker 2: we all know that that's not right. But at that time,
Speaker 2: she walked out, and then Polanco walks back in starts
Speaker 2: threatening me with a death penalty again. She grabbed my arm,
Speaker 2: tap my arm, the needles are gonna go one of
Speaker 2: those veins or something like that. I'm gonna make sure
Speaker 2: I'm there to see it. And it took hours, and
Speaker 2: at some point they just broke me down. Polanco had say,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm getting tired of your bullshit. I'm just
Speaker 2: gonna put you in jail, and in there, you're going
Speaker 2: to be fresh meat for the prisoners because you're young.
Speaker 2: I know you don't have a record. He and you
Speaker 2: had to have a record. When he turned prison house rate.
Speaker 2: That was the end of my rope. I told him,
Speaker 2: what do you want me to say? I wanted it over.
Speaker 2: I just wanted to go home. That first interrogation, they
Speaker 2: were fixated on Richard Danziger. They said, did Richard Danziger?
Speaker 2: Did he come back and tell you? So the first
Speaker 2: statement that they forced me into signing was that Richard
Speaker 2: did it and he came home from the apartment and
Speaker 2: told me.
Speaker 1: And then they gave you a confession to sign. And
Speaker 1: here's the crazy thing. They didn't even need to write
Speaker 1: the confession because this Polanco, the detective, has used the
Speaker 1: same exact confession on two previous suspects. All he was
Speaker 1: doing was whiting out the names, just white it out
Speaker 1: and then put in the name Chris o'choa sign here.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is madness, this is America, right.
Speaker 2: And so they brought Richard and they said he had
Speaker 2: to face's accuser. They took me to see him. Shortly
Speaker 2: that after they pulled me out and then I asked,
Speaker 2: can I go home now? And they said no, we're
Speaker 2: afraid for your safety. He just gave a statement against Richard.
Speaker 2: He could hurt you. We're going to put you up
Speaker 2: at a hotel in Austin. Well on Quin mentioned the DNA,
Speaker 2: some new science and you can tell them you're there.
Speaker 1: You're not.
Speaker 2: Said we need you to give blood samples, hair samples.
Speaker 2: Of course, the DNA at the time and eighty eight
Speaker 2: was not as advanced as it is now. But I said, sure,
Speaker 2: if that's going to help you show that I wasn't there.
Speaker 2: So they took me to the hospital. I gave them
Speaker 2: blood samples, hair samples that I cooperated.
Speaker 3: They did do a rape kid Unfortunately this was late eighties.
Speaker 3: They did do some DNA analysis, However, it was not
Speaker 3: the kind of DNA analysis that later proved Chris's innocence.
Speaker 3: In Richard's innocence, it was a more primitive form called
Speaker 3: d Q alpha, and it showed that one in six
Speaker 3: Hispanic Americans could have done this, and Chris was among
Speaker 3: the one in the six, and so they used that
Speaker 3: as some degree of evidence. They also had a hair
Speaker 3: that was found on the body of Nancy DePriest and
Speaker 3: they looked through a microscope with that hair and they
Speaker 3: said that is consistent with the hair of Richard. And
Speaker 3: they made a big deal out of that, showing it
Speaker 3: looks like his hair, it is his hair. And you know,
Speaker 3: they didn't have the benefit of DNA analysis that hair,
Speaker 3: which would later show that it excluded Richard. You know,
Speaker 3: the technology improved later, but at the time they made
Speaker 3: a bigger deal out of that hair than was justified.
Speaker 1: So they're coercing you with threats of prison, rape, and
Speaker 1: the death penalty while also using the junk science of
Speaker 1: har microscopy, which don't even get me started on how
Speaker 1: subjective and meaningless, utterly meaningless that is. But not only that,
Speaker 1: they're using this primitive DNA testing, acting like being able
Speaker 1: to say that you and the actual assailant fall into
Speaker 1: the same sixteen percent of the Mexican population, which basically
Speaker 1: comes down to about one in six Mexicans. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's unbelievable that this was even considered or ultimately past
Speaker 1: as evidence. But okay, so now they've got the statement
Speaker 1: about Richard out of you, but they're still only halfway done.
Speaker 1: So it's a Friday, and they basically kidnapped you, call
Speaker 1: it what it is, and put you up at a
Speaker 1: hotel for the weekend. I mean, you could have left,
Speaker 1: but you didn't know that, right, I mean, that's that's
Speaker 1: another sick thing about this. And now Monday rolls around
Speaker 1: and they've got even more dirty tricks up their sleeve.
Speaker 2: So comes Monday, Holanko and the other detective Malaysia show
Speaker 2: up to the hotel room take me. They want to
Speaker 2: take me back to station to ask me more questions.
Speaker 2: But then they said that they wanted me to take
Speaker 2: a polygraph test. A lion took to polygraph test. They said,
Speaker 2: I registered deception. I was an a kid. I don't know.
Speaker 2: It was a stress test and not a light detective test.
Speaker 2: They said we think you were in there.
Speaker 3: I think the main purpose of a lie detective test
Speaker 3: is whatever it might yield, they are going to go
Speaker 3: back to the suspect and say, well, you failed it,
Speaker 3: and now we have that against you, and it just
Speaker 3: gives them a reason to say, well, I guess maybe
Speaker 3: I should confess because apparently they think I was lying.
Speaker 3: But part of their technique is to make lies about
Speaker 3: the evidence they have, and they try to convince you
Speaker 3: that they know you're guilty. Your only way out of
Speaker 3: it is to confess. And I think when someone I
Speaker 3: think it could be anybody, but especially young people or
Speaker 3: people who are nai is confronted with a detective saying
Speaker 3: we have evidence that isn't true, but you don't know that,
Speaker 3: and your only way out of this is to confess,
Speaker 3: and that's the only way your life is going to
Speaker 3: be spared or you're not going to be thrown into
Speaker 3: a jail cell as fresh meat.
Speaker 1: And in this case, my understanding is not only did
Speaker 1: they do all the things that you talked about, Chris,
Speaker 1: but also Polanco threw a chair at you, showed you
Speaker 1: photographs of death row where you're going to end up
Speaker 1: if you didn't confess, and there's a quote from him
Speaker 1: that sends the chills up my spine where he said, quote,
Speaker 1: we're going to charge you with this crime, whether you
Speaker 1: had anything to do with it or not, because this
Speaker 1: is a real big case and they want somebody.
Speaker 2: So now Polanco wants me to say that I was
Speaker 2: in the Pizza Hut with Richard allegedly saying that I
Speaker 2: and Richard rape Nancy the priest, and that we did
Speaker 2: all kinds of horrible things. But so he started taping it.
Speaker 2: He said, well, now, when you walked at the Pizza
Speaker 2: Hunt with Richard, was there an item that what was
Speaker 2: in there? I didn't know, and I would stop and stutter,
Speaker 2: and he would say, well, was it there an apron there? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 2: that was an apron. So he would stop the tape,
Speaker 2: rewind it, and then I would repeat what he wanted
Speaker 2: me to say, and he said, well, tell us what
Speaker 2: color the april once as well? Black or red? I
Speaker 2: don't know. I kept guessing the whole publish spectrum. So
Speaker 2: I got it right. Then he would stop the tape,
Speaker 2: rewind it and record it. You know, he will coach
Speaker 2: me on what to say. So the tape of that
Speaker 2: late statement he was feeding me all the details.
Speaker 1: So the state offered to give you a life sentence.
Speaker 1: What a great deal that is? Not for something for
Speaker 1: doing nothing, for having a toast, basically right. So I
Speaker 1: offered to give you a life sentence if you could
Speaker 1: deplete guilty and testify against Richard. And your alternative, of course,
Speaker 1: was to face the death penalty. So after two twelve
Speaker 1: hour interrogation sessions, think about how long that is to
Speaker 1: be stuck in an airless room. I'll talk to the
Speaker 1: audience now. Of course, with these people who are literally
Speaker 1: trying to take your life away from you. You signed
Speaker 1: the confessions which were totally concocted by the police, with
Speaker 1: the white out and the whole thing. I mean, did
Speaker 1: you even have an attorney at this point.
Speaker 2: When those statements are signed? I never had an attorney.
Speaker 2: I didn't get an attorney until I was actually charged
Speaker 2: and waned, and I believe a magistrate she asked me,
Speaker 2: do you have an attorney, misscho So I do not.
Speaker 2: I said, do you know what you're charged with? You
Speaker 2: was shocked. Recess to court took me into her chambers
Speaker 2: and I remember she calling somebody another daight. I don't
Speaker 2: know what she called. She was said, why has this
Speaker 2: man not been afforded an attorney yet? That's when the
Speaker 2: attorney stepped in the defense attorneys. I was appointed defense
Speaker 2: attorney and I told him exactly what I'm telling you,
Speaker 2: how these statements came about. And she said, there's no
Speaker 2: way an innocent person would give such a detailed confession.
Speaker 2: So he didn't believe that. You know, they coerced me.
Speaker 2: So at the next quarter appearance, I asked I wanted
Speaker 2: to fire the attorney, then insteaded appointing another defense attorney
Speaker 2: who had more experience, and I told him the same
Speaker 2: story when I interviewed with him the first time, and
Speaker 2: I said, isn't it your job through my innocence, you
Speaker 2: should investigate this? He said, no, my job is to
Speaker 2: save your life. In a way, he was right, but no,
Speaker 2: your job is to prove innocence. First, my defense attorneys
Speaker 2: did no investigation. You mentioned law enforcement had a theory
Speaker 2: that a master key was used to get into the
Speaker 2: pizza hut because there was no evidence of breaking of
Speaker 2: an entry into the pizza hut. This pizza hut two doors.
Speaker 2: I know the detective wanted me to say that we
Speaker 2: had a master key to get in a pizza hut
Speaker 2: and we came into a certain door. Right, I don't
Speaker 2: know what door it was. But after John the Innis's
Speaker 2: project investigated the whole thing, it turns out that there's
Speaker 2: no way I could have gone through that door. That
Speaker 2: polock hoomness is no way because that key didn't open
Speaker 2: that door. There's no way because that door could not
Speaker 2: be opened with any key. It was just jammed, had
Speaker 2: to be opened from the inside.
Speaker 1: Right. The classic hallmark of a false confession when the
Speaker 1: facts of the crime scene don't even match the information
Speaker 1: that they're feeding to.
Speaker 2: You had, mister start. My defense attorneys gone and see
Speaker 2: how wiable it is is go ask questions. The prosecutor
Speaker 2: should have done that. Your job as an attorney is
Speaker 2: to look at the conficion Does this really match the
Speaker 2: evidence that these guys have? And they don't, But the
Speaker 2: prosecute should be the one, Hey, I can't use this.
Speaker 3: I think the defense attorneys looked at the confession and
Speaker 3: they thought that's the end. There's no point in investigating
Speaker 3: this any further. They didn't look into like, I wonder
Speaker 3: if this confession could be suppressed because he did ask
Speaker 3: for an attorney. They didn't look at that. They didn't
Speaker 3: look at the alibi evidence that there was, they didn't
Speaker 3: look at the physical evidence that there was. They just
Speaker 3: saw the confession and said, well, that's he's going to
Speaker 3: be convicted. So my job is to make sure he
Speaker 3: doesn't get the death penalty. So we can do that
Speaker 3: by having Chris plead guilty. And you know, when your
Speaker 3: attorney's telling you that Chris believed that. And when I
Speaker 3: called the defense attorney when we were investigating it, this
Speaker 3: is twelve years later, we asked him what he had
Speaker 3: done and he said like, well, did Chris tell you
Speaker 3: that his fingerprints were found on the gun and things
Speaker 3: like that? And I said no, So I go back
Speaker 3: to Chris and say, Chris, you didn't tell us your
Speaker 3: fingerprints were on the gun. And of course it turns
Speaker 3: out that that was just a lie, or that he
Speaker 3: had forgotten that Polanco and made up his own evidence
Speaker 3: to make him think that Chris was guilty. There were
Speaker 3: no fingerp rents on any gun, so he just I
Speaker 3: think early on, decided my job is to keep him
Speaker 3: from being executed, and therefore we're going to push this
Speaker 3: flea through and get him life in prison. And that's
Speaker 3: exactly what they did.
Speaker 2: One of the reasons I essentially pled guilty after a
Speaker 2: year in jail was because apparently my defense attorney and
Speaker 2: I don't know who else was calling my mom pretty
Speaker 2: much every day telling her that she should get me
Speaker 2: to plead guilty or she's going to lose her son.
Speaker 2: You're going to murder her son. So essentially my mom
Speaker 2: got to the point of a stroke, was brought on
Speaker 2: by stress, and at that point I called whoever I
Speaker 2: had to call, I'll plead guilty. I played guilty for
Speaker 2: my mom. So at that point, the DA tells me, okay,
Speaker 2: we're going to charge you with rape and they're trying
Speaker 2: to get Richard on capitol murder.
Speaker 1: So at this point your fate was sealed. Chris. You
Speaker 1: had nobody to help you. The system had failed you
Speaker 1: and failed as the priest as well, and the public
Speaker 1: and her family and everybody else, and you were doomed.
Speaker 1: Part of your deal was that you were basically compelled
Speaker 1: to testify against Danziger. Right you were convicted, as was
Speaker 1: Danziger in February nineteen ninety and both of you were
Speaker 1: sent to life in prison.
Speaker 2: The moment to gab Will hit any sentencement. It came
Speaker 2: crashing down. I was like, I wasn't shocked. First night
Speaker 2: in the Texas prison when they slammed door shut, the
Speaker 2: metal clangs once that door slammed. That was when night crap.
Speaker 2: I mean here now.
Speaker 1: This episode is underwritten by global law firm Greenberg Traig
Speaker 1: through its pro bono program, Greenberg Traig leverages it's more
Speaker 1: than twenty four hundred lawyers across forty two offices to
Speaker 1: serve the greater good of our communities and provide equal
Speaker 1: access to justice for all. In the field of criminal justice,
Speaker 1: Greenberg Trowing attorneys have exonerated in freedomand in Philadelphia, represent
Speaker 1: numerous individuals previously sentenced to life for crimes committed as
Speaker 1: juveniles and resentencing hearings, and receive the American part Association's
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one Exceptional Service Award for Death Penalty Representation
Speaker 1: for their work on five death penalty cases. GT is
Speaker 1: reimagining what big law can be because a more just
Speaker 1: world only happens by design.
Speaker 2: As time went on, it felt like the world got
Speaker 2: about me. You know, fewer people right, And I know
Speaker 2: I tried my best to survive, and I know Richard
Speaker 2: had it worse. But I know at some point I
Speaker 2: had already done ten years. I used to see the newspaper,
Speaker 2: my hotel newspaper. All my friends from high school had kids,
Speaker 2: had wives, had careers, and I felt like such a
Speaker 2: bad through no fall of my home. So Christmas Eve,
Speaker 2: I didn't get a Christmas card that year. On time,
Speaker 2: I had lost hope. So I made up my mind.
Speaker 2: I went up to my cell and I broke open
Speaker 2: a razor blade because that night I was going through
Speaker 2: this pain. That alcohol drug doesn't get rid of the pain.
Speaker 2: So I wanted to run it up my arm so
Speaker 2: that I could bleed out and just send it. But
Speaker 2: at that point I remember what the nuns told me
Speaker 2: in Tetholic school, that I didn't have the right to
Speaker 2: take anybody's life, not even my own, because God gave
Speaker 2: it to me. So by through the razor blade and
Speaker 2: I flushed it and I got through that night. Somehow
Speaker 2: I grabbed onto faith the way I survived. I went
Speaker 2: to school. Music was my escape. That's what got me
Speaker 2: through prison, school, Faith and the radio.
Speaker 1: What I think we have to shine a light on
Speaker 1: is the fact that behind the scenes and unbeknownst to you.
Speaker 1: In February of nineteen ninety eight, a man named Aquem
Speaker 1: Joseph Marino, a convict who was serving three life sentences
Speaker 1: in the Texas Prison for aggravated robbery, wrote a letter
Speaker 1: to the governor, who was George W. Bush at that time,
Speaker 1: and mister Marino had become a born again Christian who,
Speaker 1: as part of his AA and Narcotics Anonymous program, had
Speaker 1: been obligated to confess. Right. It's part of the cleansing,
Speaker 1: the twelve step program, right. And as part of that,
Speaker 1: he felt obligated to confess to the murder that he
Speaker 1: had committed, which was the one that you were charged
Speaker 1: with of mis the Priest. His letter began it was
Speaker 1: quote remurder confession, you know, ra Colan murder confession. In
Speaker 1: the letter, mister Marino said, quote my conscience sickens me.
Speaker 1: End quote, and he went on to say that he
Speaker 1: alone raped and murdered ms the Priest, that you and
Speaker 1: Danziger were not involved. Quote I tell you this, sir,
Speaker 1: I did this awful crime and I was alone. Now
Speaker 1: Here's where it gets even deeper, okay. Marino said that
Speaker 1: evidence tying him to the crime and him alone, including
Speaker 1: the victim's keys could be found at his parents home.
Speaker 1: He said that he had begun writing and confessing to
Speaker 1: the police years earlier, back in ninety six, as well
Speaker 1: as a newspaper and even the ACLU, but after getting
Speaker 1: no response, he was now going all the way to
Speaker 1: the governor governor push to take action. After the police
Speaker 1: received another letter from Marino that contained a detailed description
Speaker 1: of the crime scene, they finally began reinvestigating. And when
Speaker 1: they went to Marino's parents' home, what did they find?
Speaker 1: Guess what? They found the keys, as he said they would,
Speaker 1: as well as the other evidence, including bank ouches and
Speaker 1: a pistol. So this should have been at that very moment,
Speaker 1: this should be over. They should have come right to
Speaker 1: the prison apologize to you and to Danziger. I would
Speaker 1: say they should have just yanked you right out of
Speaker 1: there that day, but you know that's not how it works.
Speaker 1: But that process should have been started immediately with urgency,
Speaker 1: because every day in that prison was risking your life
Speaker 1: and his and his case, he almost lost his life.
Speaker 1: But finally they went to mister Danziger and to you,
Speaker 1: and unfortunately Danzeger had sustained permanent brain damage and had
Speaker 1: injuries while he was in prison and was now in
Speaker 1: a mental institution. A tragedy upon another tragedy. But you, Chris,
Speaker 1: at that time, told the same story that you had
Speaker 1: told the trial.
Speaker 2: At that point I knew that there was something going
Speaker 2: on in the case. At some point I ended the
Speaker 2: interview saying, look, I did this crime. Let me do
Speaker 2: my time. And the only reason I did that to
Speaker 2: the cops told him that is I wanted to throw
Speaker 2: him off a scent because I thought, if these guys
Speaker 2: sniff it, I'm claiming innocent. What if there's evidence of
Speaker 2: innocence and they go destroy like chelsh agridem should kind
Speaker 2: of you know, they were trying to link me and
Speaker 2: Richard to a king Reno.
Speaker 3: I think they just could not get it through their
Speaker 3: heads that it's possible that Chris could have lied in
Speaker 3: the confession. You would never confess to a murder he
Speaker 3: didn't do. And so their theory when Marino came on
Speaker 3: the scene was that, Okay, it must have been three
Speaker 3: of you, and we know Chris confessed, so we know
Speaker 3: he's did it. We know Danziger did it. So if
Speaker 3: Marino's confessing and he's got the gun, and he's got
Speaker 3: the key. I think their mindset was now that Marino's
Speaker 3: saying he did it, Okay, it must have been the three.
Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, they showed me photo lineups.
Speaker 2: I mean, I recognize myself in one and I recognized
Speaker 2: denzigrin the other one. But then they showed me another lineup.
Speaker 2: I guess we Marino. At the time, I didn't know
Speaker 2: anybody who was confessed. I had no idea. They asked
Speaker 2: me why, and I didn't recognize anybody on that photo.
Speaker 2: I guess Marina was in there. And now that I recall,
Speaker 2: the Texas ranger and the cop looked at themselves when
Speaker 2: they saw I did wreck because Marino.
Speaker 3: And they did do some investigation on that to say
Speaker 3: were they ever in the same prison together? Did they
Speaker 3: have any communication with each other? And all that came
Speaker 3: out that no, there's no way that those people had
Speaker 3: ever interacted or intersected in their lives.
Speaker 2: So immediately after that, there was a friend of mine
Speaker 2: who was leaving on parole, and I told him a
Speaker 2: little bit about what was going on in the case, but
Speaker 2: I told him that I needed him to reach out
Speaker 2: to Barry Scheck and Innes's project in New York, and
Speaker 2: he did I think he mailed them, and I think, well,
Speaker 2: you know, they have a lot of cases, the backlogs.
Speaker 2: So they emailed some addresses of innocence projects at that
Speaker 2: time in the country. But on that list that they said,
Speaker 2: I saw the Wisconsin Innoces Project and I don't know
Speaker 2: why I circled that Wisconsin. I had no clue even
Speaker 2: where Wisconsin was on the map. I just circled it
Speaker 2: and I wrote a letter. A couple of weeks later,
Speaker 2: I get a phone call from Wisconsin and it's project.
Speaker 2: It took my case.
Speaker 1: This is now June ninety nine, and this is when,
Speaker 1: of course, in steps the Wisconsin Innocence Project be headed
Speaker 1: by my friend Keith Findley, who people have heard his
Speaker 1: name on the podcast. He's got an incredible reputation, has
Speaker 1: done incredible work, and of course John Pray.
Speaker 3: Wisconsin's the project did get Chris's letter. The thing that
Speaker 3: grabbed our attention was that there was evidence taken from
Speaker 3: the rape kit. Well, now we have some new DNA technology,
Speaker 3: we could re examine the DNA evidence to see if
Speaker 3: Richard and Chris could be excluded. So what we did
Speaker 3: is sent a letter to the authorities in Texas saying
Speaker 3: we are representing Chris or we're looking into Chris's case,
Speaker 3: and we want you to preserve any kind of evidence
Speaker 3: that may have existed. The authorities in Texas were cooperative
Speaker 3: and let's yeah, let's do tests as evidence. And so
Speaker 3: we didn't have to fight for that and didn't take
Speaker 3: too long to have the testing exclude Chris and Richard
Speaker 3: and then match Marino. So at that point the case
Speaker 3: became not too difficult because they realized they got the
Speaker 3: wrong guy. But like I said, they still had to
Speaker 3: investigate whether there was a connection between Marino and Chris
Speaker 3: and Richard.
Speaker 1: Right, But you and the wisconsinenci's project, knowing that you
Speaker 1: could have been up against a well an unscrupulous prosecutor,
Speaker 1: you continue to investigate. What else did you find out?
Speaker 3: So what we were doing in the meantime, once we
Speaker 3: had the DNA test, as we were looking at all
Speaker 3: other aspects of the case and calling other witnesses. There
Speaker 3: was one particular witness who said that the police had
Speaker 3: threatened to take her son away if she didn't testify
Speaker 3: in a certain way, and so there were all kinds
Speaker 3: of things like that. The medical examiner. It was very interesting.
Speaker 3: The medical examiner was privy to Chris's confession and so
Speaker 3: they knew the kind of injuries. Well, one of the
Speaker 3: things they said in the confession was there had been
Speaker 3: an anal rape. So they said, okay, let's look for
Speaker 3: anal tears or evidence of an anal rape. Well, it
Speaker 3: turns out once the confession is known to be false,
Speaker 3: because the DNA proves its false, you go back to
Speaker 3: the medical examiner. He says, oh, upon second look, I
Speaker 3: guess that was a terror caused by the instruments that
Speaker 3: were used to look in that area instead of oh,
Speaker 3: this is actual evidence of a rape. So you know,
Speaker 3: when you're doing a medical examination and you have a
Speaker 3: predisposed notion that, oh, this was from an anal rape
Speaker 3: because that's what the confession said, well then you kind
Speaker 3: of see what you want to see. So there are
Speaker 3: all kinds of things that we could look at later
Speaker 3: that once you know that that's a false confession, the
Speaker 3: house of cards falls quickly.
Speaker 1: And Chris, you had mentioned the part of your false
Speaker 1: confession about the alleged master key and how the door
Speaker 1: was actually jammed. It couldn't have been opened by any
Speaker 1: key right, So just one of the many inconvenient ways
Speaker 1: in which your false confession didn't match reality. What else
Speaker 1: was learned about how Marino gained entry to the pizza hut?
Speaker 2: What was later found out is that Marino said that
Speaker 2: as the priest, lettermakers key disguise themselves a repair man
Speaker 2: or something like that.
Speaker 3: Really, a cursory examination of the evidence, the alibis, the
Speaker 3: physical evidence the keys, would have yielded pretty quickly that
Speaker 3: this has to be a false confession. But that wasn't
Speaker 3: in the repertoire of the attorneys, the police, the judges.
Speaker 3: No one was thinking of false confession as possible. You
Speaker 3: wouldn't confess to something you didn't do.
Speaker 1: So it turned out that the DNA evidence excluded Richard
Speaker 1: and Chris, but included Marino, and now it was going
Speaker 1: to be respected but confused by the false confession. The
Speaker 1: States still wanted to make sure that there was no
Speaker 1: connection between the guys and Marino before finally letting Chris
Speaker 1: and Richard go.
Speaker 3: So that took him longer than we were comfortable with.
Speaker 3: It took him a few months. Where Chris is sitting
Speaker 3: in prison where everybody knows he didn't do it. So
Speaker 3: that was agonizing for Chris. I know it was agonizing
Speaker 3: for us. But after a few months of figuring out
Speaker 3: whether any connections at all, they finally agreed to throw
Speaker 3: out this case for both Richard and Chris. So in
Speaker 3: the fall of two thousand, I think we were all
Speaker 3: certain this was going to happen. We had the agreement
Speaker 3: of the DA, we knew he would be getting out,
Speaker 3: but it was agonizing waiting for several months for the
Speaker 3: actual date. And I just remember being terrified that Chris
Speaker 3: is going to be assaulted by someone else in prison,
Speaker 3: or something's going to happen, and what are we waiting for?
Speaker 3: But we just couldn't get it done until January of
Speaker 3: two thousand and one, and that was That was a
Speaker 3: big day in Chris's life, in all of our lives,
Speaker 3: and it was quite a sensation in Austin. It was
Speaker 3: a very exciting day with a packed court room and
Speaker 3: dozens of news people and photographers.
Speaker 2: I remember vividly when I was they said I was
Speaker 2: free to leave. I guess I'm shocked the bailiff had
Speaker 2: to tell you to show show you know you can
Speaker 2: walk out the door. And I remember going on to
Speaker 2: see a cameras and at hearing my mom was there
Speaker 2: and I became very good friends. Well Ansis project did
Speaker 2: with the mother of net See the Priests, Jeanette Pop.
Speaker 2: I got to speak to her. I got my hunger.
Speaker 2: I you know, was I guess bittersweet that I got up,
Speaker 2: but you know her daughter let's gone. But I remember
Speaker 2: she was happy for me, and she gave me a
Speaker 2: welcome home gift. He watched present time meets nothing and
Speaker 2: there's no time. She said, Now time matters to you.
Speaker 2: I had support from my family. I think Dannis was
Speaker 2: project and John for I did an excellent job of
Speaker 2: keeping me grounded. Jumping really forward to just to say
Speaker 2: how instrumental John has been in my life. I know
Speaker 2: when I got accepted to law school in Wisconsin, I
Speaker 2: went up there to try to find an apartment, and
Speaker 2: you know, I had a lot of advice from mother's mentors.
Speaker 2: But when I went to get my first apartment in Madison,
Speaker 2: I remember John Pray went with me. He read over
Speaker 2: the lease, he looked sculpted out walking distance from the
Speaker 2: law school and from the bars, because I did, in
Speaker 2: turn with a judge before I went to law school,
Speaker 2: and he said, you know in law school, you're probably
Speaker 2: going to drink, so I would suggest getting an apartment
Speaker 2: walking distance to the bars so you can stumble home.
Speaker 2: But John was very, very instrumental in helping me.
Speaker 3: One other thing I wanted to double back on. I'm
Speaker 3: really glad Chris brought up Jeanette Pop, but I think
Speaker 3: it bears just a little bit more explanation. Janette Pop
Speaker 3: is the mother of the victim of Nancy DePriest in
Speaker 3: this case, she very early on identified with Chris, and
Speaker 3: one might say, well, why would she do that. Chris
Speaker 3: was convicted of killing her daughter, but she recognized that
Speaker 3: it was a false confession. And what pained her so
Speaker 3: much was that for twelve years, while Chris was in prison,
Speaker 3: she was under the mistaken belief that her daughter had
Speaker 3: been tortured, had been raped multiple times in this restaurant.
Speaker 3: And that was the story from the confession that she believed.
Speaker 3: And it turns out when we got the true story,
Speaker 3: what came. Marino said, A murder is a murder, and
Speaker 3: that can't be sugarcoated. But the torture, the multiple rapes,
Speaker 3: did not occur. It was a shot to the back
Speaker 3: of the head. And so this suffering that she had
Speaker 3: lived with and thought of her daughter's last hour of
Speaker 3: life of being an utter hell was what tortured her.
Speaker 3: And when she realized that it's because of this coerced
Speaker 3: false confession that made her believe that, you know, it
Speaker 3: just it just was such a relief to her that
Speaker 3: her daughter had not undergone the kinds of things that
Speaker 3: had been coerced from that confession. And that's one reason
Speaker 3: why Jeanette pop was such a strong ally of Chris
Speaker 3: and Richard.
Speaker 1: So, Chris, as we wind down the show here, is
Speaker 1: there anything you want to ask our audience, anything they
Speaker 1: can do for or with you, or an issue that
Speaker 1: you'd like to highlight.
Speaker 2: I think my biggest thing is donating to the Wisconsin
Speaker 2: Insterest Project. They're the reason why I'm here outside. But
Speaker 2: right now, what's on the forefront of my mind is
Speaker 2: the Melissa Lucille case out of Texas. When I saw
Speaker 2: that documentary, I just I got floored. She's innocent, plain
Speaker 2: and simple. Support. Melissa sees she's got just days till
Speaker 2: she's executed. She's murdered. I'm not going to say executed, murdered.
Speaker 2: That's what I asked the people to watch that documentary.
Speaker 2: Donate bring away as the social media right now, there's
Speaker 2: a petition that was sent to the governor or clemency
Speaker 2: from Alissa Luzio for pressure on Texas too. It really
Speaker 2: really irritates me and upsets me. This happened in two
Speaker 2: thousand and seven. Texas, the whole country at two thousand
Speaker 2: and seven. They know what mistakes they've done, what they
Speaker 2: do to people, and yet Texas has not learned their
Speaker 2: lesson at all, and they don't care all the pain
Speaker 2: that we exigneries have gone through. No, we testify in
Speaker 2: Congress and we do stuff like this so that others
Speaker 2: won't go through it. Yet Texas assists of doing the
Speaker 2: same thing over and over and over again. And until
Speaker 2: we get rid of these people working the system, our
Speaker 2: system is not going to work. It works if you
Speaker 2: have people that are doing it for the right reasons,
Speaker 2: not to get power, not to get money for apparently
Speaker 2: from the Melissable seal case, I see that's pretty honous.
Speaker 2: It was all about power and position.
Speaker 1: Chris, we'll have the same action steps here that we
Speaker 1: did last week for Melissa. She's scheduled for execution. I
Speaker 1: hate saying these words on April twenty seventh. This is
Speaker 1: not a drill, this is real, so please join us
Speaker 1: in saving her from imminent danger. We'll have the Wisconsin
Speaker 1: Intersce project linked in the bio as well. Please donate
Speaker 1: to help them continue the great work that they do,
Speaker 1: just like they did for Chris and so many others.
Speaker 1: And now, as we go to the closing of our show,
Speaker 1: which is called Closing Arguments, this is where, of course
Speaker 1: I'm gonna thank you for joining us today and sharing
Speaker 1: Chris's story with us. And now I'm just going to
Speaker 1: turn my microphone off, leave my headphones on, and just
Speaker 1: focus on the sound of your voice. Is you leave
Speaker 1: us with any and all final thoughts you want to
Speaker 1: share now, John, no offense, but we're going to save
Speaker 1: the best for last. And of course our guest of honor,
Speaker 1: Chris o'choa, is the man, so please start it off
Speaker 1: for us and then let Chris take us out.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't know how long you want me to
Speaker 3: go on. I could go on a long time about this,
Speaker 3: but I'll keep it reasonable. It's an extraordinary story in
Speaker 3: one way, you look at what happened. On the other hand,
Speaker 3: it's not unique. This happens with too much frequency, and
Speaker 3: if we don't learn from these situations, then we're destined
Speaker 3: to continue to repeat them. So it's an extraordinary story.
Speaker 3: It shows the weakness of confessions that they can be false.
Speaker 3: It shows the weakness of defense attorneys who don't do
Speaker 3: their job seriously. But it's more than that. It's a
Speaker 3: testament to the strength of Chris Ajo, who endured hell
Speaker 3: for twelve years, the hell of the interrogation room, those
Speaker 3: four days, the hell of going through a trial, and
Speaker 3: then the hell of twelve years of incarceration and then
Speaker 3: you get out. He could have given up, but what
Speaker 3: does he do. He decides to get his education completed.
Speaker 3: He finished his undergraduate degree, then he came to Wisconsin
Speaker 3: law school, went through three years of very hard, difficult work,
Speaker 3: worked in a district attorney's office for a time, worked
Speaker 3: with a Wisconsin innocence project. He really endured. I suppose
Speaker 3: you could say, hey, if you can get through prison,
Speaker 3: you can get through law school. And Chris endured. He's
Speaker 3: continued to show his dedication to public service and making
Speaker 3: sure these types of things don't happen. So the whole
Speaker 3: thing is really a tribute to Chris and his amazing
Speaker 3: spirit and energy to endure and make life better for
Speaker 3: the rest of us.
Speaker 2: Thank you, John, I said earlier, you know, for the
Speaker 2: Innocence Project, John Pray and the Gousninesss projects around the country. Justice,
Speaker 2: true justice, wouldn't be accomplished. What I see is tragic
Speaker 2: was happening in the law enforcement currently. I don't know
Speaker 2: where the disconnect is between law enforcement and normal citizens.
Speaker 2: When I was exonerated, right before I walked out of
Speaker 2: prisoner or I don't know what, shortly before, my Texas
Speaker 2: Attorney Bill Allison told me, look your case, the justice
Speaker 2: system fell apart at every angle. Everything failed you, and
Speaker 2: people are going to get scared, even people that don't
Speaker 2: get in trouble, they're going to lose faith in the system.
Speaker 2: And when people lose faith in the system, chaos happens.
Speaker 2: And he said, it would be good if you would
Speaker 2: come out and talk that the system's not bad. You
Speaker 2: got to inform it and there's a lot of things
Speaker 2: that needs to be done so that it worked the
Speaker 2: way it was intended to work. But he said, but
Speaker 2: you don't have to. You've already done enough, You've done time.
Speaker 2: You can walk away from this. You don't and anybody
Speaker 2: any faith. So I decided that I would start advocating
Speaker 2: for the system because in the end it was a
Speaker 2: judge that it was a court that got me exonerated
Speaker 2: and released me. But me and John Pray have talked
Speaker 2: to law enforcement. I mean, we have talked to these
Speaker 2: guys and academies that don't beat up the Look, you
Speaker 2: gotta be real careful in your investigations because once you
Speaker 2: said those recommended charges of the DA, you're already skewing
Speaker 2: the ball. The defense attorney will start looking at at
Speaker 2: a certain way if you're accusing something that you didn't do,
Speaker 2: but you're just the mere accusations, that will take a
Speaker 2: snowball effect. And I personally have told law enforcement, you
Speaker 2: guys have a big job to do, but you guys
Speaker 2: can't be rushing what you do. You gotta be careful
Speaker 2: because your people, they're not gonna trust you anymore. If
Speaker 2: these are realnful convictions, keep rapping, they're gonna lose shut.
Speaker 2: But fast forward to George Floyd. That only exposed what
Speaker 2: all of us then advocate for wrongfully convicted for justice
Speaker 2: and only confirmed what we already know. These cops beat
Speaker 2: killed the man on camera and the only reason we
Speaker 2: know because we have video. But now you see in
Speaker 2: the news officer response to a call, he gets shot.
Speaker 2: And now the law enforcement is crying all they're attacking us,
Speaker 2: but they failed to realize they're the reason that that
Speaker 2: is happening, because society has lost all faith and trust
Speaker 2: in law enforcement. Now you have chaos and the only
Speaker 2: mess I got law enforcement. You got to get it together.
Speaker 2: Stop blaming somebody else. I'm speechless in a sense. And
Speaker 2: it hurts all of us. Ex reaes over one hundred.
Speaker 2: How many of us are there now in the thousands,
Speaker 2: so that law enforcement would get direct together, courts, prosecutor.
Speaker 2: It has gotten worse, so our suffering essentially has been
Speaker 2: in vain the evidence system. Listen, will see it is
Speaker 2: still happening. I hope that the public. Hey, let's start
Speaker 2: electing DA's that are going to do right thing and
Speaker 2: start getting police chiefs that are going to do the writing.
Speaker 2: I'm not advocating for not arresting folks. You know you
Speaker 2: still have your un going to rust back people. There's
Speaker 2: some people in prison that I met that I don't
Speaker 2: want my family around them. Well let's get it right.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Cliburn, and Kevin Wartis,
Speaker 1: with research by Lyla Robinson. The music in this production
Speaker 1: was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast, and on Twitter at
Speaker 1: wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On
Speaker 1: all three platforms, you can also follow me on both
Speaker 1: TikTok and Instagram at it's Jason Flam. Wrongful Conviction is
Speaker 1: a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with
Speaker 1: Signal Company Number one