Speaker 1: In August, a serial rapist had already struck twice in Dayton, Ohio,
Speaker 1: claiming three victims. The victims descriptions of the assailant, as
Speaker 1: well as the event itself, were almost identical. The assailant
Speaker 1: pretended to be a security gardeners shopping center and accused
Speaker 1: the victims of shoplifting before using their cars to drive
Speaker 1: them off into the woods to be orally sodomized and assaulted.
Speaker 1: He called himself Roger, a composite sketch finally generated along
Speaker 1: awaited lead Roger Dean Gillespie was identified as a possible
Speaker 1: match by his direct supervisor at work, although he typically
Speaker 1: went by Dean. All three victims identified him out of
Speaker 1: a photo lineup, and again later at his trial, sending
Speaker 1: him away for up to fifty six years. So it
Speaker 1: seems like that's all there is to this story. But
Speaker 1: this is wonderful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. If
Speaker 1: I sound a little more sprightly than usual, it's because
Speaker 1: of the guy I'm going to be interviewing, who's got
Speaker 1: this infectious energy and smile and has just transcended this
Speaker 1: insane ordeal that he went through. So I am really
Speaker 1: excited today to have my friend Dean Gillespie on the show. Dean,
Speaker 1: Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, Thank you sir. And with Dean
Speaker 1: is the co founder of the Ohio Inness's Project. Dean's
Speaker 1: case was their very first one, so we're very happy
Speaker 1: and honor to have Mark Godsy here with us. Thank you,
Speaker 1: happy to be here. And of course the other co
Speaker 1: founder was John Cranley, who went on to become the
Speaker 1: merri Cincinnati, but before all that, he worked to free
Speaker 1: innocent people like Dean. So let's go back in time
Speaker 1: with you two. Dean, your story is one that really
Speaker 1: needs to be told for so many reasons, from police misconduct,
Speaker 1: judicial misconduct, to what took place at your trial. We're
Speaker 1: more than half of the jury was ready to acquit
Speaker 1: before turning around and convicting you when they obviously had
Speaker 1: reasonable more than reasonable doubts, and then only for you
Speaker 1: and Markta then turned this whole thing around and make
Speaker 1: history in Ohio. But before it any of this happened,
Speaker 1: you had like a really good life. Well. I grew
Speaker 1: up in a middle class family. My dad worked at
Speaker 1: General Motors, my mother was a beautician, lived in a
Speaker 1: great neighborhood where the friends that were around me, you know,
Speaker 1: I knew my whole life. It's a beautiful place to
Speaker 1: grow up for me. It was like I was like
Speaker 1: beaver Claver. What town was that in Fairborne, Ohio? Where
Speaker 1: the airplane was invented. I actually started working when I
Speaker 1: was fifteen with a friend of my dad's. He was
Speaker 1: a contractor, and then I graduated high school. My dad
Speaker 1: wanted me to go work at General Motors, which at
Speaker 1: that time was one of the best jobs in America.
Speaker 1: You know, you get a GM, you were set. You know,
Speaker 1: my dad in the union, so he knew the right
Speaker 1: union people to get me the job at the GM plant.
Speaker 1: I was going to the Community College for fire Science
Speaker 1: Technology to basically to get the job, which was plant
Speaker 1: protection at General Motors. And you're basically a fireman, so
Speaker 1: put in the applications. You know, bam there was with
Speaker 1: a job at General Motors at eighteen, I mean that
Speaker 1: someone could get a job out of high school that
Speaker 1: would have them, you know, pretty much set up for life.
Speaker 1: Situations like that were dwindling a number even back then,
Speaker 1: so this was really a valuable position you had, which
Speaker 1: sort of inadvertently made you a target for a particularly
Speaker 1: unscrupulous person. What we figured out during the course of
Speaker 1: this was the boss at GM, which is a management nonunion.
Speaker 1: This guy was the head of security the five different
Speaker 1: plants and GM and Dayton, and he had a friend
Speaker 1: who he wanted to get the job. So he don't
Speaker 1: like me now because I got the job. And this
Speaker 1: guy would just stirring up crap with me and harassing
Speaker 1: me and just you know, dalking down to me and everything.
Speaker 1: But you know, subsequently we come to find out that
Speaker 1: he was so mad about it. We've proven four times
Speaker 1: in federal court that he was taken my information from
Speaker 1: Jerre Motors to the police department he used to work at,
Speaker 1: where his buddy was the head of the police department,
Speaker 1: trying to get me hooked up on something. Wow, because
Speaker 1: it's a union's shop. You just can't fire somebody because
Speaker 1: you don't like him. You have to have, you know,
Speaker 1: some kind of reason. That reason will be me getting
Speaker 1: locked up and not showing up to work. And this
Speaker 1: sinister fox name was Richard Wolf, who then did what
Speaker 1: he had already done previously when he heard about the
Speaker 1: crimes were about to talk about it. Now this was August.
Speaker 1: There were two gruesome sex crimes, one on August five,
Speaker 1: and then the second one involving two victims, was on August.
Speaker 1: The second one was reported first though. There were twenty
Speaker 1: two year old twin sisters. We're gonna call them c
Speaker 1: W and b W. This is around seven seven pm
Speaker 1: as they were getting into their car outside of the
Speaker 1: Best Product store in Daton, Ohio, and they were kidnapped
Speaker 1: by a lone gunman and then said that he was
Speaker 1: a store security guard and his name was Roger. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the perpetrator sort of accused them of shoplifting, had
Speaker 1: a gun and said you gotta come with me, pretending
Speaker 1: like you know, I'm going to take you around the
Speaker 1: little you know, mall cop police station we've got here
Speaker 1: or whatever. Um. Instead, he takes them off into the woods.
Speaker 1: When they got there, he exposed himself, bundled their breasts,
Speaker 1: and forced them to perform oral sex on him. He
Speaker 1: then blindfolded both women and forced them to lie down
Speaker 1: in the backseat while he drove back to the Best
Speaker 1: Products store. So there were some distinctive things that the
Speaker 1: perpetrator said and did. Specifically, he would say things like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm a contract killer for the c I A.
Speaker 1: I get a thousand dollars per hit. He had cigarettes,
Speaker 1: you know, smoking. He mentioned at one point how he
Speaker 1: does this to women because he was molested by his
Speaker 1: grandfather when he was twelve. He said he was from
Speaker 1: Corpus Christi, Texas. At one point he said he's from Columbus, Ohio.
Speaker 1: He then fled with money from their purses, as well
Speaker 1: as a lighter and a pack of cigarettes. Now here's
Speaker 1: the thing. Like, these women reported this as all to
Speaker 1: the police, and around the same time, a twenty eight
Speaker 1: year old woman who were going to call sc totally
Speaker 1: separate incident reported that a man wearing sunglasses and armed
Speaker 1: with a chrome handgun abducted her same emo on August five. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what happened is uh sc read the newspaper report of
Speaker 1: what happened to the twins, you know, once she read
Speaker 1: the similarities, and she decided she was going to come forward.
Speaker 1: This woman said the attacker got into her car when
Speaker 1: she came out of a store in a different shopping center.
Speaker 1: This guy identified himself, according to her, as a security
Speaker 1: guard and said his name was Roger. He ordered her
Speaker 1: to drive behind a vacant building where he funneled her
Speaker 1: breast and force or of perform oral sex. So it
Speaker 1: was pretty clear to the police that the same guy
Speaker 1: was responsible for all three victims in both events. Were
Speaker 1: rape kits done? Was there any testing done on any
Speaker 1: of this type of you know, whether zerological or other
Speaker 1: biological evidence. The b w N C be a case
Speaker 1: there was rape gets done on We know that for
Speaker 1: for sure. You know, they collected semen on the sweater
Speaker 1: of one of the victims, and there were hairs that
Speaker 1: were collected, you know. Unfortunately, this was a eight you know,
Speaker 1: before really DNA testing was known and widely used criminal investigations.
Speaker 1: So the items in question that the perpetrator touched or
Speaker 1: might have deposited biological material on were given back to
Speaker 1: the victims by the police. So any chance for DNA
Speaker 1: testing was sort of ruined, right, But no one even
Speaker 1: knew that until much later when the Ohio Innestance Project
Speaker 1: kind of involved. But in the immediate aftermath, there were
Speaker 1: these hairs that they would eventually try to match with
Speaker 1: suspects by using hair microscopy, which is a well known
Speaker 1: junk science. But they've actually got to find the suspects first,
Speaker 1: so they relied on a composite sketch from the detailed
Speaker 1: descriptions that they had received from all three victims. And
Speaker 1: the descriptions were consistent. Yeah, so they were a very
Speaker 1: consistent all three victims. So he had his shirt unbuttoned
Speaker 1: and you could see this big like rap medallion, very
Speaker 1: dark tan. This was August. Had acne along the jaw line,
Speaker 1: and he had very specific color of hair, is brown
Speaker 1: with a reddish tent. And they described him as tall
Speaker 1: and kind of a big guy, and something like between
Speaker 1: one eight and two fifty. I think there was a
Speaker 1: pretty broad range. The pant size that they one of
Speaker 1: them provided was smaller would be a guy more like,
Speaker 1: you know, pounds, two hundred pounds something like that. So Dean,
Speaker 1: did any of those very specific details match. You know?
Speaker 1: They said the guy who attacked him had a dark
Speaker 1: sun tan. I'm very irish. I burned and I go
Speaker 1: back to white. You know. The person who attacked him
Speaker 1: did not have a hairy chest because of the medallion.
Speaker 1: I got a bear suit on. I'm covered in hair.
Speaker 1: The person who attacked him had severe acne scars on
Speaker 1: both sides of his jaw line. I did not have
Speaker 1: any of that stuff. The person who attacked him did
Speaker 1: not have a cleft chin. I've got a cleft chin.
Speaker 1: I started having gray hair on my temples in the
Speaker 1: tenth grade, which is a feature that the victims would
Speaker 1: have mentioned it have been you. And also I understand
Speaker 1: that you have always hated cigarettes, absolutely hate cigarettes. My
Speaker 1: dad smoked most of my life and I could I
Speaker 1: can't stand smell them. So why am I even being
Speaker 1: looked at as a suspect? And you had no idea
Speaker 1: that your boss, Richard Wolfe had it out for you.
Speaker 1: This bad I mean, on its face, the only thing
Speaker 1: about this crime that has any connection to you was
Speaker 1: the name Roger. Now your full name is Roger Dean Gillespie,
Speaker 1: but you've always gone by Dean. But by the time
Speaker 1: you had been considered for this crime, a lot of
Speaker 1: time had passed by, the case had gone cold. So
Speaker 1: since it wasn't fresh in the headlines, do we know
Speaker 1: what prompted him to try to bring you in. No.
Speaker 1: He says that he's seen a newspaper article on a
Speaker 1: bulletin board in the plant, and he went down and said, hey,
Speaker 1: check this guy out. And the first time that he
Speaker 1: went down there, he was seeing the detectives who were
Speaker 1: in charge of that case when it very first started,
Speaker 1: so they knew the case inside. And now they looked
Speaker 1: at my d m V or dry was license and
Speaker 1: seeing that I didn't fit the description at all. They
Speaker 1: knew the pant size, and when they looked at the
Speaker 1: hide and weight on me, they knew I couldn't fit
Speaker 1: in the pants, which I always say one time in
Speaker 1: my life, being fat was good for me. Right, you
Speaker 1: would think, yeah, so you know they've done a little
Speaker 1: right up on it and disregarded me as a suspect,
Speaker 1: and that was the end of it, you know with them. Yes,
Speaker 1: so you know Dean was eliminated as a suspect. Time
Speaker 1: went by. The detectives on the case who eliminated Dean retired,
Speaker 1: moved out of state. After they left. My boss his
Speaker 1: best friend who was the chief of police. The chief's
Speaker 1: son was a detective. Now, so my boss he went
Speaker 1: back with the same information and said, check this guy out.
Speaker 1: I think that when he was talking to this young
Speaker 1: new detective, with him being a ex police officer and
Speaker 1: understand how the system works, he was able to convince
Speaker 1: him that he was working on the right track and
Speaker 1: in the right guy detectives out more twenty six years old,
Speaker 1: takes over the case, and the filed eliminating Dean disappears
Speaker 1: and we don't know what happened to it. And he
Speaker 1: just decides, I'm gonna go out and show the victims
Speaker 1: a photo spread with Dena and and you know, you
Speaker 1: look at the photo spread, it's clear that the other
Speaker 1: five came from the same source. Deans was glossy and
Speaker 1: the other ones were matt He's got a different color background.
Speaker 1: The victims that described the perpetrators having a wide face
Speaker 1: to the picture used of Dean is like his face
Speaker 1: is taking up the entire square, so it makes his
Speaker 1: head look really big and his face wide, whereas the
Speaker 1: other five are all like back more like Torso shots.
Speaker 1: And so if you look at it, you go five
Speaker 1: of these are fillers, which one doesn't fit clearly it's
Speaker 1: this one. First off, I have no animosity toward the
Speaker 1: victims in this case because they were done wrong and
Speaker 1: they were lied to, just like I was. And you
Speaker 1: got to remember, this case is to two and a
Speaker 1: half years old, and studies show that you know when
Speaker 1: it's a stranger rape, your ability to identify accurately decreases
Speaker 1: steadily from the time it happens, and it's essentially down
Speaker 1: to chance by eleven months. And so you're sticking a
Speaker 1: photo spread up in front of somebody two years after
Speaker 1: the fact with an extremely suggestive lineup. That's a very
Speaker 1: dangerous situation. Yeah, I mean they were re victimized, right,
Speaker 1: But now with the victims identifying you, they had what
Speaker 1: they needed to get into rest warrant. Even though, as
Speaker 1: we've already mentioned, other than the name Roger, you and
Speaker 1: the assailant had very little in common. It's why the
Speaker 1: initial lead detectives eliminated you as a suspect. And there's
Speaker 1: more that they discovered that should have eliminated you again,
Speaker 1: but tunnel vision and no. Perhaps maybe the detective Scott More,
Speaker 1: feeling some kind of twisted obligation to his father's best friend,
Speaker 1: may have been why they continued their pursuit of you. Dean.
Speaker 1: I mean, when did you first find out that you
Speaker 1: were being targeted in this way? I got a letter
Speaker 1: called a demand letter to come into the police department,
Speaker 1: and because I'm a dumbass, I went in and he
Speaker 1: questioned me about these incidents. Where were you add on
Speaker 1: this day? Which was two years before. Who knows where
Speaker 1: they were at two years ago, But because I didn't know,
Speaker 1: he felt like I wasn't answering his questions. So weeks
Speaker 1: later is when they came to the house. They tore
Speaker 1: my house apart. You know, they're supposed to be a
Speaker 1: gun involved and everything else. I didn't have guns. There
Speaker 1: was no clothing or anything that even even came close
Speaker 1: to the type of attire this person was wearing. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that you're arrested and taking out in jail, we
Speaker 1: go through the arrangement and everything. They reduced the bond
Speaker 1: down enough for me to get out, and I am
Speaker 1: in a frantic mode to try to figure out where
Speaker 1: I was at during this time. And I was very
Speaker 1: lucky enough to have two friends who kept calendars of events.
Speaker 1: You know, I was in Morehead, Kentucky on one of
Speaker 1: the days of these crimes that took place with my friends.
Speaker 1: We were skin and fishing and just having fun at
Speaker 1: the lake, and the other one we were with some
Speaker 1: friends who came in from college and we were out
Speaker 1: with them. Unfortunately, alibi witnesses are often easily explained it
Speaker 1: away by the prosecution as people who are willing to
Speaker 1: lie for you, including about your ability to tan. They
Speaker 1: had photographic evidence of how it would have been impossible
Speaker 1: for you to tan, but it had no effect, nor
Speaker 1: did pointing out all the other discrepancies, amongst so many
Speaker 1: other tactics. During pre child your defense tried to suppress
Speaker 1: the identifications for the same reasons we had mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: which is how outrageously suggested the lineups were. It's harder
Speaker 1: to get these things suppressed even when they're suggestive. We
Speaker 1: see this a lot. The current case law by the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court is completely out of date, doesn't reflect science,
Speaker 1: and that needs a change eventually. But yeah, that they
Speaker 1: allowed it in and they allowed identification, So I want
Speaker 1: our audience to take notice. Here these are the steps
Speaker 1: that our guests, usually incompetent attorneys, did not take. That
Speaker 1: you might be telling yourself that you'd make sure that
Speaker 1: you and your lawyer would take. But it still made
Speaker 1: no difference to judge allowed in the ideas, and the
Speaker 1: jury was not moved by the alibi witnesses nor any
Speaker 1: of the discrepancies between Dean and the assailant, so he
Speaker 1: was found guilty. But war sentencing, a defense investigator learned
Speaker 1: that Hair is recovered from the victims that were said
Speaker 1: to have been lost had not only not been lost,
Speaker 1: but the crime lab had actually tested them against Dean
Speaker 1: and excluded him. They found some hairs that had been
Speaker 1: on the victim's sweaters from the August event with the twins,
Speaker 1: and they did not belong to Dean Glisbie, and so
Speaker 1: he got a new trial where they could introduce that
Speaker 1: the hair is found on the victims did not belong
Speaker 1: to Dan Glisbean. Right. This seemed compelling at the time,
Speaker 1: but hair microscopy is shaky science. At best. You might
Speaker 1: be able to eliminate someone from inclusion, but making a
Speaker 1: match with any degree of certainty is total horseship. It
Speaker 1: could be said that practitioners of this junk science might
Speaker 1: be willing to say anything, but this is the state's evidence,
Speaker 1: and given the opportunity, they still didn't try to budge
Speaker 1: the evidence and fix it on Dean. But the idea
Speaker 1: that he could simply not have physically been the man
Speaker 1: they were describing should have been enough on top of
Speaker 1: his alibi, for which they were over twenty witnesses. So Dean,
Speaker 1: what do you number about? The second trial? Things got
Speaker 1: weird because one of my friends is a pretty proficient smartass.
Speaker 1: And when the bar esecutor asked him, do you know
Speaker 1: Roger Gillespie, he said, I sure do, and he said
Speaker 1: he is in the courtroom and he said he sure is,
Speaker 1: and he said, will you pointing him out to us,
Speaker 1: and he said, he's the guy in the back sitting
Speaker 1: with the gray haired lady, which was my mom and dad.
Speaker 1: Because my name is Roger Dean Gillespie, my whole entire life.
Speaker 1: The only name I've ever used is Dean Gillespie. My
Speaker 1: dad is Roger. All my friends, some of didn't even
Speaker 1: know that my first name was Roger. So when he
Speaker 1: got off the stand, the prosecutor went to a sidebar.
Speaker 1: We had twenty two other people to testify for me
Speaker 1: and complain that all these people grew up with me,
Speaker 1: they knew me my whole life, and they were going
Speaker 1: to life for me. And they cut all of the
Speaker 1: rest of the witnesses on my side. That's is that legal.
Speaker 1: It worked. Then there was more than just these witnesses
Speaker 1: that he had an extreme dislike for cigarettes. They had
Speaker 1: pictures of him before all this happened inside his truck
Speaker 1: on the dashboard. He had to thank you for not
Speaker 1: smoking plastic sticker, like a bumper sticker. He's stuck on
Speaker 1: his dashboard and he's like the most irish whitest guy ever.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you have these pictures of him
Speaker 1: before all this happened, where he's out at lakes with
Speaker 1: all his friends and they're in boats and their skin
Speaker 1: and then you know they'd be in drinking beers that
Speaker 1: night and everybody's really tan, and he's like beat red,
Speaker 1: even though he had sunscreen on and a T shirt,
Speaker 1: so he he literally cannot tan. On top of that,
Speaker 1: he's somebody. It's a family trade that had been going
Speaker 1: gray since ninth grade. In high school. They called him
Speaker 1: the silver fox, and the victims were very specific that
Speaker 1: it was brown with a reddish tan. He didn't have
Speaker 1: a reddish tent. And they were asked on the stand
Speaker 1: did he have any gray, and they all said no.
Speaker 1: There was all this evidence, and sure enough it resonated
Speaker 1: with the jury. I think it was two days they deliberated,
Speaker 1: and they am out eight to four, eight for acquittal,
Speaker 1: four for conviction, and the judge told him to go
Speaker 1: to lunch and come back and study on it some more.
Speaker 1: They came back out again at eight to four. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's actually kind of amazing that the jury was
Speaker 1: eight four for acquittal when you have three victims on
Speaker 1: the stand crying who were actually raped, and you have
Speaker 1: all that emotion and they're saying, I'm a positive that's
Speaker 1: the guy. That guy is getting convicted, even if there's
Speaker 1: all these things that don't match. So you know the
Speaker 1: fact that they were eight to four to acquit at
Speaker 1: the beginning, it shows you how bad the case was
Speaker 1: against him. And then the judge gives him what's called
Speaker 1: a dynamite charger and alan charge and sends them back.
Speaker 1: And this is what happened after that. He said, I
Speaker 1: have a fishing trip. I don't want to be here.
Speaker 1: If you don't reach a verdict, you're going to be
Speaker 1: sequestered until you do, which means you are going to
Speaker 1: leave here to a hotel, no contact, and we will
Speaker 1: come back in until you reach a verdict. Forty forty
Speaker 1: five minutes later, they just came back, said all upset,
Speaker 1: gilly And like I said, I grew up in in
Speaker 1: just a great, beautiful world, and I go into a
Speaker 1: close maximum security prison where se of these people are
Speaker 1: never getting out your life means nothing to them. The
Speaker 1: violence is overwhelming. You know, I've been in bar fights
Speaker 1: or whatever as a kid, but I've never seen anything
Speaker 1: like this. You know, when you're in prison and you
Speaker 1: get into a fight, you're fighting for your life. Every
Speaker 1: time they want to test you. Soon as you get
Speaker 1: in there, what are you gonna do? You know, you're
Speaker 1: gonna be a punk and give your stuff every commissary time,
Speaker 1: and everything you own is gonna be taken by some
Speaker 1: body where you're gonna fight. Luckily, and I was a
Speaker 1: big enough guy, and I was very very well first
Speaker 1: and fighting, and that helped me a little bit. But
Speaker 1: still get your ass beat. You know. I started reading
Speaker 1: a lot, and I started doing artwork and listen to
Speaker 1: a lot of music and try to stay out of
Speaker 1: the way the best I could. And somehow or other,
Speaker 1: you did, and you managed to figure out how to
Speaker 1: not only survive, but to fight, to continue to fight
Speaker 1: and what was really not just an uphill battle but
Speaker 1: a virtually hopeless battle. I mean, you've seen the worst
Speaker 1: of what they could do to a person, and yet
Speaker 1: you managed to continue to advocate for yourself. You know,
Speaker 1: my mom fought and fought and fought and as she
Speaker 1: was not giving up on nothing, so I never lost hope.
Speaker 1: I always knew that I was coming out there because
Speaker 1: I didn't do this. They would file a brief file
Speaker 1: emotion and then you know, you wait and you get
Speaker 1: all excited about it, and then you get denied and
Speaker 1: that crushes you. And you start talking to these lawyers
Speaker 1: and they start explaining to you, Oh, we're gonna do this,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna do this, so you you get a
Speaker 1: little bit more hope, and it's like, well, how long
Speaker 1: is that going to take? Well, you know it's not
Speaker 1: gonna happen overnight, so you know, the years just start
Speaker 1: clicking off while you're filing these motions and they keep
Speaker 1: getting denied, to the point of I said, do not
Speaker 1: send me these motions no more. I don't want to
Speaker 1: read them. I don't want to see them because I
Speaker 1: get too hyped up. I just want to get my
Speaker 1: mind into a state where it's the same every day
Speaker 1: and not keep doing this up and down thing. I
Speaker 1: tried to clear my mind every day and then start
Speaker 1: the next day to be as positive and as happy
Speaker 1: as I could be every day, just to try to
Speaker 1: keep my sanity until you wanted the senor people. I know,
Speaker 1: maybe I'm missing something. But and then in two thousand
Speaker 1: and three, you get a break when the Ohio Innistance
Speaker 1: Project began representing you. Right. So in November of two
Speaker 1: thousand two, I got hired as a law professor teach
Speaker 1: criminal law at the University of Cincinnati College of Law.
Speaker 1: But I wasn't gonna start until the following year when
Speaker 1: classes start August of two thousand three. And John Cranley
Speaker 1: was a city councilman at that time in Cincinnati. He
Speaker 1: later became the mayor, and he wanted to do something
Speaker 1: positive with his law degree in addition to be a
Speaker 1: city councilman. So he was trying to start an innocence
Speaker 1: project at you see law school. Couldn't get the dean
Speaker 1: to bite, couldn't get any professors to bite. So I
Speaker 1: get hired, and I have been a prosecutor by this
Speaker 1: point in time. I was very bought into the idea
Speaker 1: that people are wrongfully convicted and we need to make
Speaker 1: some reforms in the system. So when he approaches me
Speaker 1: and says, I've been trying to get this school to
Speaker 1: start one will you help run it with me? And
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, let's do it. So we have our
Speaker 1: first fundraiser shortly after I was hired. It was November
Speaker 1: of two thousand and two, and there's some newspaper coverage
Speaker 1: of that fundraiser. And in January, one of Gollispie, Dean's mom,
Speaker 1: before I even had started at you See Law, before
Speaker 1: we'd officially launched the Innocence project, she tracks me down.
Speaker 1: It comes to my office with a big box of
Speaker 1: files and says, you know you're gonna take this case.
Speaker 1: It starts like pitching it to me. He's my son's innocent.
Speaker 1: He didn't do this. So it was literally the first
Speaker 1: one we were looking into. Our first angle and we
Speaker 1: started looking at the case in two thousand three was
Speaker 1: to see if there was any DNA to test, and
Speaker 1: there were some hairs that were collected off of the
Speaker 1: victim's sweaters, but it turns out that most of them
Speaker 1: belonged to them. We did do DNA testing on those,
Speaker 1: but they were irrelevant. They didn't match Dean, they didn't
Speaker 1: match anybody. Most of them were the victim's own hairs.
Speaker 1: There was no semen that was actually preserved that we
Speaker 1: could test, even though there was some of the crime scene.
Speaker 1: You know, we tried to see if there was anything. Again,
Speaker 1: our history tells us that they'll say things are destroyed,
Speaker 1: but when you really dig in, sometimes you'll find the
Speaker 1: semen even though they said they destroyed it. But in
Speaker 1: this case, it really was destroyed. There was nothing we
Speaker 1: could do other than the hairs, which turned out to
Speaker 1: be uneventful. So now without the easier of the irrefutable
Speaker 1: smoking gun evidence seminal DNA in a rape case, you
Speaker 1: had to buckle in and prove it with a more
Speaker 1: full investigation. And Dean's case, because it's just so monstrously egregious,
Speaker 1: there was plenty of it, including a more likely suspect
Speaker 1: during the initial investigation, which was a guy named Kevin Copp.
Speaker 1: So at some point after Dean was convicted, a phone
Speaker 1: call had come into I believe his attorney's office. Somebody
Speaker 1: had made an anonymous phone call saying the guy who
Speaker 1: committed these crimes, his name is Kevin Cobb. It was
Speaker 1: like a notation to that effect in the file. And
Speaker 1: this person wouldn't give their name. They said, you know,
Speaker 1: I worked with him at a correctional institute, but he's
Speaker 1: the one who committed these crimes. At Dean Gillispie's in
Speaker 1: So we start investigating Kevin Cobb. First thing we do
Speaker 1: is get his rap sheet. He has a history of
Speaker 1: pretending to be a police officer, flashing a badge and
Speaker 1: committing crimes. And you start looking into those cases. You
Speaker 1: know he's arrested in this year of domestic violence. So
Speaker 1: we go pull that file and we can get the
Speaker 1: name of the female victim. So we start going and
Speaker 1: talking to some of these ex girlfriends and stuff, and
Speaker 1: what do we find out. He would get drunk and
Speaker 1: tell people he's a contract killer for the CIA, gets
Speaker 1: a thousand dollars per hit. He told one girlfriend I
Speaker 1: was molested by my grandfather when I was twelve. He
Speaker 1: tells people he's from Columbus, Ohio and Corpus Christie, Texas.
Speaker 1: In fact, he had been stationed in the Marines at
Speaker 1: Corpus Christie for a while, exactly what the rapists said.
Speaker 1: We talked to people who knew him back at the
Speaker 1: same time of these crimes, to the point of going
Speaker 1: to his high school getting his senior year book, tracking
Speaker 1: down people that had lived in that town and knew
Speaker 1: him around the same age. We found incidents of him
Speaker 1: wearing a medallion. Around the same year Flashing of Badge
Speaker 1: pretending to be a cop. We found incidents of him
Speaker 1: using the name Roger. We heard the history of how
Speaker 1: he developed that fake name. There was a mentally challenged
Speaker 1: young man in their town named Roger who would walk
Speaker 1: around town and Kevin Cobb would make fun of him,
Speaker 1: would imitate them and say I'm Roger, you know, mimicking
Speaker 1: Roger's voice, And when he was acting crazy, he would
Speaker 1: take on this Roger persona. So we had incidents where
Speaker 1: he would commit crimes Flash of Badge and use the
Speaker 1: name Roger, and then we get a picture of him
Speaker 1: from and composite sketches are usingly not very accurate, but
Speaker 1: it looks just like the composite sketch. We found out
Speaker 1: from the people who knew him that he got very
Speaker 1: tan in the summer, he was a smoker. Everything just
Speaker 1: matched up. It was uncanny. In Ohio Corrections, Officer Jesus Christ,
Speaker 1: I mean almost all of the villains in this story
Speaker 1: are part of the system. And I say almost because
Speaker 1: not only did the initial investigators Fritz and Bailey do
Speaker 1: the right thing, but now in the lead up to
Speaker 1: filing the two thousand and seven post conviction filing, the
Speaker 1: former Ohio Attorney General Jim Pietro actually joined Dean's legal team.
Speaker 1: The main allegations were the Kevin Cobb, but also the
Speaker 1: fact that the original investigation had eliminated Dean. We were
Speaker 1: able to talk to Fritz and Bailey, who told us
Speaker 1: all about the original investigation. They gave us affidavits they
Speaker 1: had created reports eliminating Dean as a suspect. They talked
Speaker 1: about the pants sized discrepancy everything else, that those had disappeared.
Speaker 1: The jury had never heard about them. So there were
Speaker 1: multiple claims that we filed in two thousand seven. So
Speaker 1: things now appear to be looking up. After all, you
Speaker 1: had the super compelling alternative suspect evidence about Kevin Cobb.
Speaker 1: In addition to Jim Pietro and your team, the original
Speaker 1: detective Fritz and Bailey were on board in supporting the
Speaker 1: Brady claim that all of their work from the initial
Speaker 1: investigation had been disappeared or gone missing and therefore was
Speaker 1: not shared with the defense. It seems like you finally
Speaker 1: really had momentum on your side. The judge that Dean
Speaker 1: had at that time, who had taken over for the
Speaker 1: trial judge his name was A. J. Wagner, and we
Speaker 1: could not have drawn a worse judge. Extremely hostile to
Speaker 1: the idea that somebody could be wrongfully convicted that eye
Speaker 1: witness it can be wrong, extremely hostile to basically us.
Speaker 1: And we presented the evidence and he denied it outright
Speaker 1: without a hearing, so we had to appeal. The appellate
Speaker 1: court denied us on the Brady claim, which is the
Speaker 1: missing file, but said that the judge should have had
Speaker 1: a hearing on Kevin Cobb. So at that point the
Speaker 1: case breaks in half. The Brady claims since we lost
Speaker 1: in the Court of Appeals, continues up the appellate chain
Speaker 1: to the House Supreme Court, and that the Kevin Cobb
Speaker 1: part of it is sent back down the lower step
Speaker 1: to the trial court for a hearing, which is like
Speaker 1: a trial. And we'll catch up with the Brady potion
Speaker 1: of the case in a bit, but first you've got
Speaker 1: to go back to the trial court with the Kevin
Speaker 1: Cobb issue in front of this uper hostile judge. Again,
Speaker 1: just to show you what type of judge J. J.
Speaker 1: Wagner was, There was a whole other part of the
Speaker 1: case where Dean on the August twentie incident, was actually
Speaker 1: camping in Kentucky with friends, and when his investigator had
Speaker 1: gone down to try to get the receipts to show
Speaker 1: he had been camping that weekend, they were missing. So
Speaker 1: of course they crossed. Examined more on the stand during
Speaker 1: the trial and he's like, no, I never went down there.
Speaker 1: I never took those receipts. When it became public we
Speaker 1: were working on the case, a cop reached out to
Speaker 1: us who said, I actually know that he did go
Speaker 1: down there, because he admitted it to me. And we
Speaker 1: tried to get an affidavit from him, and the officer said,
Speaker 1: I can't cross the blue line like that. I just
Speaker 1: want you to know you're on the right track. And
Speaker 1: at that point I started secretly recording this officer. So
Speaker 1: when we go to file for Dean in two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven, we attached affidavit's saying what this guy had
Speaker 1: said to us. What they file a response and they
Speaker 1: get this cop to say I never said that they're lying,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah blah. On our reply brief we
Speaker 1: go we got you on tape talking about it. So A. J.
Speaker 1: Wagner denies us on that claim again, we don't have
Speaker 1: a hearing nothing. And after it's over and the case
Speaker 1: goes to a Court of Appeals, I get a call
Speaker 1: saying A. J. Wagner wants to have a status conference.
Speaker 1: So I'm thinking, why does he want a status conference?
Speaker 1: The cases in the Court of Appeals? Now, this is
Speaker 1: like not even his jurisdiction. So we get on this
Speaker 1: teleconference on the phone, the prosecutors on the phone, and
Speaker 1: Jim Petro's on the phone, and A J. Wagner goes, oh,
Speaker 1: thanks everybody for coming together. Um, yeah, I just wanted
Speaker 1: to get the parties together because Professor Godsey secretly recorded
Speaker 1: a police officer without his knowledge, which is a federal crime.
Speaker 1: And I'm letting everybody know that I'm turning the evidence
Speaker 1: over to federal prosecutors. And then there was this like
Speaker 1: awkward pause and Jim Petro goes, Judge, it's not a
Speaker 1: federal crime to secretly record a police officer. It's legal
Speaker 1: in Ohio. And then Judge Wagner goes, Dan, what's the
Speaker 1: name of the prosecutor? Is that your view? Yeah, Judge,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's illegal, and A J. Wagner goes, well,
Speaker 1: I'll look into it a little bit, Mark, let me
Speaker 1: and it just hangs up the phone and I never
Speaker 1: hear anything about it again. That shows you what kind
Speaker 1: of judges we sometimes deal with. An A. J Agner's
Speaker 1: about as bad as the kids. Yeah, So the Brady
Speaker 1: claim was still being litigated in the background as the
Speaker 1: Kevin Cobb issue was being sent back down to the
Speaker 1: trial court. And now A. J. Wagner was expected to
Speaker 1: be impartial when he was being forced by the appelic
Speaker 1: court to hear all of the evidence that you had
Speaker 1: compiled on Kevin Cobb, especially after he had embarrassed himself
Speaker 1: in front of his colleagues and the federal prosecutorcy he
Speaker 1: had spoken to about indicting Mark right, and this guy
Speaker 1: is your judge. So we had a hearing in front
Speaker 1: of A. J. Wagner, which is like a trial. That's
Speaker 1: what we call witnesses. They come and testify about Kevin Cobb.
Speaker 1: You know, we call these ex girlfriends, these people that
Speaker 1: Kevin Cobb had committed crimes against who talked about He
Speaker 1: used the name Roger, He flashed a badge, you know,
Speaker 1: he was very tan. He claimed to be a contract
Speaker 1: killer for the c I A all those things I
Speaker 1: talked about that make an uncanny match from Kevin Cobb
Speaker 1: to the this crime, and then Judge Wagner summarily dismissed it.
Speaker 1: So we then appealed that back up to the Court
Speaker 1: of Appeals. Meanwhile, the half that we lost on the
Speaker 1: Brady claim and the appellate court, we appealed to the
Speaker 1: highest Supreme Court, where we lost. At that point, since
Speaker 1: it was a constitutional claim Brady, that gave us jurisdiction
Speaker 1: to take the case into what's called federal habeas, So
Speaker 1: we filed a federal habeas petition. So this Brady issue
Speaker 1: that the initial detective Fritz and Bailey had ruled Dean
Speaker 1: out as a suspect and the file was hidden from
Speaker 1: the defense. They received a hearing and federal court on
Speaker 1: this issue. In front of Judge Michael Myrs. Fritz and
Speaker 1: Bailey testified again about all the physical discrepancies that they
Speaker 1: had written a report about the hair, the skin, the
Speaker 1: cleft chin, the pants couldn't have fit, so you must
Speaker 1: have quit. In addition, they were suspicious of Wolf's tip,
Speaker 1: calling it quote unquote particularly unreliable because the composite sketch
Speaker 1: had been posted at the gm plant since shortly after
Speaker 1: the assaults, but Wolf only went to the police after
Speaker 1: a nasty fight resulting in Dean being fired. So they
Speaker 1: wrote this report about Dean not being a viable suspect
Speaker 1: and it was never seen by the defense, along with
Speaker 1: the campground receives that the chief's son, Scott More never
Speaker 1: turned over either. And the decision came down on December six,
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven. You know in this day and age,
Speaker 1: when they issue a decision, the email it an email
Speaker 1: had come from the federal court, and I see that
Speaker 1: we won the case. He threwout Dean's conviction based on
Speaker 1: the Brady claim. So I immediately drive up to Dayton,
Speaker 1: which is only about forty five minutes from Cincinnati. I
Speaker 1: don't tell anybody, and I knock on the door of
Speaker 1: Dean's mom and dad want to and Roger Glispie years
Speaker 1: but we won Dean's case. What judge merged throughout the
Speaker 1: Oh my God, come in here and have a seat.
Speaker 1: This is the sound, the heart wrenching sound of a
Speaker 1: mother's grief. But it all means that her boy was
Speaker 1: finally coming home after so many years lost. And it
Speaker 1: took about a week for you to get out. You
Speaker 1: were released on bond with an ankle monitor just in
Speaker 1: time for the holidays. The US Marshall came and got me.
Speaker 1: It was December twenty two, so everyone was basically shut
Speaker 1: down and closing up for the holidays. So she picks
Speaker 1: me up and I'm like, where's everybody at what's going on?
Speaker 1: She goes right down the road. So we drive down
Speaker 1: the road to a bowling alley right around a corner
Speaker 1: from the prison. You could actually see the place from
Speaker 1: the wreck yard on the back side of the prison
Speaker 1: when you're walking the track, and uh, I go into
Speaker 1: this bowling alley. All my families there, all my friends,
Speaker 1: the media was everywhere. One of them asked me, how
Speaker 1: does it feel to be free? And I'm like, I'm
Speaker 1: looking around the room and I knew all these people
Speaker 1: that were bowling because they were guards from the prison.
Speaker 1: It was Gardens League bowling night from the prison. And
Speaker 1: it's like, oh my god, man, am i at am
Speaker 1: I free? Or am I in purgatory? It was very
Speaker 1: much of legal purgatory because yeah, you were released, but
Speaker 1: you were wearing an ankle monitor and the case had
Speaker 1: not been officially dismissed. Meanwhile, the other issue of the
Speaker 1: alternative suspect Kevin Cobb, that was still being litigated. Now,
Speaker 1: last we checked, A. J. Wagner had just denied you
Speaker 1: on that issue, and your team appealed to the decision.
Speaker 1: Four months later, in April of two thousand twelve, we
Speaker 1: went in the Court of Appeals on Kevin Cobb. So
Speaker 1: he's like double released. He's the only exonore I know
Speaker 1: of in the country that was exonerated twice on two
Speaker 1: totally independent grounds, Like if you take away the Brady,
Speaker 1: he still would have been exonerated on Kevin Cobb. If
Speaker 1: you take away Kevin Cobby still would have been exonerated
Speaker 1: on Brady, and they're totally independent of one another. So
Speaker 1: he was like a double exhoneration. So the state would
Speaker 1: have to fight this on two fronts in order to
Speaker 1: get you back in and considering the evidence in this,
Speaker 1: a normal person would just let this go right. So
Speaker 1: you guys filed to have the charges dismissed and that
Speaker 1: was dragged out until two thousand fifteen when Montgomery Court
Speaker 1: of common Please Judge Stephen Dankoff granted the motion to
Speaker 1: dismissed the indictment. The state appealed. It dragged it out
Speaker 1: for another two years to July seventeen, so almost six
Speaker 1: years later, the decision was finally upheld and the case
Speaker 1: was dismissed. That was the federal side, the Brady violation,
Speaker 1: that was in the federal court, and that's what got
Speaker 1: dismissed there, and then we had an alternate suspect and
Speaker 1: the state court. I didn't get officially all the way
Speaker 1: done until December nine of ten years. I mean not
Speaker 1: only your time, but their time, which actually belongs to
Speaker 1: the taxpayers and in the public. I mean, considering all
Speaker 1: the ship that we all now know about this case,
Speaker 1: like why continue this charade? And you gotta look at
Speaker 1: the money. You gotta look at the money that was wasted.
Speaker 1: It was just, you know, wasted on frivolous nothingness, Like
Speaker 1: what are you doing right? And think of all the
Speaker 1: better things they could have been doing with their time
Speaker 1: and our money. You know, I can't imagine that a
Speaker 1: single one of their constituents wants this done in their name.
Speaker 1: This was the alternative suspect part of the case. We're
Speaker 1: not positive that Kevin Cobb was the assailant, but the
Speaker 1: evidence certainly pointed in his direction and continuing to try
Speaker 1: to maintain Dean's conviction. They just doubled down on letting
Speaker 1: whoever the actual sailant was, go free and stay free.
Speaker 1: Another thing that I can bet that all of their
Speaker 1: constituents would be firmly opposed to. But now you've finally
Speaker 1: been fully exonerated, and there's a bitter sweetness to this
Speaker 1: part of the story. You pursued Miami Township Police Department
Speaker 1: as well as the tech have got more civilly right
Speaker 1: for the civil suit. In November of twenty two, we
Speaker 1: started a week of preparation for the federal civil suit.
Speaker 1: We went through a two week trial. The PTSD was
Speaker 1: off the charts for me. It was just unbelievable to
Speaker 1: sit through all that. But we get through it and
Speaker 1: the judge sent him back to deliberate, and they deliberated
Speaker 1: about three hours. They asked one question and that was
Speaker 1: do legal fees come out of damages? And then we knew, like, oh, ship,
Speaker 1: they're on the right track. They went to lunch and
Speaker 1: then came back sent us in the court and uh.
Speaker 1: Then they got to the money amount um of damages
Speaker 1: and it was it was a shot around the world
Speaker 1: at forty five million dollars. Yeah, I mean, obviously no
Speaker 1: amount of money would ever give you that time back.
Speaker 1: But you know it is the largest verdict in Ohio
Speaker 1: state history. Correct. Yeah, I wouldn't do it again for
Speaker 1: a hundred million dollars. You couldn't say, in n We're
Speaker 1: gonna send you to prison for twenty years for a
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars. I wouldn't do it. First, you got
Speaker 1: to survive the twenty years. You know, there is no
Speaker 1: way in the world any money, you know, send me
Speaker 1: back to years old. Do that. You know, keep your
Speaker 1: money and put me back in that era. But you
Speaker 1: know that you can't get it back. And that was
Speaker 1: one of my things with the PTSD and the court
Speaker 1: was when they talked about the amount of time and
Speaker 1: they would always say you, you can never get that back.
Speaker 1: And when I'm sitting there, it is just like smacking
Speaker 1: me in the face, like my God, it's gone. It's
Speaker 1: and it it isn't coming back. This this here is
Speaker 1: not gonna make that come back. I mean, I've got
Speaker 1: a lot of things i want to do, got car
Speaker 1: building on my mind. I'm doing one now, and just
Speaker 1: things like that. I'm setting up a trust from my
Speaker 1: great niece who seven, you know, to hopefully, you know,
Speaker 1: make this money grow into something that would be a legacy.
Speaker 1: But uh, definitely going to be supporting our Ohio project.
Speaker 1: I'd like to encourage our audience to support the Ohio
Speaker 1: Innocence Project. We're gonna have it linked in the bio
Speaker 1: because without them, Dean would not be out here with
Speaker 1: us along with so many others. Yeah, I was. I
Speaker 1: was the first case the how instance project took person.
Speaker 1: We got out and the artists are twenty year anniversary.
Speaker 1: We've got thirty nine people out well, Mark, you, Jennifer,
Speaker 1: the whole crew. You're all doing phenomenal work. And here's
Speaker 1: the next thirty nine. And now we go to the
Speaker 1: closing of our show. So of course this is called
Speaker 1: closing arguments. I love this segment and I love it
Speaker 1: because it's a part where I get to, first of all,
Speaker 1: thank YouTube for being here and sharing this incredible, incredible
Speaker 1: story with me and our our amazing audience. And so
Speaker 1: how this works is I'm gonna turn my microphone off,
Speaker 1: kick back in my chair with my headphones on, close
Speaker 1: my eyes, and just listen to any closing thoughts that
Speaker 1: you guys want to share Mark, why don't you start?
Speaker 1: And Dean, you take us off into the sunset. A
Speaker 1: grave injustice occurred against Dean. Grave injustices and unfairness occurred
Speaker 1: to people all the time. And you can say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, how can we take this and how can
Speaker 1: he get complete vindication? And you can dream of the
Speaker 1: steps that you would go through to win your case
Speaker 1: to get free two then you know, win some huge
Speaker 1: settlement right in the face of the cop who did
Speaker 1: this to you. That's like the movie Shawshank Redemption, where
Speaker 1: he gets his revenge and and everything turns out the
Speaker 1: way it should. In real life, that doesn't happen. It
Speaker 1: never happens the way it should. But in Dean's case
Speaker 1: it did. And you know, we sat in prison and
Speaker 1: talked about his wrongful conviction all the way back in
Speaker 1: two thousand three and two thousand four, and it looked
Speaker 1: like such a long shot to get this overturned, and
Speaker 1: everything that should have happened to vindicate him just happened
Speaker 1: like a Hollywood story. And and I'm so happy for him.
Speaker 1: I wish this. I wish other people who have had
Speaker 1: these rawful convictions happened to them. Could have the Hollywood
Speaker 1: story play out the way it has. People always ask
Speaker 1: what is the fix, What is the fix. I don't
Speaker 1: know that there's a fix. I feel like we need
Speaker 1: term limits on prosecutors. We need to figure out this
Speaker 1: system where the judge has put in place, like the
Speaker 1: federal system, because when you have a judge's gonna be
Speaker 1: on your television saying I'm gonna be tough on crime,
Speaker 1: he's already formulating an opinion, so he's biased to start with.
Speaker 1: I think that's a start in this. But we've got
Speaker 1: other issues with this problem, and that is the folks
Speaker 1: who are in states that don't get compensated. They also
Speaker 1: don't get credit for Social Security, and that is a
Speaker 1: huge issue for folks who are gonna have to work
Speaker 1: the rest of their life. We need to try to
Speaker 1: figure out a fix for that. I know it's uh
Speaker 1: that that's a huge undertaking and complicated thing, but we
Speaker 1: gotta have compensation across America. Until then, we need to
Speaker 1: fix the sof security so so folks can not have
Speaker 1: to work their whole life because they spent time in
Speaker 1: prison and didn't pay in And thank god for the
Speaker 1: Innocence Project, thank God for the Berry and Peter you know,
Speaker 1: the projects all across America. And you know, I can't
Speaker 1: never say enough about Mark Gazzi saved my life, and
Speaker 1: the and the kids who work in our program with
Speaker 1: the University of Cincinnati Law School. Just you know, support
Speaker 1: these organizations because this this is still going on, This
Speaker 1: is still happening. The man just got out of Arizona
Speaker 1: with fifty three years in so this can't keep going.
Speaker 1: You can't keep happening. We've got to fix this problem.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Ronful Conviction. I'd like to
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Cheff Clyvern and Kevin Wardis.
Speaker 1: With research by Lila 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 Flom. Wrongful Conviction is
Speaker 1: the production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with
Speaker 1: Signal Company Number one