WEBVTT - #180 Jason Flom with Marty Tankleff 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.680 For those not already familiar with the story of Marty Tancliffe, 0:00:06.800 --> 0:00:09.960 his case began on the night of September sixth, nineteen 0:00:10.000 --> 0:00:12.600 eighty eight, when Marty was just about to start his 0:00:12.720 --> 0:00:15.760 senior year of high school in an affluent area of 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:19.120 Long Island, New York. Marty's father was an entrepreneur and 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:22.200 investor who was playing poker with some friends and business 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:26.400 associates in the house. That night, Marty awoke to two 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:30.520 absolutely gruesome scenes in which both of his loving parents 0:00:30.520 --> 0:00:34.120 had been brutally beaten and stabbed. His mother was dead, 0:00:34.240 --> 0:00:37.560 his father was dying. When authorities arrived, they kept him 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:41.159 separate from any of the adults in his life as 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:45.840 they focused their investigations solely on Marty instead of Marty's 0:00:45.840 --> 0:00:50.360 father's business partner, Jerry Steerman, who all signs pointed to 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:55.120 being the obvious suspect in this awful crime. In our 0:00:55.200 --> 0:00:58.960 original twenty seventeen release of Marty's story, we touched on 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:03.120 many of these details, but at that time, with ongoing 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:06.240 civil litigation, we were not at liberty to delve more 0:01:06.280 --> 0:01:09.880 deeply into the details of the reinvestigation of Marty's case 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:13.679 that ultimately led to his exoneration. In this episode, you'll 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:17.000 hear excerpts of that original interview, which included both Marty 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:20.280 and false confession expert Saul Cassen, to set the stage 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:23.520 for not only the evidence and witnesses that made Marty's 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:27.240 freedom possible, as well as all the amazing things Marty 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:29.679 has been able to accomplish since winning his freedom, but 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:33.600 also what Marty intends to do to bring closure to 0:01:33.720 --> 0:01:48.560 this harrowing tragedy. This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:53.040 Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. I'm especially 0:01:53.080 --> 0:01:56.520 excited today because I have two people who I consider 0:01:56.640 --> 0:01:58.800 to be well, let's just call it what it is. 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:02.040 They're heroes of mine, but for very different sets of reasons. 0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:06.080 Marty Tankleff is here today. Marty is an exonery who 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:10.520 was wrongfully convicted of murdering his parents, which I get 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:14.399 the chills just hearing myself say that, and he's going 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:19.119 to share his remarkable story of going through what could 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:22.320 be considered one of the most traumatic experiences that any 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:27.720 human being could ever endure, and his subsequent triumph post exoneration. 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:31.040 You will be amazed at what he's been able to 0:02:31.080 --> 0:02:35.040 accomplish and overcome, we also have today. Saul cassen Saw 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:38.680 pioneered in the eighties the scientific study of false confessions 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:42.200 by introducing a taxonomy that distinguished between three types of 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:47.560 false confessions, voluntary, compliant, and internalized that is universally accepted today. 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:52.280 He has recently studied forensic confirmation biases and the impact 0:02:52.320 --> 0:02:56.639 that confessions have on judges, juries, lay witnesses, forensic science examiners, 0:02:56.680 --> 0:03:00.120 and the plea bargaining process. He is widely considered the 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:04.520 foremost expert on false confession. So welcome both of you. 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:06.760 Thanks for coming in and joining us today. 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:07.919 Thank you for having us. 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:11.120 Marty, let's start with you, So let's go back to 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:12.600 you grew up in Long Island. 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:15.919 I grew up in an affluent area called Beltan, New York, 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:18.840 which is a little hamlet in Port Jreffson, New York, 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:23.160 north Shore, Suffolk County. I went to Port Joffson High School, 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:26.799 where the norm was we drove nice cars, we went 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:30.600 on boats. And what happened to me was not something 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:33.800 myself or anyone in my neighborhood could have ever imagined. 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:37.000 No, no one could imagine it. You had a happy 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:39.920 childhood nuclear family, right, you and your sister. 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:43.800 Your parents idyllic, A little bit more idyllic because I 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:47.520 was adopted, so my parents were older. So a lot 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:50.320 of what we did growing up, my father live vicariously 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:53.440 through me because he didn't have a very good childhood. 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:56.520 So you know, we had the boats, the ATVs, we 0:03:56.680 --> 0:03:59.040 traveled a lot. People used to joke that I was 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:03.520 a spoiled kid. I was, but my father instilled amazing 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:05.440 work values in me. I was working since I was 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:06.760 probably eleven or twelve years. 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:08.440 Old, and he was the bagel king, right. 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:13.480 My father was an entrepreneur who invested with Jerry Steuerman, 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:16.480 who was then known as the bagel King of Long Island. 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:20.240 My father had invested over a half a million dollars 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:23.520 with Jerry in his bagel stores and horses, and in 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:27.640 the summer of nineteen eighty eight their relationship significantly deteriorated. 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:30.240 What I later learned was is that we believe my 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:33.400 father learned that the bagel businesses may have been a 0:04:33.480 --> 0:04:37.400 money wandering operation for Jerry's son, Todd's drug dealing business. 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:39.200 And we're talking hard, hard drugs. 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:44.960 Todd was arrested went to prison for possession of cocaine, marijuana, 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:48.160 and other drugs, and he served time in New York 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:52.960 State prisons. But my father was a tough older man. 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:55.960 Nothing would stop him. And one of the things that 0:04:56.040 --> 0:04:58.440 he was involved with was is there was a weekly 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:02.440 poker game. September sixth was his night to hold the 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:05.320 weekly poker game, and one of the members at that 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:08.360 game was Jerry Struerman. My father was a type of man. 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:12.360 It didn't matter, you know, how much threatening Jerry Struman did. 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:15.960 And there were threats. We later learned about two weeks 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:19.600 before September sixth, Jerry Struman threatened to cut my father's 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:21.839 tongue out, and it got so bad that my father 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:25.680 was even looking into buying a shotgun because he was fearful. 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:29.360 Now we've set the stage. There's the poker game, right. 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:31.680 There's obviously a tense environment right with the two of 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:33.240 them in the room. But you went to sleep. 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:36.280 I went to sleep because September seventh was the first 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:37.960 day of my high school year. I was going to 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:40.640 be a senior. And I woke up and my life 0:05:40.760 --> 0:05:43.360 was never the same again. The lights were on in 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:45.560 my house, the house wasn't locked up. 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:48.320 Walked through the house, and they were upstairs. 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:51.159 It's a ranch house. There's a very long ranch house. 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:53.400 Where the bedrooms were in one end of the house, 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:57.400 where the card game was was in the complete opposite end. 0:05:57.320 --> 0:05:59.200 Of the house, right, So you wouldn't have heard any. 0:05:59.120 --> 0:06:02.479 Would have heard anything. And I discovered my father who 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:05.760 was still sitting in his office chair, and he was alive, 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:07.560 and he was bleeding. 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:09.200 And what'd you do? 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:13.000 I called nine to one one and I followed their instructions, right. 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:15.320 They told you to wrap them as best you could, 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:17.840 gave you some medical tips whatever, try to stop the bleeding, 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:19.000 that kind of stuff, right. 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:22.880 And within a short period of time, law enforcement showed. 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:24.640 Up at the house. Where's your mom? 0:06:25.040 --> 0:06:28.680 My mother was actually in her bedroom. Cops come and 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:30.640 immediately they removed me. 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:31.159 From the house. 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:34.560 And what I kind of can say now is that 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:37.520 the process of questioning me, trying to find out what 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:41.040 happened started almost immediately. Even when I had family members 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:44.160 show up that morning, there was this immediate separation. When 0:06:44.200 --> 0:06:46.200 my brother in law showed up, he was ripped away. 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:50.400 When my godfather, who was also the family attorney, showed up, 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:54.360 I saw him. He never saw me. But McCready, who 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:57.200 is the lead detective. His name is Kay James McCready 0:06:57.240 --> 0:07:00.400 was the lead detective on the case. Ran to him 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:02.680 and basically told him I was already on the way 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:05.240 to the hospital. I wasn't at the house. Even though 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:08.159 I was at the house, I was told consistently I 0:07:08.200 --> 0:07:11.440 was being taken to the hospital. Unfortunately I was never 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:13.720 taken to the hospital. I ended up being taken to 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:14.680 police headquarters. 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:17.640 At this point, were you aware that your mom had 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:24.040 been killed? Yes, so you're in a state of total shock, panic. 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:25.200 Words can't describe it. 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:27.520 Your parents were beaten to death. Is that right? 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:33.320 There was a bludgeon instrument and a knife, and to 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:36.360 this day neither one has been discovered. And there was 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:38.920 some forensic evidence which I can talk about. There was 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:42.560 glove prints, so whoever did do this were wearing gloves 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:45.600 that they still haven't found the gloves. So, I mean 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:48.680 there's all these little things that actually the jury was 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:51.120 aware of, but they chose just to ignore. 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:55.080 So they took you to police headquarters because and obviously 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:58.080 this whole sort of pattern is emerging right where they 0:07:58.160 --> 0:07:59.720 wanted to. They had an agenda. 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:02.520 Yeah, I mean, you know, at that day, I didn't 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:05.520 know that when I was seventeen years old. My father 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:09.280 was the police commissioner of our little community. I was 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:12.920 raised to trust law enforcement, believe in them. Law enforcement 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:16.200 wouldn't lie to you, they wouldn't deceive you. Unfortunately, that's 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:17.640 everything that they did that morning. 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:19.560 Right, And you're in an extremely fragile state, and you 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:21.360 need help, right, you need someone to help you. You're 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:25.040 seventeen years old, right. We know that they have misled 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:27.320 as it probably a nice way to put it, his 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:30.000 family guardian at this point, right, your godfather, who was 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:32.520 also the only lawyer that was available to you at 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:32.920 this time. 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:35.319 They kind of mislet everybody though. I mean I had 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:37.720 other cousins and aunts and uncles who were at the hospitals, 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:39.920 and they were lied to too. They were told, Marty's 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:41.319 on the way to the hospital. Marty's on the way 0:08:41.320 --> 0:08:41.960 to the hospital. 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:44.720 Right. So they're basically doing everything they can to prevent 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:49.960 you from having any responsible guardian or legal representative that 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:51.520 might be able to stand in the way of them 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:54.760 getting the conviction that they wanted, regardless of truth. 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:57.360 Yes, there was no truth seeking here. I mean, you 0:08:57.440 --> 0:09:00.439 have a man who was business partners with my father, 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:04.360 half a million dollars involved was there the night before. 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:08.160 My father also had in the weeks prior, had demanded 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:11.440 he had two notes fifty thousand dollars. Back in the 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:15.559 days after the murders, Jerry Struman cleaned out a joint 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:19.880 bank account. He faked his death. He fled to California. 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:23.920 He had a hairwave back then, and he went to 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:27.280 a club that he wasn't a member of. He had 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:32.079 five or six different aliases at that moment. But law 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:35.040 enforcement never consider him suspect. And every time I tell people, 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:37.600 you know, the average person would say, well, how is 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:38.760 he not a suspect? 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:40.440 I mean, you could have stopped that. He faked his 0:09:40.480 --> 0:09:44.600 own death. So let's get to the interrogation and the 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:48.240 false confession in prison and the whole saga. So let's 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:50.360 I mean, you're obviously very familiar with Mary's case. You've 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:52.000 known Marty since nineteen ninety three, is all right. 0:09:52.040 --> 0:09:54.840 He started writing letters to me from prison in ninety three. 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:58.600 So here's Marty in a state of panic and shock 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:02.000 and grief. And as we discussed, he's still a child. 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:04.719 And his confession is different than any of the other 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:07.320 ones I've studied, right, because it may or may not 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:11.000 have ever even actually happened. Right. Usually they actually get 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:13.760 somebody to say something on video, or they'll get a 0:10:13.760 --> 0:10:17.400 written statement or something. But in Marty's case, it's much 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:18.600 more highly nuanced, isn't it. 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:21.360 Yes? Yes, And in Marty's case, You've got to ask 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:25.280 yourself the first question, why did Marty, a seventeen year 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:27.960 old without a criminal record, without a history of violence, 0:10:28.360 --> 0:10:31.599 with good parents and good relationships and an affluent community, 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:35.240 Why would Marty kill his parents in a brutal way, 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:37.679 in a brutal in the most brutal of ways. And 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:39.600 you have to ask yourself the question, how in God's 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:40.920 name did he become their suspect? 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:42.600 You know, most people said, well, you know, he did 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:45.480 it for the money, because they thought my parents were affluent. 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:47.920 The way the wills were structured, I would have gotten everything. 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:52.400 And we later learned that law enforcement never really understood 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:54.000 the way the wills and never looked into the way 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:57.000 the wills were structured. I wasn't going to benefit financially 0:10:57.040 --> 0:11:00.360 until I was twenty five and I was seventeen, and so, 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:01.760 you know, as one of my aunts said, what was 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:04.040 he supposed to do from seventeen to twenty five, live 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:05.120 on the streets. 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:08.480 So Saul there he is in the interrogation room, alone. 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:12.400 Alone, seventeen, not street wise, never been in trouble before, 0:11:12.600 --> 0:11:14.200 never had to worry about how do you behave when 0:11:14.240 --> 0:11:16.600 you get picked up by police. He had done nothing wrong. 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:20.440 And the funny thing about innocent people is even if 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:22.560 they had read him as miranda rights, he would have 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:25.360 waived those rights right. Most people do, so Miranda becomes 0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:28.680 not a safeguard that's particularly effective at this point. Keep 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:31.280 in mind, they've got him in police headquarters. The whole 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:34.560 family is with his father, who is dying but still 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:37.360 alive in the hospital. That's where Marty wants to be. 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:41.040 So he's already in a state where he's motivated to cooperate. 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:44.160 And they start asking him questions about what he saw, 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:46.440 how he saw it, what had happened, and he gives 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:49.720 them answers, and the answers are consistent. They don't believe him, 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:51.480 They tell him they don't believe them. They asked for 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:54.920 the story to be told again, and they're searching for inconsistencies, 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:57.760 and they're calling him a liar, and they're not believing 0:11:57.840 --> 0:11:59.960 the story that he keeps telling over and over again. 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:02.800 But then they shift gears, and they shift gears toward 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:06.680 a procedure now where they start to lie about the evidence. Now, 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:11.000 the average American doesn't realize that in the United States, 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:13.880 police are allowed to bring in a suspect and lie 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:16.199 about the evidence. They're allowed to say to the suspect, 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:19.160 we have your fingerprints on the murder weapon, even if 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:23.839 that's not true. What happened in Marty's case is they 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:25.640 bring them in they say, well, you know, it appears 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:28.320 that your mother was in a struggle and there's hair 0:12:28.360 --> 0:12:30.600 in her grasp and it turns out it's your hair. 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:33.680 We did the analysis. It's your hair, and that confused 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:36.640 Marty wasn't true, but he got confused as to how 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:39.520 that was possible. And then because it was such a 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:42.839 bloody scene, it was two bloody scenes, it just wasn't 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:45.680 enough blood on Marty to account for that. They suggested 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:47.839 to him that he had showered before calling nine to 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:49.800 one one. He said, no, I didn't use the shower. 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:52.239 They came back and said, well, we did a humidity 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:54.960 test in your bathroom and we found that the shower 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:57.839 had been used that morning. A humidity test. I don't 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:01.640 believe even on CSI, they've given us humidity test. Now 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:05.640 they've delivered two lies, and then the detective delivers the 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:08.319 ultimate lie. He leaves the room. There are two detectives 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:12.040 in there. The lead detective McCready leaves the room, stages 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:15.080 a phone call, and comes back to deliver the news 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:17.160 to Marty. Marty, I've got good news and I got 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:20.079 bad news. I just spoke to the folks at the hospital. 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:22.000 The good news is your father has come out of 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:25.640 his coma. He's regained consciousness. The bad news is he 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:30.120 said you did it. Now, think about this for a 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:34.000 nuck and sick, insane. You've got a seventeen year old 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:37.960 and you're now delivering one lie after another, culminating in 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:41.079 a lie that to Marty, the person he trusts most 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:44.920 in his life has just said he committed this crime. 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:49.240 And not only did Marty of course, had no choice 0:13:49.280 --> 0:13:52.199 but to believe that that evidence, because he doesn't believe 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:55.640 police would lie to him. Certainly, not like that. Even 0:13:55.720 --> 0:14:00.679 McCready's partner believed that presentation. So what choice Marty have 0:14:00.840 --> 0:14:03.960 now but to wonder, how is it possible that they 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:07.640 have this kind of objective evidence? My father doesn't lie, 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:11.640 he said. Marty has almost no cognitive choice but to 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:13.000 accept that information. 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:15.680 Well, because he's got two things right. His father doesn't 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:18.480 lie and the cops don't lie. Right, These are the 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:21.240 two things that he believes exactly. So those things lead 0:14:21.320 --> 0:14:23.000 to one conclusion. 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:25.320 One conclusion, I must have done it. And the conversation 0:14:25.480 --> 0:14:30.120 turns to memory consciousness, the possibility of sleepwalking and doing 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:33.400 it without awareness, and generate theories from Marty to explain 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:37.000 how come you don't remember doing this. So we know 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:39.440 that that was the nature of the conversation. We know 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:44.640 that for some degree of transient time, Marty became confused 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:49.120 about even his own innocence. His confession was a handwritten statement, 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:53.600 handwritten by the detective, that is inaccurate as a description 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:57.760 of the crime. It doesn't complete itself, it's actually ends 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:01.920 in midsense, and it is uns signed. This confession, the 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:05.400 so called confession, was written by the detective and not 0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:09.760 signed by Marty. And yet that allegation of that confession 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:13.000 is the one and only piece of evidence that was 0:15:13.080 --> 0:15:14.160 used to convict him. 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:18.120 You're at trial. You still believe that justice is going. 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:20.440 To be done at trial? Still believe it? I mean, 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:22.680 this is what the lawyers are telling me. The system works. 0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:26.840 I was innocent. I testified on my own behalf. The 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:30.560 prosecutor had charged me with intentional murder and depraved indifference murder. 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:35.680 So when we got called back in, the first verdict 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:38.600 that I was read was not guilty, and then all 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:41.200 of a sudden, the second one was guilty. The one 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:45.560 thing I vividly remember is the walk after they read 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:47.800 the guilty verdicts over to the county jails. They had 0:15:47.840 --> 0:15:52.120 these tunnel systems, and I remember just I felt like 0:15:52.120 --> 0:15:54.880 I was being led like a dog because I was 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:58.200 just listening. And I remember getting to the property room, 0:15:58.440 --> 0:16:00.320 and I remember the property room after saying what are 0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:02.320 you doing here, Marty? And I go why else would 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:05.800 I be here? And then everything else went blank for 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:07.120 about the next six or seven days. 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:09.840 But now you're thrown into this environment. You're in maximum 0:16:09.880 --> 0:16:11.360 security prison, Is that right? Yeah? 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:14.200 I was. Basically every day it's a fight for your 0:16:14.200 --> 0:16:17.760 life because you never know in maximum security facilities what 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:20.720 could happen, whether it be the gangs going to war 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:23.680 with each other, the ulcers taking you know, they're aggression 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:26.720 out on you, or just the random attacks that occur 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:28.120 just for no reason whatsoever. 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:30.760 Right, I mean, we know that people are being killed 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:34.880 every day in prisons in America, sometimes by guards. 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:38.560 Even absolutely for me, my case was very high profile, 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:41.160 so prisoners knew about the case. Guards knew about the case. 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:43.800 And I had a guy come up to me and 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:45.760 he said, Lilizen, he goes, if you want to survive, 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:48.800 he says, don't do drugs, don't get involved in drugs, 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:52.760 don't get involved homosexuality, don't get involved in gambling gangs, 0:16:53.040 --> 0:16:55.200 he said, and work your way into the college program 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:56.000 with the lay library. 0:16:56.360 --> 0:16:56.880 He said. 0:16:57.080 --> 0:16:59.520 One of the hardest things is once you're innocent, is 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:01.760 getting out, he said, But you'll figure out a way 0:17:01.800 --> 0:17:04.560 to do it. My lawyer said, okay, what's never been 0:17:04.600 --> 0:17:08.520 done here before? And we said a full investigation. And 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:11.520 that's when I started looking for private investigators and ended 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:14.040 up hiring j Salpeter. And one of the things that 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:16.399 Jay said to me was, if you're innocent, hire me. 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:19.600 If you're guilty, don't. I said, I'm innocent, I'll hire you. 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:22.959 I just find the truth, Jai. And it took years. 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:27.440 You ended up serving six three hundred and thirty eight days, 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:28.439 which is about seventeen and a. 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:54.520 Half years. 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:47.159 Now that we're up to speed from our twenty seventeen release, 0:17:47.320 --> 0:17:49.919 and with Barty's civil litigation out of the way, he 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:52.919 was finally able to tell us about the mountain of 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:57.000 exculpatory evidence that they built, how his freedom came to pass, 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:00.880 all of the amazing things he's been able to accomplish, 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:04.320 and of course his plans to finally bring the people 0:18:04.359 --> 0:18:08.440 who conspired to murder his parents to justice. Witness is 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:11.439 an evidence slowly emerged over the years pointing towards a 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:17.520 conspiracy involving at least Peter Kent, Joseph Creeden, Glenn Harris, 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:21.080 and of course the Steuermans and Moore continues to come 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:24.240 to light to this day. But the process started back 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:27.960 in the early nineties when a woman named Carlene Kovacs 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:28.879 went to a party. 0:18:30.240 --> 0:18:34.560 In the early nineteen nineties, Joseph Creeden, who was an 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:39.399 enforcer for Todd Steuermann, was at a party where he 0:18:39.600 --> 0:18:43.800 admitted his involvement in the murders to Carlene Kovaks. So 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:48.600 the idea that Todd Struman and Jerry Schuman were responsible 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:51.960 for this not only from day one, but every year 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:56.400 subsequent to my conviction investigation, more and more evidence would 0:18:56.440 --> 0:19:01.320 come forward, continuously pointing back towards the Steuermans, And it 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:05.720 was around nineteen ninety two, nineteen ninety three when we 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:10.040 presented the DA's office with that information. And as the 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:13.679 years would go on throughout the nineteen nineties and the 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:16.720 two thousand's, the court system failed me. 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:20.080 It feels to me like the tides started to turn 0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:24.000 around two thousand and three when you hired Jay Salpeter. 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:27.240 Jay started from the very beginning, it was kind of 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:31.480 like who benefited financially and let's just start branching out 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:37.280 from there. The criminal ties around the Steuermans was pretty 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:40.359 well known when Jay took on this case of investigating it, 0:19:41.320 --> 0:19:44.480 and he just started looking at Todd Steuerman and Jerry 0:19:44.480 --> 0:19:49.840 Steuerman and started branching out, and eventually they found Glenn Harris. 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:53.000 Glenn Harris said something to the effect that I've been 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:56.200 waiting for this day for twelve or thirteen years. 0:19:56.640 --> 0:19:59.600 Glenn Harris davi a Swarren statement saying that he had 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:03.280 been high fired by Steuerman to drive the two hitmen, 0:20:03.640 --> 0:20:07.560 Joe Creeden and Peter Kent two and from the Tankliffe 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:11.480 House where you lived on the night of the cline. 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:13.879 And that just kind of started the snowball effect. We 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:19.320 assembled a body of evidence of witnesses and in two 0:20:19.359 --> 0:20:24.200 thousand and five we presented everything to the Suffolk County 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:28.879 DA with the hopes that with their subpoena power and 0:20:28.960 --> 0:20:34.080 wiretop power, that they would actually take a real serious 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:36.680 look at this case. And we said, you know, if 0:20:36.680 --> 0:20:39.399 you don't do anything after forty five days, we will 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:43.000 file a post conviction motion in New York. And we 0:20:43.160 --> 0:20:46.159 learned that it wasn't until the forty fourth day that 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:49.840 they actually went out and went to interview the first witness, 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:55.400 and we thereafter filed a post conviction motion. Judge Braslow 0:20:56.080 --> 0:21:00.680 granted a hearing, and throughout the hearing of very technical 0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:03.600 issues came up and more witnesses came forward. 0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:07.920 Throughout the hearing, Carlene Kovacs claimed that Joe Creeden told 0:21:07.920 --> 0:21:10.000 her about how he and another man hid in the 0:21:10.000 --> 0:21:12.679 bushes outside the tank of house, evaded capture and got 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:15.240 rid of the bloody clothes. And then there was more. 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:18.080 There were family members of the killers right, there were 0:21:18.160 --> 0:21:21.800 murder weapons that were actually had been hidden that were found. 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:22.720 Am I wrong about that? 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:27.520 Marty? So the culminating witness at the hearing was Joseph 0:21:27.640 --> 0:21:33.040 Creeden's son, who said that his father confessed to him 0:21:33.119 --> 0:21:37.880 of his involvement. There was a pipe that was discovered 0:21:38.400 --> 0:21:42.159 on a piece of property that Glen Harris said a 0:21:42.280 --> 0:21:46.160