WEBVTT - #514 Jason Flom with Richard Glossip 0:00:06.880 --> 0:00:09.560 Since we first released Richard Glossop's story, there have been 0:00:09.640 --> 0:00:13.600 some incredible developments. In the months following that release. A 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:18.080 bipartisan group of Oklahoma legislators commissioned an independent, third party 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:21.720 review of the case, which began in February twenty twenty two, 0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:26.440 and upon that November's election of Oklahoma Attorney General Ganner Drummond, 0:00:26.640 --> 0:00:30.840 the report was released along with his announcement admitting prosecutorial 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:34.040 errors and Brady violations and that he'd be seeking a 0:00:34.040 --> 0:00:37.839 new trial, not conceding Richard's innocence, but acknowledging that the 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:41.160 trial was unfair. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals ruled 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:45.800 that Drummond's concession didn't provide statutory or legal grounds for relief, 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:48.800 and over the last two years, that decision went all 0:00:48.840 --> 0:00:52.000 the way up to the US Supreme Court and were 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:56.560 happy to report that they sided with Richard and Ganner Drummond, 0:00:56.880 --> 0:01:01.360 and his death sentence and conviction have finally been busied. Now. 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:04.360 The majority decision was based on a Brady violation that 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:07.920 doesn't directly speak to Richard's innocence, but the credibility of 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:11.880 the state's only witness, Justin Snead, who testified falsely about 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:15.040 his mental health treatment that went uncorrected by the state, 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:20.600 but the credibility of sneed was critical to Richard's conviction. 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:24.160 Richard will be removed from death row but remain in 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:28.160 custody while awaiting a new trial in which two things 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:31.680 are in his favor. The death penalty may not even 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:33.959 be on the table. They may even be seeking a 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:39.240 lesser charge depending on the remaining evidence. Additionally, the exculpatory 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:41.520 material that has never been heard as a whole can 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:46.400 now finally have its day in court. Here's Richard's incredible 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:51.720 story in his own words. Richard Glossop was the manager 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:54.560 of a cdmotel in Oklahoma City called the Best Budget 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:57.400 in where he was responsible for large sums of cash 0:01:57.480 --> 0:02:00.880 belonging to its owner, Barry Van Treace, cash that he 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:04.520 could have stolen at any time without violence. A traveling 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:07.880 roofer and methadic named Justin Snead began staying at the 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:11.480 motel in exchange for maintenance work while enjoying easy access 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:14.040 to the drugs and prostitutes one might find at a 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:18.280 seedy motel. In the early morning of January seventh, nineteen 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:21.880 ninety seven, Stead and a girlfriend lured Barry Van Trees 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:24.160 into Room one O two to rob him of the 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:27.680 cash he was known to carry. Barry resisted and was 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:31.240 bludgeoned and stabbed to death. His car was moved to 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:35.600 a nearby lot. Later that morning, Snead off handedly told 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:38.760 Richard that he had killed Barry, but after seeing that 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:42.239 Barry's car was not at its usual spot, Richard dismissed 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:45.760 what he thought was Sneed's usual drug adult ramblings. When 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:48.520 the body was discovered, Richard told police about what Snead 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:51.960 had said, causing them to focus on him. Even though 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:56.280 Snead eventually confessed, the police steered him to implicate Richard 0:02:56.400 --> 0:02:59.760 as the mastermind of a murder for higher scheme for 0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:03.960 him his testimony, Snead escaped to death penalty in exchange 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:08.400 from life without parole, swapping Richard into his place. The 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:10.919 word of a meth head and alleged motive to steal 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:11.760 cash was all. 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:12.240 It took. 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:16.680 Twenty four years, two trials, three stays of execution, a 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:20.280 lethal injection drug scandal, and two Supreme Court cases later, 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:25.160 Richard remains on death row in Oklahoma. This is wrongful 0:03:25.160 --> 0:03:42.800 conviction with Jason Flapp welcome back to wrongful conviction with 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:46.080 Jason Flamm that's me. And if I sound a little 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:49.240 down today, it's because this case that you're going to 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:52.880 hear about is one of the most troubling cases I've 0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:57.560 ever heard of in my now twenty ninth year of 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:01.280 doing this type of work. With us. Today we have 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:07.320 one of the respected, even revered criminal and civil defense attorneys, 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:10.360 a man named Don Knight. Welcome to ronfel conviction. 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:12.280 Thank you, Jason. I appreciate that. 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:16.320 And of course with us today calling in from the 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:21.240 Oklahoma State Penitentiary where he is now in his twenty 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:24.880 third year on death row, and that is of course, 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:25.800 Richard Glossip. 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:31.400 Hello, this is a collect call from for sure, an 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:36.159 incarcerated individual at Oklahoma State Penitentiary. This call is not private. 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:39.640 This call will be recorded and may be monitored. To 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:43.240 consent to this recorded call, press one to disconnect. Thank 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:46.680 you for using securists. You may start the conversation now. 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:50.880 Hello, Richard. I'm sorry you're here under these circumstances, but 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:51.760 I'm happier here. 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:54.919 Oh that's cool. That's cool. Twenty four years of this 0:04:55.080 --> 0:04:58.400 and it stead a long battle and it dis continues, 0:04:58.760 --> 0:05:00.240 but the good thing is I'm still. 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:03.120 Here, Richard, if you don't mind take us back to 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:05.839 your childhood. You said, sort of an unusual childhood and 0:05:06.000 --> 0:05:08.720 moved from Illinois to Oklahoma. But also you were one 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:10.960 of a lot of children, right, You had a lot 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:12.160 of brothers and sisters. 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:15.440 Yeah. And I actually grew up in Geilsburg, Illinois. There 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:18.480 was sixteen of us. It was eight boys and eight girls. 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:20.799 You know, I grew up around a lot of addiction 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:22.640 and stuff like that, and you know, I just didn't 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:24.279 think I was going to get anywhere if I stayed 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:26.120 there any longer. And I left home when I was 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:28.400 fourteen and just made it on my own. 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:31.599 You know, it's actually kind of a miracle that you survived. 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:35.239 I mean, we could do a whole podcast about that alone. 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:39.520 But your story hadn't even begun yet. So, okay, you 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:42.520 were strange from your family for many years, working and 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:46.120 getting by. But how'd you end up in Oklahoma where 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:48.599 you got a job at the best budget in working 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:49.560 for Barry Van Trees. 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:54.240 My mom and dad retired and they decided to move 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:57.120 out here to Oklahoma to be closer to my mom's family. 0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:00.640 And in nineteen ninety three, my dad's health was and 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:02.440 my mom asked me if I would come out here 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:05.599 and spend some time with my dad, And that's how 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:07.800 I ended up with the best budget in. 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:11.280 Barry Van Trees didn't just run the best budget in 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:14.680 Oklahoma City, he also ran best budget in in Tulsa. 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:19.960 These were really low rent motels. They were a cash business. 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:23.400 There was a lot of drug activity and prostitution. Barry 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:26.280 Van Trees would come by every couple of weeks to 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:28.760 the Oklahoma City Best Budget in where he would pick 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:32.120 up the cash from Rich. Rich would have sometimes up 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:35.800 to thirty thousand dollars in receipts depending on how long 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:38.520 it took for Van Trees to come by the motel. 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:43.560 So Rich was constantly handling large amounts of money and 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:47.000 there was never any question about whether Rich was stealing money. 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:49.800 He was not stealing anything at all. 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:51.000 Right, And if he wanted to steal the money, he 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:53.480 could have done so almost any time without violence, and 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:56.040 he could have skipped down. But he never did, and 0:06:56.120 --> 0:06:58.800 certainly he didn't do so by involving a meth head 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:02.039 named Justin Sneak. Now, Justin had come through town with 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:04.039 a roof and crew out of Texas, and while he 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:05.720 was staying at the best budget in and he worked 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:07.719 out a deal for a free room in exchange for 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:09.920 maintenance and other work around the motel. 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:12.200 Right, yes, I said, hey, I need you to go 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:14.040 take care of this, or I need to take these 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:16.120 people from tiles or whatever the case may be. He 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:19.040 always did it. But as time went by, it was 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:21.400 getting harder to find him, and I was going to 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:23.520 let him go a couple of times, but you know, 0:07:23.960 --> 0:07:26.120 very like the fact that he was working Beru the 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:29.040 very God didn't want me to let him go. But yeah, 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:31.200 towards all this happening, in the end, it was like 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:33.920 I hardly ever found him to do what he was 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:34.640 supposed to do. 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:37.880 Did you catch any signs that he was using math? 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:41.520 Well, they were up all the time. So I did 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:44.000 have a couple of family members that did it, and 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:48.080 so learning from how they acted, you know, I could 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:51.600 tell that, yeah, definitely they want something. Justin was a 0:07:51.720 --> 0:07:54.960 very odd guy. He would say things that would throw 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:56.760 you off. He would say things that would just make 0:07:56.840 --> 0:07:58.640 him scratch your head and go, man, this guy is 0:07:58.680 --> 0:07:59.480 just like really weird. 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:02.000 So were there any signs that he might have been 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:03.600 robbing people to support his habit. 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:06.440 Yeah, you know, I had one of the a guy 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:08.720 named John Bieber's king to me and that he was 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:11.280 missing a big jar of coins. When he said he 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:14.880 thought Justin did it. I didn't believe him, But hindsight 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:15.640 is twenty. 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:18.280 Twenty, right, Yeah, it sure is. And at the time 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:20.800 you and your girlfriend Deanna Wood were spending a lot 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:23.040 of time together and most of it at the motel. 0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:25.280 Yeah, I lived on the property. I lived behind the 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:28.120 front desk in an apartment, so I'm always on the 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:31.160 property other than like DN and i'd being able to 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:32.880 go out and do something on our own. Why the 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:33.960 desk pork was there? 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:37.319 Now this brings us all the way up to January seventh, 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:41.120 nineteen ninety seven. At six am, Justin Snead woke rich 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:43.840 up and told him about a broken window and then 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:46.040 kind of off handily says, oh, and by the way, 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:49.560 I killed Barry. Now, Snead was known for saying weird 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:52.280 stuff like that, and so when Richard looked at Barry's 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:55.640 usual parking spot and didn't see Barry's car, he wrote 0:08:55.640 --> 0:08:58.560 it off as Sneed just being Sneid. Now, later on 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:01.920 Barry Venturees's car was spotted in the Credit Union parking 0:09:01.960 --> 0:09:04.760 lot about fifty yards away from the Best Budget, but 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:07.520 there was no sign of Barry, so this kicked off 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:10.480 a search, and Rich was out shopping with his girlfriend 0:09:10.520 --> 0:09:13.040 Deiana and was called back to work around three pm. 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:16.120 So at this point Rich is wondering do I tell 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:19.960 the police about what sneeds said? But he Indiana decided 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:22.240 against it because they didn't even know if Barry was 0:09:22.280 --> 0:09:25.840 dead or not. And finally at ten pm, Barry's body 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:28.880 was discovered in room one oh two. He had been 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:32.520 beaten with a baseball bat as well as having been 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:34.079 stabbed with a blunt object. 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:38.480 What happened here was that Barry van Trees stopped in 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:42.599 in the evening of January sixth, took care of payroll 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:45.000 and took care of everybody at the Best Budget in 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:49.400 Oklahoma City before leaving and driving to Tulsa to take 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:53.800 care of the payroll and the situation in Tulsa. He 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:58.239 didn't get to Tulsa till around midnight or so and didn't. 0:09:58.000 --> 0:09:59.240 Stay there very long. 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:02.600 Told the people in tolsonhen he left to tell his 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:05.040 wife that he would be home in five and a 0:10:05.080 --> 0:10:08.840 half hours. Home was Lawton Oklahoma. It doesn't take five 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:11.760 and a half hours to get to Lawton, so obviously, 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:14.280 when he said that he had plans to stop, he 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:18.520 stopped back the best budget in in Oklahoma City where 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:21.559 he went to room one oh two, and that's where 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:25.719 Justin Snead was waiting for him, or at least his 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:29.480 girlfriend was waiting for him. Because we have found out 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:33.160 that there was another person involved in this case. It 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:37.920 wasn't Rich Glossop, but it was Justin Snead's girlfriend. The 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:41.160 information that we have found is that it was simply 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:46.760 a robbery attempt. These two meth fueled young people thought 0:10:46.880 --> 0:10:50.240 they could simply take the keys from Barry Van Trees 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:53.520 and get the money out of his car without Van 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:58.200 Trees knowing or objecting. I don't know what their plan was. 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:01.520 We talked to one witness and she had a great statement. 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:04.120 She said, when you've been on meth for twenty days 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:08.720 in a row, the idea fairy appears. That looks like 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:13.079 what happened here. These two people knew Barry Van Trees 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:15.440 had a lot of money, and so we think that 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:18.000 he was lured into room one h two by this girl. 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:21.000 He knew he was coming back to that place and 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:25.959 once there, confronted by Justin Snead. From the information we 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:29.800 have that we have found from new witnesses, Sneid admitted 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:33.320 that he was intending simply to take Van Trees's money 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:37.040 and not kill him. But Van Trees fought back, and 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:39.920 at the end of that fight, Barry van Trees was 0:11:39.960 --> 0:11:42.640 beaten to death. It wasn't just beaten to death, but 0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:46.240 there was also some stab wounds on his body from 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:49.120 a very blunt object. And the blunt object appears to 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:52.640 be a pocket knife that the police found in the 0:11:52.679 --> 0:11:57.280 motel room that had its tip broken off. So for 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:02.520 this murder, Justin Snead and his girlfriend had two weapons, 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:06.000 a baseball bat and a broken knife. 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:06.520 It would be. 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:11.680 Really low on anyone's choices of how to go right, sure. 0:12:11.480 --> 0:12:14.040 But also I think low on somebody's idea of how 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:16.040 to kill somebody. I mean, if you're really planning to 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:18.559 murder someone, you don't go with a dull knife in 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:22.400 a baseball bat. You know. It sounds like a bad 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:27.440 plan from mess fueled young people. And the aftermath was 0:12:27.800 --> 0:12:29.760 a continuation of that bad plan. 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:31.880 The vehicle where. 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:36.960 The money was was moved not more than fifty yards, 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:38.880 not as if it was moved away so that it 0:12:38.920 --> 0:12:42.160 could be hidden. It was within plain view of the 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:44.880 best budget in in a credit union, right next to 0:12:44.920 --> 0:12:47.640 the best budget in. It was found there the next 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:51.720 morning by the security guard off duty sheriff's deputy working 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:55.640 at the way Yoki credit Union found this vehicle sort 0:12:55.679 --> 0:12:58.199 of with one tire up on the curb, parked in 0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:00.599 a place that it shouldn't be parked, and that's what 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:05.600 started the investigation on the seventh into Barryvan Teresa's death. 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:10.240 So you might notice that rich hasn't been mentioned yet 0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:12.920 in the story of this crime, and that's because no one, 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:16.920 not even the prosecution, ever claimed that he was even 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:21.000 in the room when it happened. Rich was sleeping in 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:25.480 the apartment behind the front desk with his girlfriend. That's undisputed. 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:29.320 So why are we even having this conversation and how 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:32.240 is rich on death row? Well, the lead investigators in 0:13:32.280 --> 0:13:36.000 this case, bimohen Cook, who did little to no investigation, 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:40.480 basically didn't talk to anyone at the motel and instead 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:44.920 focused on Richard early on for a few very ill 0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:46.000 conceived reasons. 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:48.960 They focus on rich and I think the first reason 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:52.200 is Rich's last name is Glossom. Rich's family was a 0:13:52.320 --> 0:13:55.960 known family with a criminal history in Oklahoma, So I 0:13:55.960 --> 0:14:00.320 think that's one thing. The second thing when they found 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:05.120 Van Trees's body at ten o'clock and they said, you know, Rich, 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:07.200 why shot You come in and sit and talk with us. 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:11.040 And was at that point that Rich told them about 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:15.240 that statement that Sneed made. That was the point I 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:17.880 think when the police said, oh, well, he's hiding something. 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:21.360 And I think that, in combination with Rich's last name, 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:24.080 I think that's what made the police begin to think 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:25.640 Rich Glossip had something to do. 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:26.280 With this case. 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:33.560 They decide to focus on this one statement that he omitted, right, 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:36.640 which is, I don't know that I would have done 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:38.320 anything differently myself. 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:40.680 It's clearly his right to do so. I mean, he 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:42.640 doesn't have to talk to the police. Nobody has to 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:43.600 talk to the police. 0:14:44.160 --> 0:14:47.160 After this initial interview, on the seventh, Rich sells some 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:50.000 personal items to raise money for a lawyer and talk 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:52.960 to an attorney named David Mackenzie, who told him quite 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:55.840 rightly to not speak with the police. But Rich did 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:59.520 what a lot of innocent people do, right. He believed 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:02.920 that just telling the truth, we'll set you free. So 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:06.680 he talked to Bemo and Cook anyway. 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:09.880 In the parking lot of Mackenzie's office, the police were 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:14.920 waiting for Rich. Rather than tell them I can't talk 0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:17.600 to you because this lawyer just told me this is 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:20.400 what I'm supposed to say, Rich says, okay, I'll talk 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:23.040 to you, and Demo and Cook. 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:24.880 To have a real bad history. 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:28.480 Of how they do their interrogations, and when they set 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:31.400 themselves upon Rich, they were going to do what they 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:34.080 could do to try to get Rich to say things 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:37.840 that they could say were inconsistent, and then they would 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:40.600 start driving that home to try to get him to 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:42.440 confess to this crime. 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:47.000 But he never does confess to the crime. However, they 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:49.600 start trying to tell him that he said things in 0:15:49.680 --> 0:15:52.400 his initial interview on the seventh that he did not. 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:56.720 They tried to catch him in lies with lies of 0:15:56.800 --> 0:16:00.360 their own, and it's clear that they have their sites 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:04.320 set on him. Meanwhile, Snead took off on the afternoon 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:07.440 of the seventh, before Barry's body was even found. He 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:09.760 went off working with the roofing crew that he came 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:12.160 into town with from Texas, trying to make himself scarce. 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:14.040 Basically, yeah, he left. 0:16:13.800 --> 0:16:17.360 New motel sometime after three o'clock, just took a skateboard 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:19.920 and took off again. It was it's something that the 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:23.880 prosecutor in both trials tried to paint that he was 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:27.080 totally dependent on Glossop for everything because he had no 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:30.440 way of making any money, which was just wrong. I mean, 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:32.600 first off, he was stealing the place blind, he was 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:36.280 breaking into motel rooms, he was breaking into cars, he 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:38.320 was doing everything he could do to get money for 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:42.000 his drug habit. But when he left the motel that. 0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:46.600 Day, he skateboarded over to where the people who he. 0:16:46.680 --> 0:16:51.200 Used to work for doing roofing were and he joined 0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:55.200 the roofing crew again. So he had the opportunity at 0:16:55.240 --> 0:16:58.160 any point in time to go make more money doing 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:00.640 his roofing work than he ever made it the best 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:03.440 budget in and he did that on that day. They 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:08.000 didn't catch Snead until the fourteenth of January. It was 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:11.320 the owner of the roofing company who seeing the news 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:14.080 accounts of what had happened and seeing Sneed's picture on 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:16.000 the news, that said to Sneid, I think you need 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:18.120 to turn yourself in. So he's the one that called 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:21.760 the police and that's when they interrogated Snead. 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:24.159 Right, and in Sneed's interrogation it's clear that Rich is 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:27.040 their main target. So they start working Snead over to 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:29.920 both admit to the crime and implicate Rich in some way. 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:33.400 Yeah, this was not a situation where they were saying, okay, justin, 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:36.399 we've caught you, why don't you tell us what happened. Instead, 0:17:36.440 --> 0:17:39.320 they go through this long prelude telling him what happened, 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:42.159 telling him what they know, telling him that they know 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:44.400 that somebody else was involved, and they don't want him 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:46.480 to hang alone. And in Sneed's first is like, I 0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:47.919 don't even know what to say. I don't know what 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:49.879 to tell you, as if he didn't have anything to 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:52.880 do with it. And then they brought Rich's name into it. 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:55.040 We think Rich had something to do with it. You know, 0:17:55.080 --> 0:17:59.520 he's under arrest. So Snead never said anything about Glossop 0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:03.160 at all. That came from the police, and then they 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:08.920 began to work with Sneid from there until they finally got. 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:11.040 This sort of crazy idea about. 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:13.879 Rich wanting to steal the money, kill Van Trees and 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:16.600 split the money with Snead, and somehow or another they 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:20.879 would run the motels some crazy story that came out, 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:23.400 which I think you would probably expect from somebody who's 0:18:23.440 --> 0:18:23.880 high on. 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:27.399 Math, right, and who's being fed information by police who 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:31.720 are exactly not interested in the truth here, so. 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:34.320 Right, because if they had been interested in the truth, 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:35.760 they simply would have said, why don't you tell us 0:18:35.800 --> 0:18:38.000 what happened? Tell us everything that you know. 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:41.399 And so Snead confesses to the murder. But what's clear 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:44.280 from his interrogation is that he was steered to drag 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:46.520 Rich into it as the mastermind of a murder for 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:51.280 higher plot, and then Snead uses this made up scenario 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:55.000 to save himself, making a deal for a life without 0:18:55.040 --> 0:18:56.640 parole instead of the death held. 0:18:57.320 --> 0:19:00.520 We have a witness who says he talked to Sneed 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:04.439 that year while he was in jail with Sneed, and 0:19:04.480 --> 0:19:07.879 as Sneed said, I had two main goals. One I 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:10.400 didn't want the death penalty and two I didn't want 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:14.119 my girlfriend to get caught. Sneed got both of what 0:19:14.200 --> 0:19:16.600 he wanted at Rich's expense. 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:31.560 This episode is underwritten by Paul Weiss Rifkin, Porton and Garrison, 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:35.240 a leading international law firm. Paul Weiss has long had 0:19:35.240 --> 0:19:39.520 an unwavering commitment to providing impactful, pro bono legal assistance 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:42.080 to the most vulnerable members of our society and in 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:45.919 support of the public interest, including extensive work in the 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:47.080 criminal justice area. 0:19:54.280 --> 0:19:58.000 Detective Demo in the document series that Was Done changed 0:19:58.000 --> 0:20:00.960 what he testified at two trials, and it was a 0:20:01.040 --> 0:20:04.840 murder for hire. He gives the statement in our docu 0:20:04.880 --> 0:20:06.679 series where he says, Oh, I think it was a 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:11.360 robbery went bad. That's the original story that Justin gave him, 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:13.240 that it was a robbery went bad, and they knew 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:15.560 that that's what it was, but they needed it to 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:18.200 be more. In my opinion, you know, prosecutors and stuff 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:20.560 need these notches in their belt so bad so they 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:21.840 can further their career. 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:23.560 And it doesn't matter. 0:20:23.920 --> 0:20:26.320 Who they get that notch from, as long as they 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:30.440 get it. My first judge, Judge Johnson, even looked at 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:34.000 the prosecutor and said, I don't understand where this is 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:38.400 the murder case, and she convinced the judge will give 0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:41.600 me some time. And that's the only reason the judge 0:20:41.600 --> 0:20:43.880 even allowed it to go forward, because he was convinced 0:20:43.880 --> 0:20:46.760 by a prosecutor to let her build a case. 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:51.200 Okay, So don There is a villain in this story, 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:54.879 of course. I'm talking about then district's attorney, Bob Macy, 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:59.800 who was nicknamed the Angel of Death, and he seemed 0:20:59.840 --> 0:21:06.800 to get off on winning death penalty cases, innocent, guilty, whatever. 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:11.000 He played dress up like a cowboy, although he was 0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:15.680 not a cowboy. Can you tell us about this awful character. 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:20.280 Bob Macy's just one of a handful of prosecuting attorneys 0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:25.040 in the country that really drives the death penalty in 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:28.440 this country. There are only a handful of places where 0:21:28.720 --> 0:21:31.880 most of the death penalty verdicts come from, or at least 0:21:31.920 --> 0:21:34.760 that has been the way in the past. New Orleans 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:38.600 there was certainly one in Oklahoma City. And these prosecutors 0:21:38.880 --> 0:21:42.560 they derive their power, i think, and their political base 0:21:42.760 --> 0:21:45.479 from seeking and getting the death penalty. They look at 0:21:45.480 --> 0:21:48.840 that as being tough on crime, and Bob Macy certainly 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:52.679 forged his legacy with all of that in mind. I 0:21:52.720 --> 0:21:57.439 think the thing that happens in these places is it 0:21:57.520 --> 0:22:01.040