Speaker 1: Maggie, what did you take away from your recent visit
Speaker 1: to death Row? Was there something surprising or you know,
Speaker 1: was it kind of what you expected? I mean, I
Speaker 1: think I was surprised that the person I was visiting
Speaker 1: is still in good spirits after having multiple stays of execution,
Speaker 1: being within twenty minutes of being killed by the state,
Speaker 1: um having that last meal, the fact that he's can
Speaker 1: still smile, make jokes, be excited for life still. I
Speaker 1: don't even know how to put into words the way
Speaker 1: that it made me feel, but I think it made
Speaker 1: me feel like so many of my problems in a
Speaker 1: daily basis are so insignificant, and I think that was
Speaker 1: just so. The willpower is amazing. Well, Texas crazy, and
Speaker 1: they've tried to kill me five times, so I believe
Speaker 1: that they very serious about that. But I think with
Speaker 1: the evidence we have now that there's no way they
Speaker 1: they're going to have to let me go, and they're
Speaker 1: going to have to acknowledge that I'm innocent. I don't
Speaker 1: see any other way from LoVa for good. This is
Speaker 1: wrungful conviction with Maggie Freeling today. Hank Skinner on December
Speaker 1: thirty one, thirty one year old Hank Skinner was pregaming
Speaker 1: for a New Year's Eve party. He was with his
Speaker 1: girlfriend of seven months, forty one year old Twilight Buzzby,
Speaker 1: and her two adult children, Scooter and Randy. Hank passed
Speaker 1: out before ten PM from a potent combination of vodka, codeine,
Speaker 1: and zanex. Despite his condition, Twila left for the party
Speaker 1: without him. When she were turned, she was strangled and
Speaker 1: blunted to death. Her two sons were stabbed to death.
Speaker 1: Hank was the sole survivor and was instantly the prime suspect,
Speaker 1: despite evidence that Hank was incapable of committing these murders
Speaker 1: and that another more probable person of interest exists. Hank
Speaker 1: has spent nearly thirty years on Texas death row awaiting execution.
Speaker 1: I'm sixty years old. I've spent my whole, the best
Speaker 1: years of my life in here, from thirty to sixty.
Speaker 1: I want out of here. I shouldn't be here. I
Speaker 1: never should have been here to start with. Hank Skinner
Speaker 1: was born on April four, ninety two. He's the oldest
Speaker 1: of four kids. I'm from r janr Okay. I was
Speaker 1: born in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in
Speaker 1: Franklin County, Virginia, which is the moonshine capital of the
Speaker 1: United States. His dad was part of the local industry.
Speaker 1: He was a foreign car mechanic as well as a moonshiner.
Speaker 1: So he had three eight hundred gallons steam steals and
Speaker 1: fired on butane. He made the best sugar looking you've
Speaker 1: never drank and see moonshine. If it's made correctly, it's
Speaker 1: a lot better than a storebault liquor. And so my
Speaker 1: dad's stuff burned clear, and I mean he was about
Speaker 1: a hundred forty proof. You can just get a four
Speaker 1: ounce glass to do ice cubes sip on it all.
Speaker 1: So did you just grew up drinking moonshine? When was
Speaker 1: the first time you drank it? Six years old? And
Speaker 1: I stole it from my dad. Growing up, Hank felt
Speaker 1: like he had the best parents in the world. He
Speaker 1: takes pride that he was named after his dad. I'm
Speaker 1: actually a junior, but when my dad passed, I took
Speaker 1: his name and somehow I'm just Henry Skinner. Hank Skinner.
Speaker 1: Hank is a nickname for him. He loved Hank Williams, Sr.
Speaker 1: And I love Hank Williams Jr. And Hank the third Yeah.
Speaker 1: In the same way, Hank learned a lot from his dad.
Speaker 1: Like my dad, he taught me how to slaughter holls
Speaker 1: and slaughter cow and he worked for his dad too young.
Speaker 1: Hank was a skilled laborer and free spirit. We were
Speaker 1: just a bunch of wild, roumbunctious kids having a good time.
Speaker 1: We had field keg parties and cow pastors. There was
Speaker 1: bikers up there everywhere. That's who I grew up with.
Speaker 1: But Hank also had a soft spot for the female
Speaker 1: role models in his life. Like his mom and grandma,
Speaker 1: Han grew up learning a lot from them, including how
Speaker 1: to respect women. If you want to if you want
Speaker 1: to find out anything in life, it really means something
Speaker 1: to find out from a woman. They know how to
Speaker 1: do everything, and so I can sew, I can alter clothes.
Speaker 1: I used to make dresses for my little sister on
Speaker 1: my Mama's song scene. I make quilts. I know how
Speaker 1: to do everything. I know how to can vegetables, you know,
Speaker 1: out of the garden. We used to do this every year.
Speaker 1: The women are the ship. That's all there is to it,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Hank also learned a lot
Speaker 1: about women after he married quite young. I was nineteen,
Speaker 1: My wife was sixteen, and we had just gotten married
Speaker 1: because she was already pregnant. I had a daughter, Natalie Joe.
Speaker 1: I wasn't so in love with her when she was born.
Speaker 1: Natalie Joe was the light of Hank's life, but Hank's
Speaker 1: marriage to Natalie Joe's mother was another story. He and
Speaker 1: his wife struggled to get along. According to Hank, she
Speaker 1: had substance abuse issues. She was strongly out on cocaine.
Speaker 1: We had a big argument and fight going on all
Speaker 1: the time, and so she's my daughter. Stayed with her.
Speaker 1: That was the only thing that was acceptable to her.
Speaker 1: My mama wanted her, but she wouldn't let my mama
Speaker 1: have her. And so my wife was doing crazy things
Speaker 1: when we do wors. So I just said this, I'm done.
Speaker 1: I left, and I went first to Georgia. They're in Georgia.
Speaker 1: Hank worked at a casino whose high earning customers were
Speaker 1: catered to by women. And these are gamblers and their
Speaker 1: high rollers, and so they want a woman on their arm.
Speaker 1: You know. Hank took it upon himself to look out
Speaker 1: for these women if they get two hands at like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm a guy who steps in and tells
Speaker 1: him and I know, you know it can't be doing that.
Speaker 1: And so have you ever seen that movie Roadhouse with
Speaker 1: Patrick Sways? Because that's what I did. I was a
Speaker 1: cooler just like he was in that movie, but not
Speaker 1: in a bar in the gambling establishment. And so I
Speaker 1: lived in an old, old ramshackle rooming house that had
Speaker 1: three stories and had big stucko porch on top. And
Speaker 1: so I could sit up there and drank beer and smoke.
Speaker 1: We watch all the cars go by, holler at the girls.
Speaker 1: I was the rooster of the him house. I had
Speaker 1: it all in his mind. Hank was living the life.
Speaker 1: So how did you wind up in Texas? So when
Speaker 1: I came out here, I came out here because I
Speaker 1: wanted to break out in the old field because I
Speaker 1: heard about the old field was a good place to
Speaker 1: make money, and I did. I made a lot of
Speaker 1: money out here. I ended up moving to Papa. It's
Speaker 1: an old field town. In Pampa, Hank found kindred spirits
Speaker 1: and the lifestyle he enjoyed, But soon he was charged
Speaker 1: and convicted for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and
Speaker 1: was on parole. He started going to a a as
Speaker 1: part of his parole, and that's where he met Twila Busby.
Speaker 1: These two guys were picking on her, and so I
Speaker 1: dried up her tears and I talked to her and
Speaker 1: got her all right. She was just they were just drilling.
Speaker 1: I mean the way they were mistressed. What were they
Speaker 1: picking on her for. She's a whore, She's a sorry bit.
Speaker 1: She drank, you know, she ain't never go sober up.
Speaker 1: It was just horrible. So anyway, I ended up giving
Speaker 1: her a round home. On the way, Hank asked if
Speaker 1: she wanted to stop for a cup of coffee, and
Speaker 1: we sit down and started talking, and he was like,
Speaker 1: just like instantly, we've been together for fifty years. I mean,
Speaker 1: she was so easy to talk to and and she
Speaker 1: told me, she said, I have never met anybody like
Speaker 1: you in my life. What are you some kind of magician?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, why do you say that? She said,
Speaker 1: I don't know what it Since I sat down and
Speaker 1: you started talking, you know, I have just started feeling
Speaker 1: some kind of way. Twilight and Hank started spending all
Speaker 1: their time together. Twilight our soul mates. We could just
Speaker 1: look at each other and know what the other was
Speaker 1: thinking and what to say, you know, And whenever we
Speaker 1: went to another people's house, she always said in my lap.
Speaker 1: People said we were like two high school kids, and
Speaker 1: we were so in love. She was a lot older
Speaker 1: than you, right, that's not a lot. Twilight had two sons, Elwyn,
Speaker 1: who went by Scooter and Randy was twenty, and Hank
Speaker 1: took on the young men as his own. The three
Speaker 1: of them had even worked together in a landscaping business.
Speaker 1: Hank had a previous hand injury that left his right
Speaker 1: dominant hand virtually useless, so the boys were a big help.
Speaker 1: So I laid out the plans and showed them what
Speaker 1: to do and how to do it, and they did
Speaker 1: all the manual labor and we made good money. Everything
Speaker 1: was going great for Twilight and Hank until seven months
Speaker 1: into their relationship New Year's Eve, when it all came
Speaker 1: crushing down. This episode is underwritten by a i G,
Speaker 1: a leading global insurance company. A i G is committed
Speaker 1: to corporate social responsibility and to making a positive difference
Speaker 1: in the lives of its employees and in the communities
Speaker 1: where we work and live. In light of the compelling
Speaker 1: need for pro bono legal assistance and in recognition of
Speaker 1: a i g s commitment to criminal and social justice reform,
Speaker 1: The a i G Pro Bono Program provides free legal
Speaker 1: services and other support to underrepresented communities and individuals. On
Speaker 1: December thirty one, Hank, Twila, and Twila's sons were all
Speaker 1: at home preparing for their evening celebration. Although it could
Speaker 1: be a dangerous combination, Hank took some Xanex and drank
Speaker 1: the better part of a fifth of vodka, and then
Speaker 1: he accidentally started sipping Twilight's drink, not realizing that she
Speaker 1: had spiked it with coding that in class look the
Speaker 1: same as mine, and I grabbed it and drink from it,
Speaker 1: and I had no idea what was in it. Hank
Speaker 1: wound up passing out that night from the combination of substances.
Speaker 1: He also says he's allergic to coding. It makes me sick.
Speaker 1: It gives me vertigo. I can't stand up. Um, it
Speaker 1: makes me very lethargic. UM. I lose my balance. I
Speaker 1: can't talk well. It feels like my throne is constricting,
Speaker 1: like my loans or full of cotton. I can't get
Speaker 1: a deep breath. Do you remember feeling any of that
Speaker 1: whore you're already really drunk, though I remember feeling all
Speaker 1: of that before I passed out. Around ten fift PM,
Speaker 1: Hank and Twila's friend, Howard Mitchell came to pick them
Speaker 1: up to drive them to attend his near's Eve party.
Speaker 1: When Howard arrived, he found Hank in a practically comatose state.
Speaker 1: He tried to rouse his friend but got no reaction.
Speaker 1: According to Howard, Hank was out cold, so he and
Speaker 1: Twila left for the party without Hank. So but nobody
Speaker 1: called nine one to make sure you're okay. We're all
Speaker 1: a bunch of parties that everybody passes out. How many
Speaker 1: times a year been no party and it's three or four.
Speaker 1: Motherfucker's laying on larnd the corner and I've been passed
Speaker 1: out before, but not like that. At the party, Twilight
Speaker 1: encountered her uncle, Robert Denell. He was incredibly drunk, following
Speaker 1: Twilight around and making sexual advances. They had previously had
Speaker 1: a sexual relationship, although Twila's consent to the relationship was questionable.
Speaker 1: She had allegedly told people her uncle had raped her
Speaker 1: more than once. Twilok on uncomfortable, and Howard took her home.
Speaker 1: They arrived back some time between eleven and eleven fifteen
Speaker 1: after the What happened is not totally clear, but here's
Speaker 1: how Hank remembers it. Sometime that night, Hank says he
Speaker 1: was shaken a week by Scooter, and when I first
Speaker 1: woke up, I couldn't. I couldn't. I couldn't see where
Speaker 1: the funk I was at. I couldn't, I don't say,
Speaker 1: I couldn't think in words, and I'm seeing blood all
Speaker 1: over the walls, but I didn't recognize it as Blum,
Speaker 1: thinking what in the fucking people slinging all over this
Speaker 1: living room? And so he got me up and he
Speaker 1: gave me my pants and he told me put them on.
Speaker 1: We got to get the funk out of here. And
Speaker 1: he was already injured, yes, And I didn't know that
Speaker 1: Scooter had been stabbed in the chest and stomach area,
Speaker 1: but he was still managing to move around. I was
Speaker 1: trying to save both of their lives, he said. He said,
Speaker 1: we gotta get out of here, Hank. They're coming back,
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking, who's coming back? What did the funk
Speaker 1: are you talking about? Remember him saying they're yes, yes,
Speaker 1: And he was saying it in a high streamed voice.
Speaker 1: That's one of the things I remember. Scooter was a
Speaker 1: big guy, six ft six and about two pounds, and
Speaker 1: despite his injuries, he was able to lift Hank up
Speaker 1: and help him out. Was anything registering at this point,
Speaker 1: A feeling whatever has happened. It's bad, this is bad.
Speaker 1: We have got to get the funk out of here.
Speaker 1: But I wasn't thinking in words. I was just thinking
Speaker 1: any emotions. Still on steady on his feet, Hank started
Speaker 1: looking around. But when I did, I lost my balance
Speaker 1: and fell face forward and the floor, And so I
Speaker 1: remember looking across the floor, got up on my elbows,
Speaker 1: trying to get up, but I couldn't do it. And
Speaker 1: I remember looking across the floor and I could see
Speaker 1: my girlfriend and all I could see was a mass
Speaker 1: of her hair and blood from this black tinning the
Speaker 1: edges of everything, and everything was looking alternately red and
Speaker 1: green and I but her face was gone. Twilight had
Speaker 1: been strangled and blunting to death. Someone had hit her
Speaker 1: fourteen times in the head with the handle of a pickaxe.
Speaker 1: When she was found, her pants were unzipped and her
Speaker 1: shirt was lifted up. As Hank was still trying to
Speaker 1: absorb everything Scooter was pulling him to go check on
Speaker 1: his younger brother, Randy, and so we get in the
Speaker 1: bedroom and he leans me against the dresser so he
Speaker 1: can see about his brother. And I couldn't even stand up,
Speaker 1: even holding on with the dresser, and I fell in
Speaker 1: the floor. And this is something I remember. I don't
Speaker 1: remember falling. I don't remember trying to get up, but
Speaker 1: I remember looking up at him, and he's looking at
Speaker 1: his brother, and he's got this horribly sad expression on
Speaker 1: his face, and so I know he's dead. Randy had
Speaker 1: been stabbed in the heart through his back while he
Speaker 1: was asleep. He had died on the top level of
Speaker 1: the bunk bed he shared with Scooter. That's when I
Speaker 1: realized my hand was cut. And I didn't know how
Speaker 1: it had gotten cut, but I had a vague memory
Speaker 1: of somebody standing over top of me with a knife
Speaker 1: and I threw my hands and up and they cut
Speaker 1: my hand and it was burning, and so I didn't
Speaker 1: know if that really happened or if I was just
Speaker 1: dreaming it. Hank wasn't dreaming that his hand was cut.
Speaker 1: That was real. He and Scooter moved through the house
Speaker 1: trying to escape, but they were bleeding everywhere, and so
Speaker 1: we got out into the backyard and we went through
Speaker 1: the gate, and I didn't know where we're going, but
Speaker 1: we had to get the funk out of there. That's
Speaker 1: all I knew. And so um I fell in the
Speaker 1: alley and he told me, Hank, I can't keep picking
Speaker 1: you up. And I said, don't worry about me, just
Speaker 1: go go get help. Go at help. And so I
Speaker 1: remember seeing him walk off towards the street light through
Speaker 1: the alley. Hank passed out again, So he didn't know
Speaker 1: that Scooter had made it to the neighbor's porch, where
Speaker 1: he finally succumbed to his wounds and collapsed. A neighbor
Speaker 1: found Scooter and called nine one one, and he was
Speaker 1: immediately brought to the hospital. They're am Scooter died. When
Speaker 1: the police showed up and found out where Scooter lived,
Speaker 1: they immediately went to the house. When they arrived, they
Speaker 1: found a massacre. There was a trail of blood from
Speaker 1: the fence to the front porch. The front storm door
Speaker 1: was smeared with blood. Once inside, police found multiple bloody
Speaker 1: handprints on doors and door knobs in the bedroom, kitchen,
Speaker 1: utility room, and on the door leading out to the backyard,
Speaker 1: along with bloody handprints and blood smeared throughout the house.
Speaker 1: Police also found a black plastic trash bag containing a wet,
Speaker 1: brown stained towel and a knife. They found the bloody
Speaker 1: pickaxe handle used to blood in Twila, as well as
Speaker 1: a knife that was on the porch. They also found
Speaker 1: a man's windbreaker, and of course, the bodies of Twila
Speaker 1: and Randy. Almost immediately the police started looking for Hank,
Speaker 1: the living boyfriend. They found him at Andrea Joyce Reed's house,
Speaker 1: where Hank had gone for help after he came to consciousness.
Speaker 1: Andrea was a neighbor and she was also hank sex girlfriend.
Speaker 1: Hank became the prime suspect. The reason he was accused
Speaker 1: of the crime, I think is because in fact, he
Speaker 1: was the only survivor from the scene, which was both
Speaker 1: very lucky because the assailant didn't kill Hank, but it's
Speaker 1: also very unlucky because it meant all the fingers were
Speaker 1: immediately pointed at um. This is Rob Owen. I'm a lawyer.
Speaker 1: I live in Chicago. For many years, I've practiced in
Speaker 1: Texas doing mostly death penalty cases, and during that time
Speaker 1: was when I became one of the members of Hank
Speaker 1: Skinner's defense team. The police assumed that this was an
Speaker 1: open and shot case. They assumed that he had to
Speaker 1: be the killer. He had some of the blood of
Speaker 1: Twilight Busby and the other victims on his clothing, for example,
Speaker 1: and Hank says the blood very likely came from touching
Speaker 1: Twilight to see if she was okay. I think that
Speaker 1: was all. It was very easy for the cops to
Speaker 1: assume that they had the right guy. Hank was taken
Speaker 1: to the police station and booked, but he was still
Speaker 1: so messed up from the alcohol and coding that he
Speaker 1: couldn't even stand on his own while his photograph was taken.
Speaker 1: The police had to hold him up. He was eventually
Speaker 1: taken to the hospital. Hanks cut hand was treated, and
Speaker 1: he voluntarily gave blood samples. Results of those samples were
Speaker 1: used to calculate Hank's blood alcohol levels at the approximate
Speaker 1: time of the murder. They showed that at the time,
Speaker 1: Hank's blood alcohol content was almost three times the drunk
Speaker 1: driving standard and his coding level was two and a
Speaker 1: half times the recommended dose. And so this is Hank's alibi.
Speaker 1: Hey couldn't have committed this murder. Are these murders because
Speaker 1: he was simply physically incapable at the time of carrying
Speaker 1: them out. Remember, Hank was virtually comatose when Howard came
Speaker 1: to pick him up for the party, and Twilight came
Speaker 1: home from that party only about an hour later. Hank
Speaker 1: couldn't have possibly sobered up by the time the murderers transpired.
Speaker 1: Hank could only have been able to sort of at
Speaker 1: most stand and stagger like That would have been about
Speaker 1: the sum of his physical ability based on the volume
Speaker 1: of alcohol and codeine and his bloodstream. Police searched the
Speaker 1: house for ten days without a warrant, but they failed
Speaker 1: to collect key evidence, including not on bloody finger and handprints.
Speaker 1: Vaginal swabs were taken from Twila, and despite one detective
Speaker 1: urging him to do so, Gary Stallings, the criminalist who
Speaker 1: was leading the forensics team, did not believe Twila was
Speaker 1: raped and did not have the swabs tested. None of
Speaker 1: the evidence directly linked Hank to the crime. Yes, his
Speaker 1: bloody handprints were there, but he also lived in the
Speaker 1: house and says he was attacked. There was also d
Speaker 1: NA and at least one handprint that was not Hanks,
Speaker 1: Twila's Scooters or Randy's. But despite all of that, Hank
Speaker 1: was prosecuted for the murders. His trial began a little
Speaker 1: over a year later. In March, he faced the death penalty.
Speaker 1: District Attorney John Mann was the prosecutor in the case.
Speaker 1: At trial, Man rested his argument on two key testimonies,
Speaker 1: that of state witnesses Howard Mitchell and Andrea Joyce Read.
Speaker 1: No actual forensics linking Hank to the crime were presented
Speaker 1: at trial. In fact, Stallings, the criminalist, conceded that just
Speaker 1: because the evidence proved Hank was there at the house
Speaker 1: does not identify him as the murderer. Howard Mitchell testified
Speaker 1: for the state and said that Hank was completely comatose
Speaker 1: when he arrived to take them to his party. But
Speaker 1: he also said that when Twila's uncle, Robert Dunnell was
Speaker 1: harassing her at his house, Howard took her home and
Speaker 1: that they shared a friendly kiss on the porch. Man
Speaker 1: used Howard's testimony to argue that Hank killed Twila, Scooter,
Speaker 1: and Randy in a jealous rage. Andrea Joyce Read hank
Speaker 1: sex girlfriend and neighbor, also testified that she came in
Speaker 1: and said, well, when he got to my house on
Speaker 1: the night of the crime, he was behaving in ways
Speaker 1: that didn't seem that messed up. He was obviously intoxicated,
Speaker 1: but he was able to walk into the house under
Speaker 1: his own steam. He was able to take off his shirt.
Speaker 1: He was able to stitch up the severe cut that
Speaker 1: he had sustained on one hand using thread and needles
Speaker 1: that Andrea Reid provided him. Her testimony was a blow
Speaker 1: for the defense. Harold Comer, who happened to be a
Speaker 1: former prosecutor, was Hank's court appointed defense attorney. Comer argued
Speaker 1: that Hank survived the attacks because the perpetrator didn't perceive
Speaker 1: him as a threat in his condition. He also argued
Speaker 1: that Hank's pre existing injury had left his right hand
Speaker 1: with nerve and tissue damage. He did not have the
Speaker 1: strength to carry out these brutal murders. William T. Lowry,
Speaker 1: a forensic toxicologist for the defense, also said that it
Speaker 1: was quote highly improbable that Hank could have committed the
Speaker 1: murders based on how intoxicated. He was. In a later
Speaker 1: AFFI David he added to his argument. He said, quote
Speaker 1: Mr Skinner at best would have been in a stuporous state,
Speaker 1: barely able to stand without assistance, and completely without the
Speaker 1: physical coordination or mental acuity required to commit these murder
Speaker 1: by strangulation, beating, and stabbing end quote. According to Dr Lowry,
Speaker 1: Hank was likely exerting whatever strength and energy he had
Speaker 1: just to stand up and walk. Based on Hank's bloody
Speaker 1: handprints around the walls of the house and his inability
Speaker 1: to stand for a photo at the police station, this
Speaker 1: was likely the case. Hank's defense attorney also presented Twilight's uncle,
Speaker 1: Robert Dennell, as an alternate suspect, but he failed to
Speaker 1: make a strong case of reasonable doubt for Hank, and
Speaker 1: on March eighteenth, the jury deliberated for only two and
Speaker 1: a half hours before finding Hank guilty. Five days later,
Speaker 1: they handed him a death sentence. And I just can't
Speaker 1: believe they're done is to me because I'm innocent and
Speaker 1: they know they knew I was innocent before they arrested me.
Speaker 1: The fact that the country in the Western world still
Speaker 1: executed citizens is beyond shocking. This is Sandrine A George Skinner.
Speaker 1: I am French, spending half my time in Texas and
Speaker 1: half much time in France. Sandrine and Hank have been
Speaker 1: married since two thousand eight, and Hank is anxious to
Speaker 1: get out of prisons. They can be together because of
Speaker 1: the pandemic. They hadn't seen or heard each other for
Speaker 1: almost three years until recently. So for three years, you
Speaker 1: guys have just been writing letters. Yeah, that's correct. How
Speaker 1: did you hear about Hank? And you know you're in France?
Speaker 1: What interested you and somebody in in Houston, Texas? Well?
Speaker 1: I had a friend in France who was a young
Speaker 1: lawyer and he wrote his thesis on the death penalty
Speaker 1: in Texas and he sent me a copy read it,
Speaker 1: and I just of my chair. I couldn't believe that
Speaker 1: the legal system in the US was so poor and
Speaker 1: so flawed. Um, and you told me at the time
Speaker 1: about an organization that was set up and run by
Speaker 1: the death row prisoners in Texas and they had a
Speaker 1: sort of a trimesterral newsletter. And he said, you know,
Speaker 1: if you want to translate it in French, we could
Speaker 1: distribute in France and get people, you know, a bit
Speaker 1: more aware about what's going on there. And so I
Speaker 1: did a couple of times, and he said, well, she
Speaker 1: want to correspond with people there I'm thinking of free
Speaker 1: guys I'm sure you'll get along with. And Hank was
Speaker 1: one of those three guys. That's how we started writing
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety six, s Drines as They corresponded for
Speaker 1: about four years before she went to visit Hank on
Speaker 1: Death Row, a place where prisoners are confined in cells
Speaker 1: alone and do everything alone. When she met Hank on
Speaker 1: death Row, that's when she felt he was more than
Speaker 1: just a pen pal. And you know, he's very smart,
Speaker 1: he's very funny, is very strong, as you can imagine
Speaker 1: with what he's been through. And we just clicked instantly,
Speaker 1: even at a distance and in writing, and we clicked
Speaker 1: even more when we met in what ways? I mean
Speaker 1: you might think, you know, you'd see your world's apart. Literally,
Speaker 1: I mean, you're a woman in France and he's a
Speaker 1: man on death Row, totally different culture, different background. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know kindred spirits, I guess, no, no boarders. So
Speaker 1: you guys have never been able to be intimate in
Speaker 1: any kind of way. You've never even touched his hand? No, never,
Speaker 1: What is that like? It's um, well, I'm not a
Speaker 1: maso kist, but honestly, it is a torture. It is
Speaker 1: a torture. It really is a torture because you look sometimes,
Speaker 1: you know, when you even with your friends. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know here in the US, but in France,
Speaker 1: we are very philly, touchy. We need to be close.
Speaker 1: We kiss, we hug, so you know someone's sent the ski.
Speaker 1: You know, you know a lot of things. So basically,
Speaker 1: our sensoryr memories of each other's are the sound of
Speaker 1: our voices and our eyes and the look in our eyes.
Speaker 1: And not knowing his skin, not being able to comfort
Speaker 1: him is very, very hard m Through the years, Sandrine
Speaker 1: has flown back and forth between France and Houston to
Speaker 1: visit Hank on death row. Although she was not originally
Speaker 1: involved in Hank's innocence claim, Sandrine eventually became convinced of
Speaker 1: his innocence. And I read tons and tons of paperwork
Speaker 1: and and to me it was obvious, I mean physically, scientifically,
Speaker 1: for a number of reasons, it was very clear that
Speaker 1: he was innocent. And indeed, the one key witness that
Speaker 1: hanks fate rested on, Andrea Joyce read recanted her statement
Speaker 1: here's robo in again. After Hank was convicted and said
Speaker 1: to death row. Andrea contacted Hank's lawyers and said that
Speaker 1: testimony wasn't true. I was really afraid because I thought
Speaker 1: I was likely to be accused of being some sort
Speaker 1: of accomplice or having assisted Hank in some way that
Speaker 1: would put me into legal jeopardy. She was at the
Speaker 1: time trying to regain custody of a child, and she
Speaker 1: thought that that would certainly be unlikely if the if
Speaker 1: the authorities were angry at her or believed she had
Speaker 1: some role in this crime. So she she essentially went
Speaker 1: to trial and exaggerated systemically and repeatedly, uh the things
Speaker 1: that Hank was able to do. What she said in
Speaker 1: her recantation was in fact, Hank was not able to
Speaker 1: get into the house on his own. She had to
Speaker 1: go outside basically drag him up the steps and into
Speaker 1: the house. But when she recanted, Prosecutor Man was not pleased.
Speaker 1: John Mann dragged Andrea Reid before a grand jury after
Speaker 1: she gave her affidavit recanting her trial testimony and threatened
Speaker 1: to prosecute her for perjury if she persisted, and to
Speaker 1: her great credit, she she did not back away from
Speaker 1: the recantation, and she said, I don't want false testimony
Speaker 1: on my conscience, and so I'm going to stick now
Speaker 1: telling the truth, no matter what the consequences for me
Speaker 1: personally are. But I think that says a lot about
Speaker 1: Mr Mann that he was willing to threaten to prosecute
Speaker 1: her in order to keep her truth from coming out.
Speaker 1: Hank filed multiple appeals, one based on Andrew's recantation, but
Speaker 1: clearly none were sufficient for the court to free him.
Speaker 1: He was only met with execution dates. Sandrin and Hank
Speaker 1: kept up their relationship for nearly fifteen years before Hank
Speaker 1: got another execution date in March. This time it was serious.
Speaker 1: He was transferred to one of the cells near the
Speaker 1: death chamber in Huntsville, Texas. They killed my first brand
Speaker 1: March the second. They killed my second brand, Marcy eleven.
Speaker 1: And he're gonna kill me March four, thirteen days later.
Speaker 1: What is that? What is that like? When you when
Speaker 1: you know you're going to die? It's indescribable. The last
Speaker 1: seven days you don't sleep at all, You're hyper vigilant.
Speaker 1: Your mind starts unrolling all of the things you've done
Speaker 1: in your life that you wish you hadn't done, the
Speaker 1: things you could have done better. I'm sitting there looking
Speaker 1: at that journey that they're fixing to put me on.
Speaker 1: I could see it through the door. They had the
Speaker 1: door open. I could see the microphone, I could see
Speaker 1: the straps, arm boards, and I was absolutely convinced I
Speaker 1: was fixing to die. I just, I just knew that
Speaker 1: I was going to die, because the courts, he just
Speaker 1: give me the short shrift every time we had fall,
Speaker 1: something like fuck you, you die, and so I felt
Speaker 1: like that was it. Did you get a last meal? Yes?
Speaker 1: I did, Papaye's fried chicken uh a cheese a double
Speaker 1: cheese burger with onions and tomatoes and lettuce, and chocolate pudding,
Speaker 1: chocolate cake, and a chocolate milkshake. And I ain't ever
Speaker 1: been of it. Fortunately, Hank's execution was stayed by the U. S.
Speaker 1: Supreme Court less than an hour before he was set
Speaker 1: to be killed. Today, Hank spends his time as a
Speaker 1: jailhouse attorney, helping other prisoners with the law and their cases.
Speaker 1: And although he's in solitary on death row, incarcerated people
Speaker 1: do have a right to provide legal help to one another,
Speaker 1: so that's really his only social interactions. Hank has maintained
Speaker 1: his innocence for nearly thirty years to this day. He
Speaker 1: believes he was framed by Twilight's uncle, Bob Dnelle, and
Speaker 1: at one of Hank's later hearings Danelle, his longtime neighbor,
Speaker 1: Deborah Ellis, testified that she saw Dannelle in his yard
Speaker 1: a few days after the murders took place. He was
Speaker 1: giving a frenzied cleaning to his old beat up pickup truck,
Speaker 1: taking out the seeds, throwing away the carpet, and scrubbing
Speaker 1: the floorboards within a stringent cleaner. Ellis found his behavior
Speaker 1: strange because Robert reportedly rarely cleaned his truck. Hank's theory
Speaker 1: is that after Twilight left the party with Howard, Dannelle
Speaker 1: followed them home. When Howard Mitchell testified at trial, he
Speaker 1: said that when he returned to the party, Dinnell was gone.
Speaker 1: Hank thinks he left to confront Twilight at home and
Speaker 1: when he saw Hank passed out, he left him as
Speaker 1: the sole survivor, knowing how that would look. And if
Speaker 1: you remember, there was a men's windbreaker jacket that was
Speaker 1: taken as evidence, however it was never tested, clearly has
Speaker 1: potential evidentiary value. It's got blood spatter on the sleeves,
Speaker 1: it's got sweat stains on the collar, it's got their's
Speaker 1: on the interior lining. Over the years, Rob and Hank's
Speaker 1: team have tried to test all the evidence they could,
Speaker 1: but it was only once we got into court that
Speaker 1: the state came in and said, oh, well, we all
Speaker 1: know what happened to the jacket. The jacket is lost.
Speaker 1: And it's also a little weird that it's the only
Speaker 1: piece of evidence that they say is lost. Right, They
Speaker 1: had all the other evidence of the same. They got
Speaker 1: the blood swabs, they got the knives, they've got fingernail clippings,
Speaker 1: they've got hairs, but somehow they managed to lose an
Speaker 1: object as large as a man's wind breaker jacket. So
Speaker 1: I'm not going to vouch for their claim to have
Speaker 1: lost this jacket. I think they should still be looking
Speaker 1: for this jack. DNA testing that was able to be
Speaker 1: done on the items from the crime scene has been completed.
Speaker 1: None of the results have implicated Hank at the murderer. However,
Speaker 1: the court's ruled that even if the DNA testing and
Speaker 1: results have been available at the time of trial, it's
Speaker 1: not reasonably probable that the jury would have found him
Speaker 1: not guilty, meaning the judge who decided the verdict would
Speaker 1: have reached the same conclusion. Hank has appealed this to
Speaker 1: the Texas Highest Criminal Court. It's currently pending a decision.
Speaker 1: When I met with Hank at the Polunski death Row unit,
Speaker 1: I asked him, do you wish you were killed that
Speaker 1: night instead of winding up here? There have been times
Speaker 1: when I wish that, because, especially in the first days
Speaker 1: after this happened and I was in jail cell by myself,
Speaker 1: it would have been so much better, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? All right? I just could not believe that
Speaker 1: they were gone. I mean, the three people I love
Speaker 1: most in this world, hears sons, were my best friends.
Speaker 1: We spent all our time together, and so to wake
Speaker 1: up one morning and there's all gone, and you know,
Speaker 1: Survivor's guild. I didn't do this. There's nothing in the
Speaker 1: world and could have made me do it. But I
Speaker 1: felt so responsible because I was the king of that castle,
Speaker 1: and instead of passed out drunk on the fucking couch,
Speaker 1: I should have been awake and able to do something.
Speaker 1: Can you envisional life outside of here? Sure? What does
Speaker 1: that look? Like me with saying dream, do you think
Speaker 1: you'll go to France? Absolutely, you're gonna get out of here? Why,
Speaker 1: I'm out of this country? They let me out of here.
Speaker 1: I'm so out of here and ain't fund you. Do
Speaker 1: you think you're going to get out? Well? It takes
Speaker 1: us crazy, and they've tried to kill me five times,
Speaker 1: so I believe that they were very serious about that.
Speaker 1: But I think with the evidence we have now that
Speaker 1: there's no way they're going to have to let me go,
Speaker 1: and they're gonna have to acknowledge that I'm innocent. I
Speaker 1: don't see any other way, you know. I think, after
Speaker 1: all I've suffered that I deserve a chance, I deserve
Speaker 1: to be with my wife. I deserve to have a life.
Speaker 1: I deserve to be released and get the hell out
Speaker 1: of here, and I want out. I'm telling you something,
Speaker 1: you know. It was just so amazing to find love
Speaker 1: a second time, and I love her endlessly, man, And
Speaker 1: I mean we are really truly soul mates. Hank is
Speaker 1: still eligible for execution, but he will not get a
Speaker 1: new eight as long as litigation is pending. If you
Speaker 1: want to help Hank, you can go to Justice for
Speaker 1: Hank dot Org Forward Slash Help next time I'm Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction with Maggie Freeling Carla Badet. They were telling me
Speaker 1: that I abuse kids. It was painful because I love
Speaker 1: this kit so much. She's thinking that you abuse somebody
Speaker 1: so innocent, and then they were saying that I did that.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
Speaker 1: Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
Speaker 1: links in our bio to see how you can help.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason Flam and
Speaker 1: Kevin Wurdis, as well as our senior producer Annie Chelsea,
Speaker 1: researcher Lila Robinson, story editor Sonya Paul with a dish
Speaker 1: production by Jeff Cleburne and Connor Hall. The music in
Speaker 1: this production is 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: Wrongful Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On
Speaker 1: all three platforms, you can also follow me on both
Speaker 1: Instagram and Twitter at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with Maggie
Speaker 1: Freeling is a production of Lava for Good podcasts in
Speaker 1: association with signal company Number one