Speaker 1: In recording our coverage to Barry Beach, we realized that
Speaker 1: there are so many details and twists and turns that
Speaker 1: the story simply warrants two episodes, So we've split the
Speaker 1: episode and released both for your listening pleasure at the
Speaker 1: same time. Enjoy On Montana's Fort Peck Reservation, just after
Speaker 1: seven am ch in sixteenth, nineteen seventy nine, the body
Speaker 1: of seventeen year old Kim Knees was found on the
Speaker 1: bank of the Poplar River. Her car was parked about
Speaker 1: a hundred yards away, and it appeared to be the
Speaker 1: scene of a vicious beating, potentially involving multiple assailants. Bootprints
Speaker 1: could be seen in the path from the car to
Speaker 1: the river, and fingerprints made in blood were found on
Speaker 1: the interior and exterior of the car. The police interrogated
Speaker 1: many local young men, including Barry Beach, who was initially
Speaker 1: cleared as a suspect, and for three and a half
Speaker 1: years the case remained cold. Barry Beach moved to Louisiana
Speaker 1: to build a relationship with his strange father. When his
Speaker 1: stepsister ran away and ended up at his apartment, Barry's
Speaker 1: stepmother notified police, also making sure to mention that Barry
Speaker 1: had been interviewed three times about a murder in Montana.
Speaker 1: The police in Monroe, Louisiana interrogated Barry about three open
Speaker 1: serial murders involving young women, but having been out of
Speaker 1: state for each, they began pressing him about the murder
Speaker 1: back in Montana. Eventually, Barry gave a confession that was
Speaker 1: presented at his trial. With a confession as well as
Speaker 1: the specter of a potential hair match, a punishment of
Speaker 1: life plus one hundred years must have seemed like justice
Speaker 1: was being served by the state of Montana. But this
Speaker 1: is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. I don't
Speaker 1: even know what to say. I'm actually at a loss
Speaker 1: for words. What I'm gonna do is just start by apologizing, Okay,
Speaker 1: to our guest today, Barry Beach, for what is one
Speaker 1: of the most egregious injustices that I have ever seen
Speaker 1: in almost thirty years of doing this work. So this
Speaker 1: story is gonna blow people's minds anyway, without further ado,
Speaker 1: Barry Beach, Welcome to ronval Conviction. Thank you, Jason, and
Speaker 1: good morning to you. And as I always say, I'm
Speaker 1: happy you're here because I'm honored to talk to you,
Speaker 1: but I'm sorry you're here because of everything, the hell
Speaker 1: that you went through that is going to form the
Speaker 1: basis of the story we're about to tell. And we'll
Speaker 1: also be talking to one of the heroes in this
Speaker 1: story in a bit, an investigator named Richard Hepburn, who
Speaker 1: helped unravel the open secret that prevailing wisdom of a
Speaker 1: small town in Montana, which is what actually happened on
Speaker 1: a terrible night on the hillside next to the Poplar
Speaker 1: River all those years ago. But let's go all the
Speaker 1: way back to your childhood. Did you grow up there
Speaker 1: in Poplar, Montana? I actually grew up in several different locations,
Speaker 1: but mainly in Popular, Montana on the Fort Peck Indian
Speaker 1: Reservation in the northeast corner of the state of Montana.
Speaker 1: In a lot of ways, I had a very normal
Speaker 1: and happy childhood because my grandparents owned a large farm
Speaker 1: and ranch, and that was the best memories of my
Speaker 1: childhood was the horses and the cattle, and the chores
Speaker 1: and the work and the labor, you know. But along
Speaker 1: with that, my mother was divorced when I was two
Speaker 1: years old from my father, who was an airforceman and
Speaker 1: was stationed in several different locations during my early years
Speaker 1: of life. He did get to know a bit the
Speaker 1: year that this incident happened, I guess when he was
Speaker 1: stationed down in Louisiana. Right, for over a year and
Speaker 1: a half, maybe two years, I had been trying to
Speaker 1: leave Popular, Montana and discover my biological father, who I
Speaker 1: did not know until I was seventeen. That being said,
Speaker 1: I had actually gone to work for a local farmer,
Speaker 1: saved up some money, purchased a car, was going to
Speaker 1: drive down there and spend the summer with my biological
Speaker 1: father for the first time in my entire life. So
Speaker 1: I don't know my dad from my childhood, but I
Speaker 1: had a stepfather who was a full blood Lakota Sioux.
Speaker 1: And just like any racial tension area in the United
Speaker 1: States of America, reservations were racially tense areas to live.
Speaker 1: That doesn't make it a bad place to live, It's
Speaker 1: just that there was always that conflict growing up in
Speaker 1: a mixed race home, and it created problems at school
Speaker 1: and right, you were from a mixed race household going
Speaker 1: to school in Popular, Montana, a small farming and oil
Speaker 1: community where over seventy of the population were Native American
Speaker 1: maybe white. Also notable about the population is that there
Speaker 1: were only about a little over at that some people
Speaker 1: living there, and the typic of graduating class was around
Speaker 1: twenty kids, so you all knew each other pretty well
Speaker 1: even between grades, you know, which put you in close
Speaker 1: proximity with the victim in this case, Kim Knees, a
Speaker 1: young white woman who was a great ahead of you.
Speaker 1: We actually grew up on the same block, just four
Speaker 1: houses apart from each other, and one of the things
Speaker 1: that I've been talking about is the aspect of mixed
Speaker 1: racial tensions on the reservation as we grew up as kids.
Speaker 1: Kim Nice was also the granddaughter of a state senator.
Speaker 1: Her uncle, Stanley was the local banker. Her dad, Ted
Speaker 1: was a farmer as well as involved with some of
Speaker 1: the local oil explorations. So Kim was on that upper
Speaker 1: level of school of classmates of society growing up in
Speaker 1: what in the United States of America are the most
Speaker 1: poverty stricken areas of our entire nation, which is a
Speaker 1: Native American reservation. So she kind of stood out a
Speaker 1: bit in the area, as did her sister, who was
Speaker 1: two years behind you, and I actually dated Kim's younger sister, Pam,
Speaker 1: off and on for over two years, and we were
Speaker 1: still kind of dating off and on when this happened.
Speaker 1: And you had seen her on the day of the
Speaker 1: murder right earlier in the day. I had seen Pam
Speaker 1: and we talked for twenty minutes or so that day
Speaker 1: before I left town for the river. I did not
Speaker 1: see Kim because Kim and I did not associate with
Speaker 1: each other, being that Kim was very athletic, she was
Speaker 1: the upper social class of society. I was a known
Speaker 1: drug user and alcoholic and fighter, and drove fast cars
Speaker 1: and like rock and music. I was the guy that
Speaker 1: you do not take home to mall got it. So
Speaker 1: I guess her sister was really just kind of rebelling
Speaker 1: by dating you. I mean, from what I understand, in
Speaker 1: addition to being a wild kind of guy, you and
Speaker 1: your family were not as well off, not even close
Speaker 1: as the Ns family. We were a lower to middle
Speaker 1: class family, and economically, even though we were a hard
Speaker 1: working family, it just sometimes you can work really hard
Speaker 1: not go anywhere. But by the time I did get
Speaker 1: into high school, I was fairly regular user. And I
Speaker 1: do think that along with being from a biracial family
Speaker 1: contributed to making myself a susceptible target for law enforcement.
Speaker 1: But up until this point you're run into with the
Speaker 1: law consisted of a few traffic tickets, so no prior
Speaker 1: violence or criminal record to speak of. And there's something
Speaker 1: about the jurisdiction of law enforcement on a reservation that's
Speaker 1: a bit complicated, right, correct. And nineteen sixty two, the
Speaker 1: federal government past what is called Public Law six eighty.
Speaker 1: Native American Indian reservations are federal land established by the
Speaker 1: federal government during the eighteen hundreds. Therefore, the FBI have
Speaker 1: jurisdiction over that land. However, Native American tribes are independent
Speaker 1: governments nations, so they control the land even though it
Speaker 1: belongs to the federal government. Where that applies to jurisdiction
Speaker 1: is when there is a major crime such as a robbery, homicide, kidnapping,
Speaker 1: that takes place on a reservation. It is immediately the
Speaker 1: jurisdiction of the FBI until it is established that the
Speaker 1: perpetrator of that crime is not an enrolled tribal member.
Speaker 1: So on the reservations you have four, possibly five different
Speaker 1: law enforcement agencies, all with split jurisdiction. And control. So
Speaker 1: you will have at the bottom of it, what they
Speaker 1: call the b I A police, which is a federally
Speaker 1: funded tribal police. Then you're gonna have your city police,
Speaker 1: which controls the city limits, mainly involving non Native Americans.
Speaker 1: Then you have your county Sheriff's department, who will control
Speaker 1: the county, but they only have jurisdiction over non tribal members.
Speaker 1: And then you have the FBI, who have jurisdiction over
Speaker 1: tribal members and tribal lands and over all of those agencies.
Speaker 1: Sounds like a recipe for at a minimum, confusion and
Speaker 1: potentially disaster, since when anything happens on the reservation, there's
Speaker 1: not just one single agency that's responsible and accountable. You
Speaker 1: have all these competing agencies mucking up the crime scene
Speaker 1: together trying to figure out who should ultimately be working
Speaker 1: the case or have jurisdiction, and at the time that's determined,
Speaker 1: so many different hands, different people have tainted the investigation,
Speaker 1: which unfortunately happened here with the death of Kimneys and
Speaker 1: the investigation that included all of these agencies, not to
Speaker 1: mention also the police in Monroe, Louisiana, which like that
Speaker 1: ultimately led. All of this just led to your prosecution,
Speaker 1: leaving the true perpetrators free. So let's get into that.
Speaker 1: So this crime, this horrible crime, took place on the
Speaker 1: early morning hours of June sixteenth of nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 1: Kimberly Knees was murdered at the Poplar River on the
Speaker 1: Fort Peck Indian Reservation near Fort Peck, Montana. Now, she
Speaker 1: was a by all accounts, a lovely seventeen year old
Speaker 1: girl who had just graduated from high school. And she
Speaker 1: graduated as valedictorian. Which you know, it doesn't matter because
Speaker 1: this shouldn't have happened to anyone, but it kind of
Speaker 1: makes it even feel worse. It's giving me the chills.
Speaker 1: That night, that faithful night, she went to a drive
Speaker 1: in movie with her boyfriend, a guy named Greg Nor Guard,
Speaker 1: and he dropped Knees off at her home right after
Speaker 1: the movie. Well, she was home for about fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: before she left in her dad's truck around twelve am
Speaker 1: or after midnight. Now witnesses reported seeing her park at
Speaker 1: the Exxon gas station on Highway to around twelve thirty,
Speaker 1: and she was later seen following several cars towards the
Speaker 1: Poplar River at one am now, because at the stage,
Speaker 1: the Poplar River was an area where kids would go
Speaker 1: to drink and smoke pot and party until late at night,
Speaker 1: like countless other places like it all around the country. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Poplar River had a had several areas there, four
Speaker 1: or five areas, because it encircled the town on three
Speaker 1: different sides. But the train bridge was definitely one of
Speaker 1: the areas where people not only partied, but they would
Speaker 1: go down there to swim and hang out. The boat
Speaker 1: docks were down in that area. It was a local
Speaker 1: park as well, so there was a baseball field down there.
Speaker 1: So it's an area that you might find in the town,
Speaker 1: USA where kids just go to hang out. And sometimes
Speaker 1: I find it helpful to look a place up on
Speaker 1: Google Maps, and here you have, like Barry said, the
Speaker 1: Poplar River that encircles the town on three sides along
Speaker 1: with the Missouri River. The US Route to runs through
Speaker 1: the town and as it heads west out of town
Speaker 1: it meets the Poplar River, you can see a train
Speaker 1: track that also crosses the river just to the south.
Speaker 1: So this is where it happened. And from what I understand,
Speaker 1: there's a hill that runs down to the river from
Speaker 1: where some younger kids heard what happened that night. In fact,
Speaker 1: there may have been a whole bunch of eye witnesses
Speaker 1: who were close to this murder that simply never came
Speaker 1: forward for fear of reprisal. But what witnesses did feel
Speaker 1: safe reporting was that kim Niss car was seen around
Speaker 1: one am, following several other cars to this area, and
Speaker 1: then at four AM, two of the tribal police officers
Speaker 1: observed the truck parked in the deserted field near the
Speaker 1: Poplar River, but they didn't feel the need to check
Speaker 1: it out at a time, it was just a truck
Speaker 1: park in the field. Around seven am that morning, as
Speaker 1: the officers were driving back into town, they noticed that
Speaker 1: the same truck was still there and they decided to
Speaker 1: investigate further. They found blood in the interior of the truck,
Speaker 1: a large pool of blood at a clump of hair
Speaker 1: near the passenger side, and a trail of blood leading
Speaker 1: down to the river. When they followed the trail, sure enough,
Speaker 1: they found this poor girl's lifeless body a semi submerged
Speaker 1: in the Poplar River. Correct, But there actually were calls
Speaker 1: that we later found out years later. That took place
Speaker 1: from several different citizens to law enforcement at about two
Speaker 1: o'clock reporting loud female voices and screams in the area
Speaker 1: of the park. And there is actually one report that
Speaker 1: a city police officer by the name of Stevie Grayhawks
Speaker 1: supposedly went down there and checked on those reports and
Speaker 1: reported that there was nothing down there interesting. Stevie Grayhawk.
Speaker 1: Let's um, let's tuck that name away because it's going
Speaker 1: to come back around later. So it seems like this
Speaker 1: crime should have been discovered some time after two am
Speaker 1: by this city police officer, but it wasn't reported to
Speaker 1: be discovered until seven am by the tribal police. Tribal
Speaker 1: police officers noticed the vehicle and went down there and
Speaker 1: found the body. They called the city police department and
Speaker 1: the Sheriff's department, and the Sheriff's department then called the FBI. Wow.
Speaker 1: So this complex web of law enforcement has already given
Speaker 1: us a lazy and unaccountable investigation into what was going
Speaker 1: on down by the river at two am. And then
Speaker 1: four agencies entered a bloody and scattered crime scene in
Speaker 1: and around seven am, beginning with the truck. Now blood
Speaker 1: evidence indicated that the attack began in the cab of
Speaker 1: the truck on the driver's side. Miss Knees was then
Speaker 1: yanked out the passenger side, where the bludgeoning and hair
Speaker 1: pulling continued and concluded about ten feet from the truck.
Speaker 1: Her pound body was then dragged almost the length of
Speaker 1: a football field down to the river, down an embankment,
Speaker 1: and then that's where it was found semi submerged in
Speaker 1: the water. The autopsy report noted skull fractures and brain
Speaker 1: injuries from the more than thirty blows to the head.
Speaker 1: There was no evidence of a rape, sexual assault, or
Speaker 1: anything remotely sexual about this attack, but there was a
Speaker 1: ton of blood and other physical evidence. The crime scene
Speaker 1: itself was absolutely loaded with physical evidence. There were numerous
Speaker 1: clumps of bloody hair and footprints found around the pickup
Speaker 1: and in the drag trail. There were three different sets
Speaker 1: of footprints, and I mean identifiable footprints in the trail
Speaker 1: that they used to carry Kim to the river, which
Speaker 1: was two d and fifty six ft long. There were
Speaker 1: over twenty eight fingerprints inside of the pickup, on the
Speaker 1: outside of the pickup, and also on twenty three beer
Speaker 1: cans around the vehicle and specifically fingerprint sets number five, ten,
Speaker 1: and number eleven. Those three sets of fingerprints were found
Speaker 1: on beer cans around the vehicle, on the outside of
Speaker 1: the vehicle, and they were also found on the inside
Speaker 1: dash of the vehicle. Some of those fingerprints were in blood,
Speaker 1: but the most significant evidence. When the assailant drug Kim
Speaker 1: out of her pickup, they placed their palm on the
Speaker 1: side of the cab, leaving a full palm print in
Speaker 1: Kim's blood on the side of the pickup. The owner
Speaker 1: of that palm print has still never been identified to
Speaker 1: my understanding. Correct, We'll be right back after this. This
Speaker 1: episode is underwritten by a i G, a leading global
Speaker 1: insurance company. A i G is committed to corporate social
Speaker 1: responsibility and is making a positive difference in the lives
Speaker 1: of its employees and in the communities where we work
Speaker 1: and live. In light of the compelling need for pro
Speaker 1: bono legal assistance and in recognition of a i g's
Speaker 1: commitment to criminal and social justice reform, the A i
Speaker 1: G pro Bono Program provides free legal services and other
Speaker 1: support to underrepresented communities and individuals. All of the evidence
Speaker 1: that was collected ended up going to different jurisdictional locations.
Speaker 1: Some of it was sent to the FBI crime Lab
Speaker 1: in Butte, Montana. Some of it was actually taken to
Speaker 1: the local Popular City Police department and put into an
Speaker 1: evidence room. It really is not that there was perhaps
Speaker 1: still is, no standard practice or protocol for evidence collection
Speaker 1: in these instances. It seems so obvious that it should
Speaker 1: be collected by one bureau of one agency every time
Speaker 1: in one place. How can you mount an effective investigation
Speaker 1: in this manner? Well, the short answer is obviously that
Speaker 1: you can't. But even with this nonsensical evidence collection procedure,
Speaker 1: what about good old fashioned just talking to people. This
Speaker 1: was a very small community with only about twenty kids
Speaker 1: in a graduating class, and one of their recent fellow
Speaker 1: graduates just got murdered. There had to have been at
Speaker 1: the very least rumors going around town. For the first
Speaker 1: week or so, we all heard a new around school
Speaker 1: and around town that it was supposedly this group of
Speaker 1: girls allegedly. Because I don't want to point the finger
Speaker 1: at somebody that has not been forensically and scientifically connected
Speaker 1: to this, and that's something that we have to keep
Speaker 1: in mind as we talk about this case, is that
Speaker 1: the State of Montana, the FBI, the city police, and
Speaker 1: the tribal police to this day, forty three forty four
Speaker 1: years later, have never matched any of those fingerprints, the
Speaker 1: palm print, the footprints, the blood samples to anybody. They
Speaker 1: have never made a legitimate, honest arrest with anybody but
Speaker 1: law enforcement. We're bringing numerous of US high school kids
Speaker 1: in for questioning and taking statements, and myself personally, six
Speaker 1: months or seven months after the crime, I was brought in.
Speaker 1: I was questioned, I gave fingerprints, I gave blood samples,
Speaker 1: I gave footprints, I gave hair samples, and was told
Speaker 1: that none of the physical evidence matched me and that
Speaker 1: they knew I did not commit the crime. That process
Speaker 1: right there actually took place with a lot of people
Speaker 1: in town. But somehow or other they managed to, you know,
Speaker 1: bring you and as you said, a lot of other
Speaker 1: people in town in there, and they managed to I
Speaker 1: don't know if it was willful, but somehow or other
Speaker 1: they managed to not bring in the people who actually
Speaker 1: matched to this evidence. So when you're dealing with a
Speaker 1: small community like that, how could they not bring in
Speaker 1: the people that everybody in town was talking about? It's
Speaker 1: hard not to draw a sort of a sinister conclusion,
Speaker 1: which is that at some level they were sort of
Speaker 1: protecting these people for reasons that may become clear as
Speaker 1: we go along in this episode, and thereby putting up
Speaker 1: almost like a sinister smoke screen where they were just
Speaker 1: sort of acting like they were doing some investigation by
Speaker 1: bringing people in to distract everybody from the fact that
Speaker 1: they weren't actually interested in arresting the people that committed
Speaker 1: this heinous crime. Certainly there had to be somebody somewhere
Speaker 1: wondering why these people weren't being looked at closer. And
Speaker 1: to take it one step further, kim Niece's family put
Speaker 1: a ten thousand dollar reward up for information, and that
Speaker 1: reward went completely ignored. So even though there were rumors
Speaker 1: about the group of young women who had blooded Kimneys
Speaker 1: to death, the police were dragging in young men for scrutiny,
Speaker 1: and then no one even responded to this ten thousand
Speaker 1: dollar reward. We're talking about four decades ago in a
Speaker 1: little town that's big money, and in all likelihood, there
Speaker 1: were eyewitnesses at this party by the river, so either
Speaker 1: no one was talking the police weren't actually trying to
Speaker 1: catch the assailants or both. Nonetheless, they had already ruled
Speaker 1: you out by virtue of the physical evidence, conclusively proved
Speaker 1: you could not have committed this crime, and that should
Speaker 1: have been it, but it wasn't correct. Yes, they did
Speaker 1: ask me to come in and take a polygraph test
Speaker 1: to just to finalize their investigation. So I went in
Speaker 1: and I took a polygraph test with the FBI. The
Speaker 1: polygraph at that time showed that I did not commit
Speaker 1: the crime, but that I had general knowledge of the crime,
Speaker 1: which everybody in town had general knowledge. I mean, how
Speaker 1: could you not be in high school in a small
Speaker 1: town and understand what's going on around you. Now, at
Speaker 1: this point you had been ruled out, no more suspicion allegedly,
Speaker 1: so you moved on with your plan to reconnect with
Speaker 1: your biological father in Monroe, Louisiana. Jumping forward to nineteen eighty,
Speaker 1: when I returned to Montana again from down in Louisiana,
Speaker 1: they brought me in one more time because of traffic
Speaker 1: at tickets. I had to do thirty days in jail
Speaker 1: for excessive traffic tickets. When they released me that day again,
Speaker 1: I was going back to louis In Ssiana, and again
Speaker 1: they questioned me, but again they said that they knew
Speaker 1: I did not commit the crime. They just would like
Speaker 1: to know if there was any information that I had.
Speaker 1: They released me again. I returned to my father's house
Speaker 1: in Louisiana and went on with my life. Okay, so
Speaker 1: three times you come in, three times you're clear. Here
Speaker 1: you are back in Louisiana working construction, building holiday inns,
Speaker 1: as I understand it, And then you signed up for
Speaker 1: the Navy and completed boot camp. Right, and we're preparing
Speaker 1: to be deployed to the Mediterranean Sea as was the
Speaker 1: time of the conflict in Lebanon. Correct, very few people
Speaker 1: probably remember, but in nine two, the Lebanesian Army had
Speaker 1: just shot down two of our American planes over the
Speaker 1: Mediterranean Sea. So we were about to be deployed with
Speaker 1: the U. S. S. Eisenhower aircraft carrier to the Mediterranean
Speaker 1: see to defend our international spaces. In that process, being
Speaker 1: that I was new to this ship and this was
Speaker 1: my first overseas deployment, they ran a background check on me.
Speaker 1: During that process. The Roosevelt County Sheriff had sent a
Speaker 1: letter to the FBI stating that I was their suspect
Speaker 1: in a homicide and that they had quote unquote two
Speaker 1: eyewitnesses who could put me at the scene of the crime.
Speaker 1: I was confronted with that letter by the United States
Speaker 1: Navy Police Force. They put me in the brig and
Speaker 1: after two days of being in the brig, I was
Speaker 1: given an option to take an honorable discharge, returned to Montana,
Speaker 1: and undergo an investigation, at which point, if the investigation
Speaker 1: did not lead to an arrest, I could re enlist
Speaker 1: in the military, or they could contact the Roosevelt County
Speaker 1: Sheriff's Department, and if the Roosevelt County Sheriff's departments backed
Speaker 1: up the letter, I would be charged with federal charges
Speaker 1: of fraudulent enlistment into the military to avoid jurisdiction, and
Speaker 1: I would immediately be incarcerated for ten years in federal prison.
Speaker 1: So I took the honorable discharge. I went back to
Speaker 1: Wolf Point, Montana, and once again turned myself into the
Speaker 1: Roosevelt County Sheriff's Department, only to be told that they
Speaker 1: didn't know of the letter, they had no witnesses that
Speaker 1: could put me at the scene of the crime, and
Speaker 1: that they knew I did not commit the crime based
Speaker 1: on the forensic evidence, and they released me to go
Speaker 1: back to Louisiana. There's absolutely no question that it came
Speaker 1: from that sheriff. It was on his letter head, it
Speaker 1: was his signature. It was mailed to the FBI office
Speaker 1: in Butte, Montana. To this day, that letter exists in
Speaker 1: the FBI files and Butte Montana. So him telling me
Speaker 1: that he did not know about the letter was just
Speaker 1: a blatant lie. But yet it destroyed my military career. Right,
Speaker 1: but this is hardly the worst that's about to come.
Speaker 1: So you're cleared by Roosevelt County back in Louisiana, go
Speaker 1: back to work building holiday inns, right and putting this
Speaker 1: hopefully behind you. But then there was some craziness with
Speaker 1: your step mom, and that may have led indirectly or
Speaker 1: even directly to this downward spiral that that got deeper
Speaker 1: and deeper and faster and faster. Correct, it actually is
Speaker 1: the direct link that led to a wrongful conviction, or
Speaker 1: allowed the State of Montana to continue its pursuit of
Speaker 1: a wrongful conviction. When I returned to Louisiana, I was
Speaker 1: living with my father and his new wife, who had
Speaker 1: five children. They all lived there at the house. There
Speaker 1: became a pretty open dispute between me and my stepmother
Speaker 1: as to whether or not I was even my father's child.
Speaker 1: When on New Year's Eve nine three, we went out
Speaker 1: as a family drinking, got back home all drunk, and
Speaker 1: there was a large family argument over that issue. My
Speaker 1: stepmother kicks me out of the house and I go
Speaker 1: get a place to stay real quick. But when she
Speaker 1: kicked me out, one of my younger stepsisters decided that
Speaker 1: she was going to run away from home because she
Speaker 1: couldn't stand her step mom. I was at work. My
Speaker 1: stepsister called me up and said her and three of
Speaker 1: her friends were out at the freeway hitchhiking to Houston.
Speaker 1: I said, no, stay right where you're at. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: come get you and call dad. That led to my
Speaker 1: stepmother calling law enforcement and saying that I was a
Speaker 1: prime suspect and a murder in Montana, and that she
Speaker 1: was fearful that I was going to kill her daughter.
Speaker 1: What I didn't know, Jason. At that point in time, Munroe, Louisiana,
Speaker 1: had a serial killer on the loose, and they had
Speaker 1: formed a seven member homicide task force to investigate these
Speaker 1: serial killings. Two of those homicides took place while I
Speaker 1: was in the military. The other one took place while
Speaker 1: I was on a holiday in job in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: So when those three homicides took place, I had absolutely
Speaker 1: no knowledge. I wasn't even in the state of Louisiana, etcetera.
Speaker 1: But my stepmother used those along with the fact that
Speaker 1: she knew I was a suspect in Montana at one time,
Speaker 1: and turned me into the local law enforcement and I
Speaker 1: was arrested. So they started questioning you about the Monroe murders.
Speaker 1: But of course you had no knowledge of those crimes,
Speaker 1: because how would you have known. You weren't even the state.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know those crimes existed at that time.
Speaker 1: I wasn't charged with homicide. I was only charged with
Speaker 1: misdemeanor charges concerning my step sister contributing to the delinquency
Speaker 1: of a minor. So they took me into this interrogation room.
Speaker 1: The initial interrogation was done by three members of the
Speaker 1: Homicide Task Force, Richard Maderis, j V and Joe Cummings.
Speaker 1: They had accused me on numerous numerous occasions of showing deception, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: On what they called voice dress test, which was this
Speaker 1: tape recorder that set there on the interrogation table the
Speaker 1: whole entire day. So they were trying to extract the
Speaker 1: false statement. Your alibi was air tight for the Monroe murders.
Speaker 1: You were in a different state. Every single one of
Speaker 1: those murders. You weren't in state. But they are experienced
Speaker 1: and convincing suspects that they're super scientific. Voice stress tests
Speaker 1: says that you're lying, then maybe they can course you
Speaker 1: into a statement. For example, we'll tell the jury that
Speaker 1: you registered deceptions, so you better plead guilty and get
Speaker 1: a good deal. Another route is potentially convincing the suspect
Speaker 1: of their own guilt. None of it had worked on
Speaker 1: you yet. And then later on that even they brought
Speaker 1: in their closer, a guy named Alfred Calhoun. Now he
Speaker 1: was the bad cop to Jovis good cop. And they
Speaker 1: continue to rail on you about these Monroe, Louisiana murders
Speaker 1: while describing to you in great detail what happens, what
Speaker 1: would happen to your body and Neil trip chair, And
Speaker 1: this was something that they said you'd be able to
Speaker 1: avoid if you just told them what they wanted to
Speaker 1: hear correct. And it was only when Alfred Calhoun came
Speaker 1: in and started threatening me with the death penalty in
Speaker 1: Louisiana for the Louisiana crimes that the Kimneice murder in
Speaker 1: Montana actually came into the picture. Alfred Calhoun promised me
Speaker 1: that he would assure that I was convicted on the
Speaker 1: three homicides in Louisiana and would ensure with everything that
Speaker 1: he had within him that I received the electric chair,
Speaker 1: and that he wanted to be there to push the
Speaker 1: button and watch me fry for the Louisiana homicides. But
Speaker 1: if I would just simply tell them the truth about
Speaker 1: the Montana homicide, that they would go back to Montana
Speaker 1: and help me to establish the facts of that case
Speaker 1: and we get out in Louisiana, right, which actually sounded
Speaker 1: like a logical thing to do, because you already knew
Speaker 1: that everybody knew that you had nothing to do with
Speaker 1: the Knees murder, and there was overwhelming evidence to prove it.
Speaker 1: So why not get the hell out of Louisiana and
Speaker 1: away from these monsters and go deal with the monsters,
Speaker 1: you know, because you know you can prove eighteen ways
Speaker 1: till Sunday that you didn't have anything to do with
Speaker 1: the murder of Kim Knees. So ultimately you falsely confessed
Speaker 1: to the murder of Kim Knees. This confession was a
Speaker 1: tape recorded confession. There's actually a phone conversation between the
Speaker 1: sheriff and Montana and the detectives in Louisiana where they
Speaker 1: have me in the interrogation room. The sheriff in Montana
Speaker 1: is feeding information to the detective in Louisiana. He's going
Speaker 1: in and making sure it's a part of the confession
Speaker 1: and then going back and getting more information. The sheriff
Speaker 1: falsely and inaccurately told detective that Kim Niece was wearing
Speaker 1: a plaid shirt with a brown jacket, and that actually
Speaker 1: ended up in the confession with me saying that she
Speaker 1: was wearing a plaid shirt and brown jacket, when in fact,
Speaker 1: Kim was wearing a white pullover sweater. The inconsistencies and
Speaker 1: contradictions between this confession and the crime scene border on
Speaker 1: the ridiculous. There were multiple sets of bootprints for starters,
Speaker 1: it wasn't a single assailant. Clearly, Barry exhibited a complete
Speaker 1: misunderstanding about where the car was in relation to the river.
Speaker 1: He confessed to multiple double football field length round trips,
Speaker 1: which was not corroborated by the bootprints either, and then
Speaker 1: on these round trips, Barry allegedly through one item in
Speaker 1: the river at a time, which is not only ridiculous
Speaker 1: considering the distance, but also after searching the river, these
Speaker 1: items were never found, including a jacket, the keys to
Speaker 1: the truck, which obviously would have just sank, and the
Speaker 1: alleged murder weapon at tire iron that obviously didn't float downstream.
Speaker 1: They did, however, find a claw hammer in the river,
Speaker 1: with which her wounds, as well as gouge marks and
Speaker 1: the ceiling of the truck were more consistent. He also
Speaker 1: said that she had jumped out of the driver's side
Speaker 1: and he had to run after her. Not only that
Speaker 1: we know that she left through the passenger side direct
Speaker 1: contradiction again, but also with the amount of blood found
Speaker 1: on the front seat, the likelihood of her running was
Speaker 1: borderlined impossible. And then Barry also confessed to choking her,
Speaker 1: which we know never happened, but not only claimed to
Speaker 1: have choked Kim, but allegedly I choked her to the
Speaker 1: point that she passes out and the amount of force
Speaker 1: that it takes to do that would have left very
Speaker 1: clear and addictative physical evidence on the body that was
Speaker 1: never found. It wasn't there, it didn't exist. More importantly,
Speaker 1: the so called motive for this taking place was supposed
Speaker 1: to be a rape, and there was no indication of
Speaker 1: rape or sexual intercourse. Barry also said he had wiped
Speaker 1: the scene of his fingerprints. However, there were no marks
Speaker 1: at the scene. And to top it off, Barry said
Speaker 1: that he put her body feet first into a garbage
Speaker 1: bag that only came up to her armpits and dragged
Speaker 1: the body to the river and pushed her in, again,
Speaker 1: not understanding the distance because he didn't know anything about it,
Speaker 1: but also that there was a twenty foot embankment that
Speaker 1: he'd have to have figured out how to maneuver, but
Speaker 1: he completely left that detail out. And on top of
Speaker 1: all that, there was no garbage bag or remnants of
Speaker 1: one being used that were ever found. But this wild
Speaker 1: confession was seemingly good enough for everyone on both sides
Speaker 1: of that infamous phone call. So one more interesting fact
Speaker 1: about what you just said that probably should be brought
Speaker 1: up at this point when you're talking about j V
Speaker 1: and Alfred Calhoun in Louisiana. Alfred Calhoun j V and
Speaker 1: that homicide detected group actually got two other individuals to
Speaker 1: confess to those three Louisiana murders. Those two individuals were
Speaker 1: later proven to be innocent and their confessions were proven
Speaker 1: to be false as well. And later one of those
Speaker 1: crimes in Louisiana were actually solved by DNA, proving that
Speaker 1: all the people that Java and Alfred Calhoun got to
Speaker 1: confess to those three homicides were false. I was actually
Speaker 1: facing the death penalty all the way up until a
Speaker 1: month prior to my trial. We actually had a hearing
Speaker 1: to do away with the death penalty, and that's when
Speaker 1: we learned at the tape of the confession had been erased.
Speaker 1: It was like three weeks prior to my trial. So
Speaker 1: you're being cleared as a suspect by all the physical
Speaker 1: evidence just didn't matter at all. But this false confession,
Speaker 1: the gathering of which was corrupt at best, the recording
Speaker 1: of which had then been mysteriously erased. Yeah, this false
Speaker 1: confession overcame all fingerprints, the bloody pomp print, the lack
Speaker 1: of any white marks around the other fingerprints on or
Speaker 1: in the interior or exterior of the truck, the bootprints,
Speaker 1: the blood samples, how inconsistent your false confession was with
Speaker 1: the crime scene. None of this mattered at all, and
Speaker 1: you were charged with deliberate homicide in the fifteenth Judicial
Speaker 1: District of Montana. And in the lead up to your
Speaker 1: April trial, your attorney tried to expose that false confession
Speaker 1: for what it was and suppressed it as involuntary, but
Speaker 1: the judge allowed a recitation of the false confession by
Speaker 1: Detective j. V I Now to corroborate that evidence. The
Speaker 1: state was trying to admit a pubic hare that had
Speaker 1: allegedly been discovered on Kimneys sweater, and the former head
Speaker 1: of the Montana State Crime Lab, Arnold Melnikoff, was willing
Speaker 1: to testify that the hair had characteristics that were somewhat
Speaker 1: similar to Barry's hair, Which what does that testimony even mean? Similar?
Speaker 1: How that it was hair? It was also hair? I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was hair, and there's hair. That's about it. There
Speaker 1: was no other similarities. Let's start there with Arnold Melnikoff.
Speaker 1: They were not allowed to have him testify for two reasons.
Speaker 1: The fact that the sweater he claimed to have found
Speaker 1: a pubic hair on had already been searched in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy nine and there was nothing found on it. But
Speaker 1: not only that federal report saying that nothing was found
Speaker 1: on that sweater. That sweater was kept in the Popular
Speaker 1: City Police Department's evidence room. On the night of June six,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine, about well thirty one o'clock at night,
Speaker 1: a police officer on duty for the Popular City Police
Speaker 1: Department by the name of Stevie Grayhawk had actually broken
Speaker 1: into that evidence room, kicking in the locked door, supposedly
Speaker 1: to use the restroom. But that break in contaminated all
Speaker 1: the evidence that was stored in that evidence room involving
Speaker 1: the Kimney's murder, including the sweater that in night three,
Speaker 1: Arnold Melnikov claims to have found a pubic care on
Speaker 1: that had quote unquote similar characteristics two Bury Beach. So
Speaker 1: the same guy, if you remember, I told you to
Speaker 1: tuck his name away for later. This guy, Stevie Grayhawk,
Speaker 1: the Popular City police officer who answered that two am
Speaker 1: call early in the morning of June nine, down to
Speaker 1: the river for the sounds of female voices screaming and
Speaker 1: back with nothing to report, even though there definitely was.
Speaker 1: That freaking guy is the same cop who had to
Speaker 1: go to the bathroom so badly that he busted down
Speaker 1: the door to an evidence room holding the evidence from
Speaker 1: this crime. Again, nothing to see, there, nothing to report. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm going to ask you to tuck that DV. Grayhawk
Speaker 1: name back in again for later as we continue on
Speaker 1: through the trial. So, no bogus planted pubic hair was admitted.
Speaker 1: But this recitation of an alleged transcript of your false
Speaker 1: confession was really all that was presented, because, I mean,
Speaker 1: they couldn't present the physical evidence because all of it
Speaker 1: they knew had already exonerated you. At this point, were
Speaker 1: you worried going into this. My attorney kept telling me,
Speaker 1: don't worry, don't worry. They can never find you guilty.
Speaker 1: There's no physical evidence. It's impossible for to find you guilty.
Speaker 1: But on the second day of my trial, the prosecutor,
Speaker 1: even though the judge had thrown out the pubic hare
Speaker 1: and stated that it was not admissible at my trial,
Speaker 1: the prosecutor still managed to mention it to the jury,
Speaker 1: saying that he had a pubic care that he would
Speaker 1: later introduce that matched me, and that wasn't the only
Speaker 1: time he pulled this type of trick. In his summation,
Speaker 1: he did it twice, referring to the confession in ways
Speaker 1: that were either misleading or outright lies. In reading the transcripts,
Speaker 1: the prosecutor Roscoe talked about wondering how there was so
Speaker 1: little blood on the drag trail from the truck to
Speaker 1: the river, and that Barry had said in his confession
Speaker 1: that he had put the body into the garbage bag
Speaker 1: head first, so that explained it. But Barry didn't even
Speaker 1: say head first. He said beat first, that her head
Speaker 1: was not covered. So here he is misleading, lying to
Speaker 1: the jury to bolster the state's narrative. Then, at some
Speaker 1: point in the trial, Kim's father, Ted Knees, took the
Speaker 1: stand and confirmed that he owned a tool like the
Speaker 1: alleged murder weapon from Barry's false confession, a tire iron.
Speaker 1: Now in the confession, Barry had said that he threw
Speaker 1: it in the river, but when Ted knee was asked
Speaker 1: if it was missing when the truck was returned, he
Speaker 1: said that he hadn't noticed. In the prosecutor's summation, he
Speaker 1: lied about Ted Nis testimony telling the jury that Mr
Speaker 1: Needs had confirmed that the alleged murder weapon was missing.
Speaker 1: None of this information actually holds value, as all of
Speaker 1: it comes from a false confession, but using it and
Speaker 1: lying about it to bolster the state's narrative was apparently effective,
Speaker 1: but not nearly as much as the false confession itself.
Speaker 1: They put j v I on the stand, who took
Speaker 1: the confession, supposedly did a handwritten transcript that he himself
Speaker 1: wrote out of that take confession, and the prosecutor and
Speaker 1: j v I, line by line for two and a
Speaker 1: half days, will play this confession in in front of
Speaker 1: the jury, including j VI from Louisiana getting on the
Speaker 1: floor of the courtroom as if he was Kim Nice
Speaker 1: and the prosecutor choking him, mimicking in front of the
Speaker 1: jury the confession, and when the judge allowed that to happen,
Speaker 1: I knew without question that I was going to be
Speaker 1: found guilty. On part one of our coverage of Barry Beach,
Speaker 1: you've heard about how he was wrongfully convicted. Now you're
Speaker 1: about his epic fight for freedom in part two available now,
Speaker 1: thank you for listening to ronful Conviction. I'd like to
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburn and Kevin
Speaker 1: Wardis with research by Lila Robinson. The music in this
Speaker 1: production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast, and on Twitter at
Speaker 1: wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On
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Speaker 1: TikTok and Instagram at It's Jason flom Wrangful Conviction is
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