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Speaker 1: Hey guys, it's Laura today. I have some pretty great

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Speaker 1: news to share with you. Back in season one of

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Speaker 1: False Confessions, Steve and I brought you the story of

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Speaker 1: the Dix Moore Five, a group of teenage boys who

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Speaker 1: were interrogated for hours without lawyers or parents present. One

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Speaker 1: by one, they were each implicated in the crime and

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Speaker 1: ended up spending about twenty years in prison. Their confessions

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Speaker 1: were in the Forum of Science Statements. There was no

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Speaker 1: recording of their interrogations, but one of the reasons they

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Speaker 1: confessed was because the police lied to them. This is

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Speaker 1: common in police interrogations and it's something we've seen over

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Speaker 1: and over on the show. Police will falsely promise leniency

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Speaker 1: in order to get a confession, or they'll lie that

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Speaker 1: they have evidence they don't really have. This is a

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Speaker 1: horrible practice and it's one that's clearly not working to

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Speaker 1: get real criminals off the streets. Using lies and deceptive

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Speaker 1: interrogation tactics is a huge risk factor for false confessions,

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Speaker 1: and as we know, false confessions are one of the

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Speaker 1: leading causes of wrongful convictions. They occur in about thirty

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Speaker 1: percent of cases that have been overturned by DNA evidence.

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Speaker 1: It's just plain wrong and it needs to end. But

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Speaker 1: here's the good news. In an incredible step towards justice,

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Speaker 1: Illinois became the first state in United States history to

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Speaker 1: adopt a law in twenty twenty one that bans police

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Speaker 1: from lying to children during interrogations. I cannot tell you

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Speaker 1: how huge this is. If this law had been in

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Speaker 1: place back in nineteen ninety one, the Dixmore five would

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Speaker 1: never have gone to prison and had twenty years of

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Speaker 1: their lives stolen a way. This is a reform that

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Speaker 1: was sorely needed, especially here in Illinois, the false confession

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Speaker 1: capital of the country. In our state alone, there have

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Speaker 1: been over one hundred wrongful convictions based on false confessions.

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Speaker 1: I am so proud to be part of this work

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Speaker 1: and that the cases I helped defend are themselves helping

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Speaker 1: to pass new laws, creating a few with fewer wrongful convictions.

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Speaker 1: But we can't stop here. This kind of law should

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Speaker 1: exist in every state, and it should apply to everyone,

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Speaker 1: not just kids. We now have the data and the

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Speaker 1: experience to know that when police lie to a suspect

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Speaker 1: during an investigation, that does more harm than good. There

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Speaker 1: are much better ways to solve crimes we need all

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Speaker 1: interrogations to be videotaped, and we need better protections for

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Speaker 1: everybody who winds up inside that room. It's only with

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Speaker 1: reforms like these that we can live up to one

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Speaker 1: of the founding principles of our justice system. Innocent until

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Speaker 1: proven guilty, Welcome to wrongful conviction, false confessions. I'm Laura

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Speaker 1: and I writer.

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Speaker 2: And I'm Steve Drusen.

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Speaker 1: Today we're going to tell you about a case out

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Speaker 1: of Chicago, the story of a violent and tragic crime

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Speaker 1: that took the life of a young girl. But there's

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Speaker 1: a larger reason why we want to talk about this

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Speaker 1: case because of what it also took from not one,

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Speaker 1: but five innocent teenage boys and from their families and communities.

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Speaker 1: This case happened during what we now call the super

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Speaker 1: Predator era the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties. The news

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Speaker 1: media was saturated with stories of urban crime, drugs and gangs,

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Speaker 1: and in particular, sensationalized stories about black and brown youth

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Speaker 1: committing violent crimes in groups. This narrative is often associated

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Speaker 1: with New York City. It drove the wrongful prosecution of

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Speaker 1: the so called Central Park five wolf Pack, but it

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Speaker 1: didn't stop there. Today, we're going to tell you about

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Speaker 1: a group of teenage boys whose false confessions transformed them

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Speaker 1: into Chicago's own wolf pack. They're known as the Dixmore Five.

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Speaker 2: Now Chicago may be called the second city comes to

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Speaker 2: false confessions. We don't take a back seat to anybody,

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Speaker 2: not New York or any other jurisdiction for that matter.

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Speaker 2: We're home to more false confessions than any other city

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Speaker 2: in the United States. We're home to more juvenile false confessions.

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Speaker 2: And we're also the home of more cases in which

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Speaker 2: there are multiple false confessions. And over the years, the

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Speaker 2: Center on Wrongful Convictions has obtained exonerations in many of

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Speaker 2: these cases, all of which were from African American teenagers

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Speaker 2: in the Chicago area.

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Speaker 1: Marquette Park four, Uptown seven, Englewood four, Dixmore five. These

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Speaker 1: numbers start to add up, and the thing is each

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Speaker 1: one of these cases involves innocent African American teenagers in

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Speaker 1: groups confessing to crimes they didn't commit.

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Speaker 2: Of course, the most famous case like this was New

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Speaker 2: York's Central Park five case. In April of nineteen eighty nine,

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Speaker 2: five teenage boys were charged with the sexual assault and

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Speaker 2: the tempted murder of a female jogger in New York's

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Speaker 2: Central Park. The boys falsely confessed to beating this woman

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Speaker 2: within an inch of her life and leaving her in

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Speaker 2: the woods to die. The Central Park five confessions were

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Speaker 2: driven by race Wolfpax. Wilding was a whole new language

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Speaker 2: to describe groups of African American and Latino teenagers, and

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Speaker 2: it created a level of fear in New York City

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Speaker 2: and around the country that I had never seen before.

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Speaker 2: So when we began to look at the Dixmore case,

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Speaker 2: the case of the Central Park five was ringing in

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Speaker 2: my years.

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Speaker 1: It was November of nineteen ninety one and fourteen year

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Speaker 1: old Kateresa Matthews was in the eighth grade. She lived

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Speaker 1: with her mom and Dix Moore, a suburb on the

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Speaker 1: South side of Chicago, surrounded by a tight knit extended

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Speaker 1: family and community. Every day after school, Kateresa followed the

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Speaker 1: same routine. She'd walk to her great grandmother's house, where

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Speaker 1: she'd do her homework, tuck on the phone, and do

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Speaker 1: whatever fourteen year old girls do. After school, she was

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Speaker 1: waiting until her mom came home from work to go

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Speaker 1: back to her own house. Kateresa followed this routine religiously

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Speaker 1: until November nineteenth, nineteen ninety one, when she doesn't show

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Speaker 1: up at her great grandmother's house after school. Her family panics.

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Speaker 1: They call the police and a search begins, but for

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Speaker 1: three weeks there's no sign of Kateresa until December eighth,

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one. That's when Kateresa's body is found lying

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Speaker 1: in a wooded field next to the Interstate Highway that

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Speaker 1: runs through Dixmore. She's on her back, partially undressed, with

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Speaker 1: her pants draped across her lower body. On her chest

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Speaker 1: is a spent casing from a twenty five caliber bullet.

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Speaker 1: She's been shot once in the mouth. Even though Kateres

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Speaker 1: had been missing for three weeks, the medical examiner concludes

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Speaker 1: that she's been killed recently, right around the time her

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Speaker 1: body's found. There are several reasons for this. For one thing,

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Speaker 1: rigor mortis is present when she's found that usually disappears

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Speaker 1: about twenty four to forty eight hours after death. Her

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Speaker 1: body is also still bleeding when she's discovered, which you

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Speaker 1: wouldn't expect if she'd been killed much earlier. And also

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Speaker 1: when a body's been lying outside for a long time,

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Speaker 1: there are usually signs like animal or insect bites. There's

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Speaker 1: nothing like that here. And the medical examiner finds something

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Speaker 1: else too, semen on Kateresa's body. She's been raped.

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Speaker 2: This was an awful crime.

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Speaker 1: It's the worst. I mean, it's every parent's nightmare to

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Speaker 1: have this happen to their child.

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Speaker 2: You know, when you think of a crime like this,

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Speaker 2: you don't think of it as something that teenagers would do. Typically,

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Speaker 2: teenage crimes are impulsive crimes. There's not a lot of

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Speaker 2: planning or premeditation. They happen in the spur of the moment.

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Speaker 2: But this crime clearly required some forethought.

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Speaker 1: For eleven long months, the investigation into Kateresa's death goes

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Speaker 1: nowhere until fall nineteen ninety two, when a teenage boy

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Speaker 1: tells police that he saw Kateresa getting into a car

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Speaker 1: with some friends around the time of her disappearance. Police

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Speaker 1: decided to question those friends, starting with Robert Vel on

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Speaker 1: October twenty ninth, nineteen ninety two. Now, Robert's fourteen years old,

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Speaker 1: but he has pretty severe intellectual limitations that make him

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Speaker 1: think more like a five year old. He's questioned for

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Speaker 1: hours without a parent or a lawyer present, off camera,

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Speaker 1: and in the end he signs a confession prepared by

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Speaker 1: his interrogator, and the story in this confession is brutal.

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Speaker 1: Robert says he and four other African American teenage boys

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Speaker 1: kidnapped a girl they knew from school. They gang raped

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Speaker 1: her as she pleaded with them to stop, and then

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Speaker 1: they shot her once in the mouth. It was a

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Speaker 1: story of an animalistic group of black teenagers attacking their

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Speaker 1: classmate for sport.

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Speaker 2: The level of depravity in this story was so out

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Speaker 2: of bounds that it made me question whether it was true,

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Speaker 2: But it also had an eerily familiar ring to it,

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Speaker 2: and for me, the significance was as I was seeing

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Speaker 2: the same explanations in different cases, which made me begin

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Speaker 2: to feel that like maybe there was a script that

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Speaker 2: was getting passed around among Chicago police officers.

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Speaker 1: Only hours after Robert Veil confesses, police bring in one

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Speaker 1: of his supposed co perpetrators, fifteen year old Robert Taylor.

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Speaker 1: He's a kid from a loving and protective family, but

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Speaker 1: his parents didn't know he was at the police station

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Speaker 1: being interrogated. Hours later, his signature appears on a confession too,

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Speaker 1: and that confession tells a similarly vicious story. The same

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Speaker 1: five African American teenagers lured Katresa into a car, then

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Speaker 1: raped her and shot her in a field.

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Speaker 3: The super Predator era was a period of of pronounced

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Speaker 3: moral panic in the United States that focused on young people, race,

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Speaker 3: and crime.

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Speaker 1: That's our colleague and friend, Perry Moriarty. She's a professor

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Speaker 1: of law at the University of Minnesota and an expert

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Speaker 1: on juvenile justice and the era of the super Predator.

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Speaker 3: The front end marker is more than likely the Central

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Speaker 3: Park five case that was April of nineteen eighty nine,

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Speaker 3: and that began an era when, in the name of

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Speaker 3: public safety, in the name of being tough on crime,

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Speaker 3: law enforcement authorities dropped any pretense of treating children as

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Speaker 3: children and prosecuted them as adults. If they were black

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Speaker 3: and brown children, they were adultified, either by law or

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Speaker 3: by connotation, and certainly by the media. A jogger murdered

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Speaker 3: in New York Central Park, a little girl gunned down

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Speaker 3: in her family's car.

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Speaker 2: And Los Angeles, a.

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Speaker 1: Judge has sentenced two boys for killing another child who

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Speaker 1: refused to steal candy for them. There's a tidal wave

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Speaker 1: of juvenile violent crime right over the horizon, and some

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Speaker 1: who study it say the worst is.

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Speaker 3: Yet to come, terms like wilding, beast chill, predatory. In

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Speaker 3: New York City newspapers alone, the term wilding appeared one

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Speaker 3: hundred and fifty six times in articles over the eight

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Speaker 3: years following the Central Park five arrests. To put it

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Speaker 3: in perspective, just a few months after the Central Park

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Speaker 3: five case, a large group of Italian and Irish predominantly

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Speaker 3: teenagers in benson Hurst, Brooklyn, chased down and killed a

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Speaker 3: young Black teenager named Yuseph Hawkins. And the headlines did

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Speaker 3: not say wilding. They did not say beasts chill, They

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Speaker 3: did not even say gang. They said a group of

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Speaker 3: white teenagers.

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Speaker 1: Now the police have two confessions that implicate the same

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Speaker 1: five teenagers, but they're not done yet. Next up is

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Speaker 1: Cheyenne Sharp, seventeen years old, the third supposed co perpetrator.

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Speaker 1: He's questioned for nearly twenty four hours before he also

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Speaker 1: confesses and implicates the other four. And it's the same

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Speaker 1: brutal story, a group of African American teenage boys terrorizing

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Speaker 1: their classmate for fun.

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Speaker 2: Now you have to understand how these confessions are taken.

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Speaker 2: These confessions are scripted, usually by a prosecutor from the

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Speaker 2: State attorney's office. Sometimes they're written by police officers, and

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Speaker 2: these scripts contain a narrative, including character development. Kids are

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Speaker 2: described as thugs. There's usually references to gang membership. Women

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Speaker 2: are called bitches and hoes. The scriptwriter in these cases

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Speaker 2: is doing two things. He's painting the suspect in a

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Speaker 2: way that nobody can ever think of them as teenagers.

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Speaker 2: And he's also painting them in a way that nobody

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Speaker 2: and that means nobody in the public and nobody on

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Speaker 2: the jury can have an ounce of sympathy for them.

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Speaker 2: And in doing so, he's making a script that is

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Speaker 2: about as rock solid as a route to conviction as

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Speaker 2: one can imagine.

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Speaker 1: So far, the police have confessions from three of the

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Speaker 1: Dixmore five, and within days they bring in the two

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Speaker 1: remaining teenagers for questioning two brothers, seventeen year old James

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Speaker 1: Harden and fifteen year old Jonathan Barr. The boys are

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Speaker 1: interrogated for hours, but their father had always told them

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Speaker 1: never sign anything prepared by the police. Somehow a miracle

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Speaker 1: they remember these words and they don't confess, but they're

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Speaker 1: still named in the other three teenagers' statements, so all

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Speaker 1: five are on the hook.

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Speaker 3: In part because because they were arresting and prosecuting kids

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Speaker 3: in mass in groups, law enforcement became very adept in

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Speaker 3: that period at pitting kids against each other during the

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Speaker 3: interrogation process and using kids against each other to extract

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Speaker 3: false confessions.

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Speaker 2: When you look at these cases of multiple false confessions,

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Speaker 2: you see a similar pattern. First of all, the police

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Speaker 2: usually start with the most vulnerable, most naive, most gullible

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Speaker 2: of the suspects, and they focused in this case on

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Speaker 2: Robert Field. He was the weak link. Then they get

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Speaker 2: a confession from Robert Veel, and what do they do

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Speaker 2: with that confession They use it as a battering ram

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Speaker 2: to plow over all of the other defendants. This is

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Speaker 2: how it works. The first suspect comes in and the

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Speaker 2: police officers tell them that they know that he was

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Speaker 2: involved in this crime and nothing that suspect can say

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Speaker 2: is going to change their mind. But they don't think

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Speaker 2: he was the one who actually raped anybody or killed anybody.

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Speaker 2: He was just a follower. The suspect is pressured into

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Speaker 2: adopting a story in which he is a passive participant

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Speaker 2: to the crime, and which he fingers his co defendants

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Speaker 2: as the more active participants. Then once that suspect confesses,

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Speaker 2: they bring that confession to the next in line and

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Speaker 2: they go over the same thing again. We don't think

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Speaker 2: you committed the crime. He's telling us that you committed

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Speaker 2: the crime. We know you were there, but maybe you

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Speaker 2: just held down her arm while they were raping and

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Speaker 2: killing her. Each suspect is vying for the least culpable role,

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Speaker 2: and at the end of the day, this is a

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Speaker 2: very effective way to get confessions from multiple suspects.

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Speaker 1: In this case, the dominoes are falling and each one

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Speaker 1: of them eventually agrees to a story in which James

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Speaker 1: Harden is the one who actually places the gun inside

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Speaker 1: Kateresa's mouth and pulls the trigger. It's no coincidence that

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Speaker 1: James is one of the last ones questioned here.

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Speaker 2: That's right. And at the end of the day, please

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Speaker 2: got confessions from Robert Field, Robert Taylor, and Cheyenne's Sharp,

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Speaker 2: but they couldn't get James Harden and Jonathan Barr to confess.

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Speaker 1: Based on the confessions, all five teenagers are charged with

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Speaker 1: the assault and murder of Kateresa Matthews, and the Dixmore

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Speaker 1: Five are transformed into Chicago's own wolf pack. Pretty soon, though,

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Speaker 1: it becomes apparent that this case has major problems for starters.

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Speaker 1: The teenager's versions of what happened are wildly inconsistent. They

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Speaker 1: can't agree on how they met up with Katsa, what

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Speaker 1: the group did before they ended up in that field

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Speaker 1: by the interstate, or who assaulted Kateresa, and in what order.

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Speaker 1: In fact, one of the only things they do agree

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Speaker 1: on was that Kateresa had been murdered the day she

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Speaker 1: did disappeared, November nineteenth. But remember this was contradicted by

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Speaker 1: the medical examiner, who determined that she'd been killed three

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Speaker 1: weeks later, around the time her body was found. And

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Speaker 1: then here comes the biggest problem. After all five teenagers

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Speaker 1: were charged but before trial, DNA testing from the seaman

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Speaker 1: left on Katrese's body excludes all five suspects. Instead, this

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Speaker 1: DNA belongs to a single unidentified male.

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Speaker 2: This is might drop evidence, the kind of evidence that

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Speaker 2: should have resulted in these cases being dismissed before.

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Speaker 1: Trial exactly these confessions had been proven false. But instead

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Speaker 1: of dropping its case, the state offers deals to two

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Speaker 1: members of the Dixmore Five, Cheyenne Sharp and Robert Veale.

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Speaker 1: If the boys agree to testify against their co defendants,

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Speaker 1: they'll receive much shorter sentences. Syenna and Robert decide to

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Speaker 1: take the deal, while the state moves forward with trials

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Speaker 1: for the other three, and those trials of are based

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Speaker 1: on the stories told in the confessions. Despite the DNA.

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Speaker 2: You talk here about tunnel vision. This is what happens.

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Speaker 2: The police officers lock into a story. They become invested

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Speaker 2: in this notion of a gang rape, and they can't

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Speaker 2: get out of.

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Speaker 1: That box exactly. And you see this when they have

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Speaker 1: to deal with the DNA and the prosecutor addresses it

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Speaker 1: during closing arguments.

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Speaker 2: And what does the prosecutor say? He explains the presence

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Speaker 2: of DNA as the work of a necrophiliac.

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Speaker 1: Now, Steve, if this isn't exactly a household term, what

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Speaker 1: is a necrophiliac?

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Speaker 2: It's someone who has sex with dead bodies.

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Speaker 1: I knew you know that. This is officially the most

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Speaker 1: batchitt theory I think I've ever.

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Speaker 2: Heard, By the way, I couldn't agree more.

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Speaker 1: So, let's get this straight. The theory here at the

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Speaker 1: Dixmore viv trial was that five teenage boys sexually assault

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Speaker 1: this victim. They don't leave a trace of themselves behind.

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Speaker 1: Then here comes this wandering necrophiliac who comes across the

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Speaker 1: body and decides to defile it. I mean, we've heard

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Speaker 1: a lot of excuse us for DNA in our time,

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Speaker 1: but this one may take the prize.

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Speaker 2: It's unbelievable that they would even present this to a jury.

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Speaker 2: It's that insane. But you have to understand in the

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Speaker 2: context of a climate of fear, the irrational becomes rational. Now,

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Speaker 2: in the opening statement in this case, the prosecutor said

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Speaker 2: that these men, pointing at the five teenagers, these men

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Speaker 2: came from a world where so called friends were turned

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Speaker 2: into a pack of jackals hunting down their prey, and

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Speaker 2: then they were done with it, killing it for sport jackals.

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Speaker 1: Can you believe that this really is Chicago's own wolf pack?

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Speaker 3: Again, it's a lot easier to fathom locking up a young, beastial,

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Speaker 3: feral thing than it is a child, which is in

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Speaker 3: fact what we were doing.

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Speaker 2: And when you talk about children as if they were animals,

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Speaker 2: it becomes so much easier to throw away their lives.

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Speaker 1: To just not worry about doing that last bit of

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Speaker 1: DNA testing, figure out whose DNA it was actually left on.

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Speaker 1: Katries and Matthew's body.

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Speaker 2: It becomes easier to try them as adults. It becomes

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Speaker 2: easier to sentence them to life sentences or even the

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Speaker 2: death penalty. It becomes easier to just lock them up

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Speaker 2: and throw away the key.

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Speaker 1: The dehumanizing story embedded in these boys confessions. While it works,

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Speaker 1: each of the Dixmore five is convicted, and the three

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Speaker 1: who don't cut deals, Robert Taylor, Jonathan Barr, and James

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Speaker 1: Harden are sentenced to life in prison. Cheyenne Sharp and

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Speaker 1: Robert Veale serve their time and are eventually released with

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Speaker 1: murder convictions on their records, But the other three languish

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Speaker 1: behind bars forgotten people.

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Speaker 2: But they were not forgotten by their parents or their

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Speaker 2: loved ones. You know, I'll never forget learning that Jonathan

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Speaker 2: Barr and James Hardin's dad would literally drive around with

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Speaker 2: boxes full of files regarding their cases in his trunk,

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Speaker 2: trying to get lawyers interested in taking his son's cases,

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Speaker 2: and Robert Taylor's family did similar things. They would write

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Speaker 2: letters and letters and letters to lawyers begging them for help. Finally,

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Speaker 2: in twenty ten, we learned about the case of the

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Speaker 2: Dixmore Five. Our colleague Josh tepfer knew a public defender

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Speaker 2: named Jennifer Blagg who had represented Robert Taylor on appeal.

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Speaker 2: She referred the case to Josh and we agreed to

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Speaker 2: take Robert's case.

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Speaker 1: By this time, Robert was in his early thirties.

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Speaker 2: That's right, he had served over fifteen years of his sentence.

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Speaker 1: Robert Taylor grew up with his parents, sister, and in Harvey, Illinois,

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Speaker 1: right next to Dixmore. From day one, Robert's dad, a

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Speaker 1: Navy vet, was his strongest defender. Robert Senior refused to

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Speaker 1: be broken by the fact that his son had gone

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Speaker 1: to prison because of the words he'd signed his name to.

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Speaker 1: When the Center on Wrongful Convictions agreed to take Robert's case,

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Speaker 1: his dad became a major presence in our lives. I

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Speaker 1: can still remember the smell of his leather jacket when

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Speaker 1: he hugged us and welcomed us to his family's struggle.

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Speaker 1: Around the same time, organizations like the Innocence Project and

365
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Speaker 1: Exoneration Project got involved in representing other members of the

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Speaker 1: Dix Moore five. Our collective first priority was identifying whose

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Speaker 1: DNA had been left at the crime scene.

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Speaker 2: We had a new tool called CODIS the combined DNA

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Speaker 2: index system, and over the time frame since the advent

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Speaker 2: of DNA testing in the late nineteen eighties, that database

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Speaker 2: had grown, and so the chances of finding the identity

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Speaker 2: of the person who raped and killed Katsa. Matthews had

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Speaker 2: grown exactly.

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Speaker 1: I mean, let's remember for a moment that we're talking

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Speaker 1: here about DNA that was taken from the semen left

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Speaker 1: on a rape victim. You cannot ask for better evidence

377
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Speaker 1: than that, and it's just sitting there forgotten. How can

378
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Speaker 1: you not want to know whose DNA that was? Isn't

379
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Speaker 1: that the most important question in this case had been

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Speaker 1: sitting there unanswered for fifteen years?

381
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Speaker 2: But where was it sitting? That was the first challenge.

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Speaker 2: And after a year of searching, we found the DNA

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Speaker 2: in some warehouse or in some trailer, and we then

384
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Speaker 2: had to get permission from the court to test the DNA.

385
00:23:36,520 --> 00:23:39,600
Speaker 2: We then sent the DNA off for testing to a lab,

386
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Speaker 2: and we waited and a lab extracted a profile, and

387
00:23:44,280 --> 00:23:46,879
Speaker 2: when that profile was extracted, it was run through the

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Speaker 2: code ISS database. A miracle of miracles, in March of

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Speaker 2: twenty eleven, we got a hit and the hit was

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Speaker 2: to a man, not a boy, a man named Randolph.

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Speaker 1: Now Willy Randolph, was a troubled guy. He was much

392
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Speaker 1: older than Kateresa or the Dixmore five. When Kateresa disappeared,

393
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Speaker 1: he was thirty three years old, more than twice her age.

394
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Speaker 1: Willi had been in and out of prison his entire

395
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Speaker 1: adult life for all sorts of different offenses. In fact,

396
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Speaker 1: he'd been paroled only a few months before Kateresa was

397
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Speaker 1: killed to a house within a mile of where she lived,

398
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Speaker 1: and Willie Randolph had previously been accused of rape in

399
00:24:29,400 --> 00:24:33,159
Speaker 1: that very same field by the interstate where Kateresa's body

400
00:24:33,320 --> 00:24:36,479
Speaker 1: was found. This is a person with a history of

401
00:24:36,520 --> 00:24:40,000
Speaker 1: these kinds of attacks, and his DNA and no one

402
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:44,080
Speaker 1: else's was present at the crime scene. Finally, it all

403
00:24:44,240 --> 00:24:45,200
Speaker 1: made sense.

404
00:24:45,600 --> 00:24:48,280
Speaker 2: When we learned the identity of Willie Randolph, when we

405
00:24:48,400 --> 00:24:53,160
Speaker 2: investigated his background, when we learned the history of abusing

406
00:24:53,440 --> 00:24:59,160
Speaker 2: and sexually assaulting women, including young women, teenagers, we thought

407
00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:01,760
Speaker 2: this case was over. We thought we are going to

408
00:25:01,840 --> 00:25:04,720
Speaker 2: get these boys out tomorrow.

409
00:25:04,760 --> 00:25:07,720
Speaker 1: Exactly, there's no relationship at all between Willy Randolph and

410
00:25:07,760 --> 00:25:10,400
Speaker 1: any of the Dixmore five. He's not mentioned in any

411
00:25:10,440 --> 00:25:12,360
Speaker 1: of their confessions.

412
00:25:11,760 --> 00:25:14,320
Speaker 2: And why would there be a relationship. This is a

413
00:25:14,359 --> 00:25:18,240
Speaker 2: man with a long history of violence in his record,

414
00:25:18,280 --> 00:25:20,800
Speaker 2: and none of these boys had a history of violence.

415
00:25:20,960 --> 00:25:23,280
Speaker 1: Right, He's twice their age. When they were growing up

416
00:25:23,320 --> 00:25:24,760
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood, he was in prison.

417
00:25:25,080 --> 00:25:28,320
Speaker 2: Willy Randolph is the guy who did this to Katersa Matthews.

418
00:25:28,800 --> 00:25:31,439
Speaker 2: The DNA proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt.

419
00:25:32,040 --> 00:25:35,000
Speaker 2: Now we had to convince the prosecutors to do the

420
00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:35,520
Speaker 2: right thing.

421
00:25:36,040 --> 00:25:39,040
Speaker 1: But as incredible as it sounds, the state wouldn't let

422
00:25:39,160 --> 00:25:42,720
Speaker 1: go of their necrophilia theory, and the case dragged on

423
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Speaker 1: for months.

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Speaker 2: You know, old habits die hard. The state actually suggested

425
00:25:48,280 --> 00:25:53,120
Speaker 2: again that maybe Willy Randolph was their mystery necrophiliac.

426
00:25:53,359 --> 00:25:55,840
Speaker 1: This is an unbelievable thing. Still they're clinging to this

427
00:25:55,920 --> 00:25:59,520
Speaker 1: theory that five teenage boys assaulted Katersa Matthews, left no

428
00:25:59,600 --> 00:26:02,960
Speaker 1: trace of their DNA behind, and here comes Willie Randolph,

429
00:26:03,080 --> 00:26:05,879
Speaker 1: the older man, the man of the history of assaults

430
00:26:05,880 --> 00:26:08,760
Speaker 1: and violent crime and rape in that very field, and

431
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Speaker 1: just happens to defile her body. It beggars belief.

432
00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:16,399
Speaker 2: It still took six to seven months to investigate whether

433
00:26:16,440 --> 00:26:19,919
Speaker 2: there was any link between Willie Randolph and any of

434
00:26:19,960 --> 00:26:22,520
Speaker 2: the Dicks more five, there wasn't one.

435
00:26:22,840 --> 00:26:26,040
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, we were coming back to court every few weeks

436
00:26:26,040 --> 00:26:28,879
Speaker 1: to get an update on the state's investigation and to

437
00:26:29,040 --> 00:26:32,520
Speaker 1: ask the judge is today the day of exoneration? And

438
00:26:32,640 --> 00:26:36,359
Speaker 1: for six long months we were disappointed. I remember coming

439
00:26:36,359 --> 00:26:39,960
Speaker 1: home after those court dates and crying with frustration that

440
00:26:40,080 --> 00:26:42,640
Speaker 1: I was able to go home, but Robert Taylor, our clients,

441
00:26:42,720 --> 00:26:43,920
Speaker 1: had to go back to a prison cell.

442
00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:47,480
Speaker 2: Yeah. I remember pulling out my hair and I had

443
00:26:47,520 --> 00:26:48,200
Speaker 2: hair back then.

444
00:26:49,160 --> 00:26:49,880
Speaker 1: That's where it all went.

445
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:52,640
Speaker 2: That's where it all went because we had the best

446
00:26:52,840 --> 00:26:58,640
Speaker 2: possible evidence of their innocence, and not only were they

447
00:26:58,720 --> 00:27:03,520
Speaker 2: refusing to our clients, Willie Randolph was on the street.

448
00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:07,240
Speaker 2: He was out of prison on parole, and he could

449
00:27:07,280 --> 00:27:11,200
Speaker 2: be doing this to somebody else. It was driving me crazy.

450
00:27:11,200 --> 00:27:14,520
Speaker 1: Every time before we walked into that courtroom, I remember

451
00:27:14,560 --> 00:27:18,679
Speaker 1: watching Robert hold his whole body just taught. His muscles

452
00:27:18,720 --> 00:27:21,960
Speaker 1: would be tense, and you could see those twenty years

453
00:27:21,960 --> 00:27:24,480
Speaker 1: of trauma that he had endured and the toll it

454
00:27:24,520 --> 00:27:27,840
Speaker 1: had taken on him. He couldn't relax into the possibility

455
00:27:28,400 --> 00:27:30,120
Speaker 1: that it was going to be his day that day,

456
00:27:30,720 --> 00:27:32,040
Speaker 1: and it wasn't his day.

457
00:27:31,920 --> 00:27:34,479
Speaker 2: For months until it finally was.

458
00:27:37,440 --> 00:27:42,119
Speaker 1: On November third, twenty eleven, Robert Ville Cheyenne Sharp, James Harden,

459
00:27:42,280 --> 00:27:46,800
Speaker 1: Jonathan Barr, and Robert Taylor were exonerated. Their convictions were

460
00:27:46,880 --> 00:27:50,040
Speaker 1: thrown out nearly twenty years to the day after Kateresa

461
00:27:50,080 --> 00:27:54,000
Speaker 1: matthews disappearance, The Dix Moore five had wrongly served a

462
00:27:54,040 --> 00:27:58,720
Speaker 1: total of more than fifty years in prison. Eventually, Willie

463
00:27:58,840 --> 00:28:01,879
Speaker 1: Randolph was charged with the attack on Kateresa Matthews based

464
00:28:01,880 --> 00:28:06,080
Speaker 1: on DNA evidence. He's still a waiting trial today. We're

465
00:28:06,119 --> 00:28:08,520
Speaker 1: proud to have helped free the Dixmore five, but as

466
00:28:08,560 --> 00:28:11,760
Speaker 1: our colleague Josh Tepfer put it, this is not justice.

467
00:28:12,520 --> 00:28:14,600
Speaker 1: Justice would have happened a long time ago.

468
00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:21,080
Speaker 2: Hello, hey, Robert, Stephen Laura A long time.

469
00:28:21,200 --> 00:28:23,240
Speaker 1: I'll see too long.

470
00:28:23,320 --> 00:28:23,760
Speaker 2: Too long.

471
00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:26,040
Speaker 1: Good to hear your voice. What's going on with you

472
00:28:26,119 --> 00:28:30,120
Speaker 1: these days, Robert, I'm hanging in now. How's your son doing?

473
00:28:30,520 --> 00:28:33,040
Speaker 2: He's all right. I got picked boy. You got to

474
00:28:33,040 --> 00:28:35,679
Speaker 2: take him up to the school. Yeah, I'll pick him

475
00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:36,479
Speaker 2: up every day.

476
00:28:37,200 --> 00:28:39,280
Speaker 3: Hold your point seven going away?

477
00:28:40,160 --> 00:28:41,640
Speaker 1: What's your favorite thing to do with your son?

478
00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:44,400
Speaker 2: Robert I'd like to see him smad. I.

479
00:28:44,480 --> 00:28:49,400
Speaker 1: So you can't give those twenty years back to Robert

480
00:28:49,480 --> 00:28:50,720
Speaker 1: or to any of the Dicks, Moore five, or any

481
00:28:50,720 --> 00:28:52,760
Speaker 1: of the guys we're going to talk about on this podcast.

482
00:28:52,800 --> 00:28:55,520
Speaker 1: You can't give that time back. But what you can

483
00:28:55,680 --> 00:29:00,520
Speaker 1: do is make the years decades that they lost means something.

484
00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:03,960
Speaker 3: One of the greatest tragedies in my opinion, and I've

485
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:06,800
Speaker 3: been teaching about the Central Park five case for years

486
00:29:07,520 --> 00:29:10,240
Speaker 3: and to this day. When I introduced the case in

487
00:29:10,280 --> 00:29:13,880
Speaker 3: my criminal law classes, the one thing that people don't

488
00:29:13,920 --> 00:29:16,720
Speaker 3: know about the case is that the kids were innocent.

489
00:29:17,320 --> 00:29:21,560
Speaker 3: So few people knew that even after Matthias Rayes confessed,

490
00:29:21,880 --> 00:29:25,120
Speaker 3: even after these kids were let out of prison, even

491
00:29:25,160 --> 00:29:28,440
Speaker 3: after they were compensated. It is the footnote in this

492
00:29:28,520 --> 00:29:33,480
Speaker 3: story that gets lost in our collective consciousness. Maybe not anymore. Finally,

493
00:29:33,520 --> 00:29:36,680
Speaker 3: there is attention being brought to who they actually were

494
00:29:36,760 --> 00:29:37,680
Speaker 3: and what they suffered.

495
00:29:38,040 --> 00:29:39,440
Speaker 1: And that's a big part of how Steve and I

496
00:29:39,480 --> 00:29:43,200
Speaker 1: approach these cases. Right It's about of course getting them

497
00:29:43,240 --> 00:29:45,440
Speaker 1: out of prisent fighting for them, opening up those doors,

498
00:29:45,960 --> 00:29:48,640
Speaker 1: but it's also about telling the stories. It's about making

499
00:29:48,640 --> 00:29:51,320
Speaker 1: it meaningful. It's about saying their name. It's about not

500
00:29:51,360 --> 00:29:53,600
Speaker 1: forgetting what happened to them and changing it so it

501
00:29:53,600 --> 00:30:00,800
Speaker 1: doesn't happen again. Like the Central Park five, the story

502
00:30:00,840 --> 00:30:03,560
Speaker 1: of the Dixmore five is about convictions that were driven

503
00:30:03,600 --> 00:30:07,200
Speaker 1: by prejudice rather than proof. But the injustices of the

504
00:30:07,240 --> 00:30:09,680
Speaker 1: super predator era or not just a New York City

505
00:30:09,720 --> 00:30:12,480
Speaker 1: thing or a Chicago thing, And although we may want

506
00:30:12,520 --> 00:30:15,200
Speaker 1: to think so, they're not even really a nineteen nineties thing.

507
00:30:15,800 --> 00:30:19,840
Speaker 1: In times of great fear or moral panic, prejudices can

508
00:30:19,880 --> 00:30:25,080
Speaker 1: distort the search for the truth. Mistaken assumptions, faulty investigations,

509
00:30:25,400 --> 00:30:28,600
Speaker 1: and flawed evidence are all still real, and they still

510
00:30:28,640 --> 00:30:32,640
Speaker 1: cause wrongful convictions across the country. Every day. We tell

511
00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:35,440
Speaker 1: these stories so that we can learn from them, so

512
00:30:35,480 --> 00:30:38,680
Speaker 1: that one day there won't be any more Dixmore fives.

513
00:30:40,360 --> 00:30:43,120
Speaker 1: To all the Dixmore five, but especially to our client

514
00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:47,480
Speaker 1: and friend, Robert Taylor, You've endured years of injustice while

515
00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:51,239
Speaker 1: remaining a pillar of strength and resilience. To you and

516
00:30:51,280 --> 00:30:54,160
Speaker 1: your families, we wish you all the best. Thanks for

517
00:30:54,240 --> 00:31:04,280
Speaker 1: letting us tell your story. Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions is

518
00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:07,680
Speaker 1: the production of Lava for Good podcasts in association with

519
00:31:07,760 --> 00:31:11,560
Speaker 1: Signal Company Number One. Special thanks to our executive producer

520
00:31:11,680 --> 00:31:14,760
Speaker 1: Jason Flamm and the team at Signal Company Number one.

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00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:19,160
Speaker 1: Executive producer Kevin wardis Senior producer and Pope, and additional

522
00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:23,000
Speaker 1: production and editing by Connor Hall. Our music was composed

523
00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:26,320
Speaker 1: by Jay Ralph. You can follow me on Instagram or

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00:31:26,360 --> 00:31:28,560
Speaker 1: Twitter at Laura Nyrider and.

525
00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:31,440
Speaker 2: You can follow me on Twitter at s Drizzen.

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00:31:32,200 --> 00:31:36,080
Speaker 1: For more information on the show, visit wrongfulconvictionpodcast dot com

527
00:31:36,360 --> 00:31:38,800
Speaker 1: and be sure to follow the show on Instagram at

528
00:31:38,840 --> 00:31:43,320
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on

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00:31:43,360 --> 00:31:45,160
Speaker 1: Twitter at wrong Conviction