WEBVTT - #358 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Dixmoor 5 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:07.280 Hey guys, it's Laura today. I have some pretty great 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:09.880 news to share with you. Back in season one of 0:00:09.920 --> 0:00:13.039 False Confessions, Steve and I brought you the story of 0:00:13.080 --> 0:00:16.239 the Dix Moore Five, a group of teenage boys who 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:20.959 were interrogated for hours without lawyers or parents present. One 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:23.720 by one, they were each implicated in the crime and 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:28.080 ended up spending about twenty years in prison. Their confessions 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:30.120 were in the Forum of Science Statements. There was no 0:00:30.200 --> 0:00:33.639 recording of their interrogations, but one of the reasons they 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:37.800 confessed was because the police lied to them. This is 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:40.960 common in police interrogations and it's something we've seen over 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:44.760 and over on the show. Police will falsely promise leniency 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:47.320 in order to get a confession, or they'll lie that 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:50.519 they have evidence they don't really have. This is a 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:53.680 horrible practice and it's one that's clearly not working to 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:57.640 get real criminals off the streets. Using lies and deceptive 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:01.560 interrogation tactics is a huge risk factor for false confessions, 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:04.120 and as we know, false confessions are one of the 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:07.640 leading causes of wrongful convictions. They occur in about thirty 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:10.679 percent of cases that have been overturned by DNA evidence. 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:14.959 It's just plain wrong and it needs to end. But 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:18.600 here's the good news. In an incredible step towards justice, 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:22.640 Illinois became the first state in United States history to 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:26.200 adopt a law in twenty twenty one that bans police 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:29.920 from lying to children during interrogations. I cannot tell you 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:32.840 how huge this is. If this law had been in 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:36.080 place back in nineteen ninety one, the Dixmore five would 0:01:36.120 --> 0:01:38.680 never have gone to prison and had twenty years of 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:41.640 their lives stolen a way. This is a reform that 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:45.840 was sorely needed, especially here in Illinois, the false confession 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:48.400 capital of the country. In our state alone, there have 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:52.320 been over one hundred wrongful convictions based on false confessions. 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:54.760 I am so proud to be part of this work 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:57.880 and that the cases I helped defend are themselves helping 0:01:57.920 --> 0:02:01.880 to pass new laws, creating a few with fewer wrongful convictions. 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:05.200 But we can't stop here. This kind of law should 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:08.600 exist in every state, and it should apply to everyone, 0:02:08.840 --> 0:02:11.880 not just kids. We now have the data and the 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:15.160 experience to know that when police lie to a suspect 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:18.840 during an investigation, that does more harm than good. There 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:22.880 are much better ways to solve crimes we need all 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:26.240 interrogations to be videotaped, and we need better protections for 0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:29.720 everybody who winds up inside that room. It's only with 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:32.080 reforms like these that we can live up to one 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:35.400 of the founding principles of our justice system. Innocent until 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:46.240 proven guilty, Welcome to wrongful conviction, false confessions. I'm Laura 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:46.919 and I writer. 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:48.040 And I'm Steve Drusen. 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:51.520 Today we're going to tell you about a case out 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:54.720 of Chicago, the story of a violent and tragic crime 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:57.280 that took the life of a young girl. But there's 0:02:57.280 --> 0:02:59.240 a larger reason why we want to talk about this 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:02.280 case because of what it also took from not one, 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:07.360 but five innocent teenage boys and from their families and communities. 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:10.800 This case happened during what we now call the super 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:14.760 Predator era the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties. The news 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:18.760 media was saturated with stories of urban crime, drugs and gangs, 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:23.919 and in particular, sensationalized stories about black and brown youth 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:28.639 committing violent crimes in groups. This narrative is often associated 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:31.520 with New York City. It drove the wrongful prosecution of 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:35.160 the so called Central Park five wolf Pack, but it 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:38.280 didn't stop there. Today, we're going to tell you about 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:41.640 a group of teenage boys whose false confessions transformed them 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:46.560 into Chicago's own wolf pack. They're known as the Dixmore Five. 0:03:57.400 --> 0:04:00.520 Now Chicago may be called the second city comes to 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:04.240 false confessions. We don't take a back seat to anybody, 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:07.440 not New York or any other jurisdiction for that matter. 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:10.920 We're home to more false confessions than any other city 0:04:10.960 --> 0:04:15.080 in the United States. We're home to more juvenile false confessions. 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:17.640 And we're also the home of more cases in which 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:22.320 there are multiple false confessions. And over the years, the 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:26.359 Center on Wrongful Convictions has obtained exonerations in many of 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:30.680 these cases, all of which were from African American teenagers 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:32.600 in the Chicago area. 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:37.200 Marquette Park four, Uptown seven, Englewood four, Dixmore five. These 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:39.920 numbers start to add up, and the thing is each 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:43.680 one of these cases involves innocent African American teenagers in 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:46.479 groups confessing to crimes they didn't commit. 0:04:46.600 --> 0:04:49.120 Of course, the most famous case like this was New 0:04:49.200 --> 0:04:54.040 York's Central Park five case. In April of nineteen eighty nine, 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:59.640 five teenage boys were charged with the sexual assault and 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:03.440 the tempted murder of a female jogger in New York's 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:08.520 Central Park. The boys falsely confessed to beating this woman 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:11.200 within an inch of her life and leaving her in 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:16.159 the woods to die. The Central Park five confessions were 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:23.280 driven by race Wolfpax. Wilding was a whole new language 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:27.680 to describe groups of African American and Latino teenagers, and 0:05:27.720 --> 0:05:30.880 it created a level of fear in New York City 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:33.800 and around the country that I had never seen before. 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:36.960 So when we began to look at the Dixmore case, 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:41.159 the case of the Central Park five was ringing in 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:41.760 my years. 0:05:45.200 --> 0:05:47.760 It was November of nineteen ninety one and fourteen year 0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:50.839 old Kateresa Matthews was in the eighth grade. She lived 0:05:50.839 --> 0:05:52.599 with her mom and Dix Moore, a suburb on the 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:55.800 South side of Chicago, surrounded by a tight knit extended 0:05:55.800 --> 0:05:59.840 family and community. Every day after school, Kateresa followed the 0:05:59.839 --> 0:06:03.280 same routine. She'd walk to her great grandmother's house, where 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:05.800 she'd do her homework, tuck on the phone, and do 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:08.719 whatever fourteen year old girls do. After school, she was 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:11.240 waiting until her mom came home from work to go 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:15.560 back to her own house. Kateresa followed this routine religiously 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:19.800 until November nineteenth, nineteen ninety one, when she doesn't show 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:23.800 up at her great grandmother's house after school. Her family panics. 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:27.280 They call the police and a search begins, but for 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:31.400 three weeks there's no sign of Kateresa until December eighth, 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:36.560 nineteen ninety one. That's when Kateresa's body is found lying 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:38.800 in a wooded field next to the Interstate Highway that 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:42.760 runs through Dixmore. She's on her back, partially undressed, with 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:46.479 her pants draped across her lower body. On her chest 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:50.240 is a spent casing from a twenty five caliber bullet. 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:54.599 She's been shot once in the mouth. Even though Kateres 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:58.159 had been missing for three weeks, the medical examiner concludes 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:00.480 that she's been killed recently, right around the time her 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:04.520 body's found. There are several reasons for this. For one thing, 0:07:04.760 --> 0:07:08.160 rigor mortis is present when she's found that usually disappears 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:11.560 about twenty four to forty eight hours after death. Her 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:14.720 body is also still bleeding when she's discovered, which you 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:18.480 wouldn't expect if she'd been killed much earlier. And also 0:07:18.560 --> 0:07:20.840 when a body's been lying outside for a long time, 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:24.400 there are usually signs like animal or insect bites. There's 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:28.119 nothing like that here. And the medical examiner finds something 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:32.400 else too, semen on Kateresa's body. She's been raped. 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:34.520 This was an awful crime. 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:36.600 It's the worst. I mean, it's every parent's nightmare to 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:37.800 have this happen to their child. 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:39.760 You know, when you think of a crime like this, 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:44.040 you don't think of it as something that teenagers would do. Typically, 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:48.280 teenage crimes are impulsive crimes. There's not a lot of 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:52.000 planning or premeditation. They happen in the spur of the moment. 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:56.080 But this crime clearly required some forethought. 0:07:56.320 --> 0:08:00.280 For eleven long months, the investigation into Kateresa's death goes 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:03.680 nowhere until fall nineteen ninety two, when a teenage boy 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:06.840 tells police that he saw Kateresa getting into a car 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:10.560 with some friends around the time of her disappearance. Police 0:08:10.560 --> 0:08:14.400 decided to question those friends, starting with Robert Vel on 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:18.520 October twenty ninth, nineteen ninety two. Now, Robert's fourteen years old, 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:21.760 but he has pretty severe intellectual limitations that make him 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:24.880 think more like a five year old. He's questioned for 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:27.920 hours without a parent or a lawyer present, off camera, 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:31.880 and in the end he signs a confession prepared by 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:35.880 his interrogator, and the story in this confession is brutal. 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:44.720 Robert says he and four other African American teenage boys 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:48.319 kidnapped a girl they knew from school. They gang raped 0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:50.679 her as she pleaded with them to stop, and then 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:53.720 they shot her once in the mouth. It was a 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:58.240 story of an animalistic group of black teenagers attacking their 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:00.280 classmate for sport. 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:06.080 The level of depravity in this story was so out 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:10.040 of bounds that it made me question whether it was true, 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:13.480 But it also had an eerily familiar ring to it, 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:16.080 and for me, the significance was as I was seeing 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:21.880 the same explanations in different cases, which made me begin 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:24.160 to feel that like maybe there was a script that 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:27.640 was getting passed around among Chicago police officers. 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:31.679 Only hours after Robert Veil confesses, police bring in one 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:35.439 of his supposed co perpetrators, fifteen year old Robert Taylor. 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:38.600 He's a kid from a loving and protective family, but 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:40.680 his parents didn't know he was at the police station 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:45.520 being interrogated. Hours later, his signature appears on a confession too, 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:50.240 and that confession tells a similarly vicious story. The same 0:09:50.400 --> 0:09:55.000 five African American teenagers lured Katresa into a car, then 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:56.880 raped her and shot her in a field. 0:09:57.400 --> 0:10:01.079 The super Predator era was a period of of pronounced 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:07.960 moral panic in the United States that focused on young people, race, 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:09.120 and crime. 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:12.800 That's our colleague and friend, Perry Moriarty. She's a professor 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:15.600 of law at the University of Minnesota and an expert 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:18.480 on juvenile justice and the era of the super Predator. 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:22.800 The front end marker is more than likely the Central 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:25.800 Park five case that was April of nineteen eighty nine, 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:30.280 and that began an era when, in the name of 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:33.200 public safety, in the name of being tough on crime, 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:37.600 law enforcement authorities dropped any pretense of treating children as 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:42.439 children and prosecuted them as adults. If they were black 0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:46.560 and brown children, they were adultified, either by law or 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:50.520 by connotation, and certainly by the media. A jogger murdered 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:52.920 in New York Central Park, a little girl gunned down 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:53.760 in her family's car. 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:55.000 And Los Angeles, a. 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:58.240 Judge has sentenced two boys for killing another child who 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:00.920 refused to steal candy for them. There's a tidal wave 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:04.440 of juvenile violent crime right over the horizon, and some 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:06.480 who study it say the worst is. 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:13.120 Yet to come, terms like wilding, beast chill, predatory. In 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:16.840 New York City newspapers alone, the term wilding appeared one 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:20.000 hundred and fifty six times in articles over the eight 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:24.240 years following the Central Park five arrests. To put it 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:27.480 in perspective, just a few months after the Central Park 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:32.319 five case, a large group of Italian and Irish predominantly 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:36.439 teenagers in benson Hurst, Brooklyn, chased down and killed a 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:40.760 young Black teenager named Yuseph Hawkins. And the headlines did 0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:44.200 not say wilding. They did not say beasts chill, They 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:47.560 did not even say gang. They said a group of 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:51.720 white teenagers. 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:02.880 Now the police have two confessions that implicate the same 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:06.720 five teenagers, but they're not done yet. Next up is 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:11.199 Cheyenne Sharp, seventeen years old, the third supposed co perpetrator. 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:15.319 He's questioned for nearly twenty four hours before he also 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:19.000 confesses and implicates the other four. And it's the same 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:23.599 brutal story, a group of African American teenage boys terrorizing 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:24.880 their classmate for fun. 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:29.960 Now you have to understand how these confessions are taken. 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:36.040 These confessions are scripted, usually by a prosecutor from the 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:40.440 State attorney's office. Sometimes they're written by police officers, and 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:46.800 these scripts contain a narrative, including character development. Kids are 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:52.560 described as thugs. There's usually references to gang membership. Women 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:57.199 are called bitches and hoes. The scriptwriter in these cases 0:12:57.280 --> 0:13:00.480 is doing two things. He's painting the suspect in a 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:04.640 way that nobody can ever think of them as teenagers. 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:08.720 And he's also painting them in a way that nobody 0:13:09.120 --> 0:13:12.880 and that means nobody in the public and nobody on 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:17.760 the jury can have an ounce of sympathy for them. 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:21.320 And in doing so, he's making a script that is 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:24.959 about as rock solid as a route to conviction as 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:26.239 one can imagine. 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:31.080 So far, the police have confessions from three of the 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:33.840 Dixmore five, and within days they bring in the two 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:38.280 remaining teenagers for questioning two brothers, seventeen year old James 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:41.960 Harden and fifteen year old Jonathan Barr. The boys are 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:45.120 interrogated for hours, but their father had always told them 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:50.400 never sign anything prepared by the police. Somehow a miracle 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:54.800 they remember these words and they don't confess, but they're 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:57.760 still named in the other three teenagers' statements, so all 0:13:57.840 --> 0:13:59.239 five are on the hook. 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:02.640 In part because because they were arresting and prosecuting kids 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:07.280 in mass in groups, law enforcement became very adept in 0:14:07.360 --> 0:14:10.439 that period at pitting kids against each other during the 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:16.120 interrogation process and using kids against each other to extract 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:17.520 false confessions. 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:20.920 When you look at these cases of multiple false confessions, 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:24.600 you see a similar pattern. First of all, the police 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:29.240 usually start with the most vulnerable, most naive, most gullible 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:32.400 of the suspects, and they focused in this case on 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:35.840 Robert Field. He was the weak link. Then they get 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:39.280 a confession from Robert Veel, and what do they do 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:42.840 with that confession They use it as a battering ram 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:47.000 to plow over all of the other defendants. This is 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:50.440 how it works. The first suspect comes in and the 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:53.360 police officers tell them that they know that he was 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:57.240 involved in this crime and nothing that suspect can say 0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:00.520 is going to change their mind. But they don't think 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:04.480 he was the one who actually raped anybody or killed anybody. 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:08.400 He was just a follower. The suspect is pressured into 0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:12.720 adopting a story in which he is a passive participant 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:17.200 to the crime, and which he fingers his co defendants 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:23.000 as the more active participants. Then once that suspect confesses, 0:15:23.040 --> 0:15:26.320 they bring that confession to the next in line and 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:30.320 they go over the same thing again. We don't think 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:34.000 you committed the crime. He's telling us that you committed 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:37.080 the crime. We know you were there, but maybe you 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:40.560 just held down her arm while they were raping and 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:46.520 killing her. Each suspect is vying for the least culpable role, 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:48.720 and at the end of the day, this is a 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:53.520 very effective way to get confessions from multiple suspects. 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:56.680 In this case, the dominoes are falling and each one 0:15:56.720 --> 0:15:59.600 of them eventually agrees to a story in which James 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:02.880 Harden is the one who actually places the gun inside 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:06.240 Kateresa's mouth and pulls the trigger. It's no coincidence that 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:08.680 James is one of the last ones questioned here. 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:11.320 That's right. And at the end of the day, please 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:15.520 got confessions from Robert Field, Robert Taylor, and Cheyenne's Sharp, 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:20.480 but they couldn't get James Harden and Jonathan Barr to confess. 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:26.520 Based on the confessions, all five teenagers are charged with 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:30.560 the assault and murder of Kateresa Matthews, and the Dixmore 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:37.960 Five are transformed into Chicago's own wolf pack. Pretty soon, though, 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:41.800 it becomes apparent that this case has major problems for starters. 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:46.200 The teenager's versions of what happened are wildly inconsistent. They 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:48.680 can't agree on how they met up with Katsa, what 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:51.240 the group did before they ended up in that field 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:54.840 by the interstate, or who assaulted Kateresa, and in what order. 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:57.720 In fact, one of the only things they do agree 0:16:57.720 --> 0:16:59.840 on was that Kateresa had been murdered the day she 0:16:59.880 --> 0:17:04.520 did disappeared, November nineteenth. But remember this was contradicted by 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:07.720 the medical examiner, who determined that she'd been killed three 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:11.399 weeks later, around the time her body was found. And 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:15.480 then here comes the biggest problem. After all five teenagers 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:19.600 were charged but before trial, DNA testing from the seaman 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:25.480 left on Katrese's body excludes all five suspects. Instead, this 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:28.400 DNA belongs to a single unidentified male. 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:32.080 This is might drop evidence, the kind of evidence that 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:36.680 should have resulted in these cases being dismissed before. 0:17:36.440 --> 0:17:40.280 Trial exactly these confessions had been proven false. But instead 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:43.120 of dropping its case, the state offers deals to two 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:46.760 members of the Dixmore Five, Cheyenne Sharp and Robert Veale. 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:50.359 If the boys agree to testify against their co defendants, 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:54.639 they'll receive much shorter sentences. Syenna and Robert decide to 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:57.440 take the deal, while the state moves forward with trials 0:17:57.520 --> 0:18:00.840 for the other three, and those trials of are based 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:04.240 on the stories told in the confessions. Despite the DNA. 0:18:04.680 --> 0:18:07.720 You talk here about tunnel vision. This is what happens. 0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:12.359 The police officers lock into a story. They become invested 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:15.399 in this notion of a gang rape, and they can't 0:18:15.640 --> 0:18:17.000 get out of. 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:19.639 That box exactly. And you see this when they have 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:22.119 to deal with the DNA and the prosecutor addresses it 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:23.200 during closing arguments. 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:26.880 And what does the prosecutor say? He explains the presence 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:30.040 of DNA as the work of a necrophiliac. 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:32.440 Now, Steve, if this isn't exactly a household term, what 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:34.120 is a necrophiliac? 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:37.080 It's someone who has sex with dead bodies. 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:39.600 I knew you know that. This is officially the most 0:18:39.600 --> 0:18:40.960 batchitt theory I think I've ever. 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:42.440 Heard, By the way, I couldn't agree more. 0:18:42.520 --> 0:18:44.600 So, let's get this straight. The theory here at the 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:48.800 Dixmore viv trial was that five teenage boys sexually assault 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:51.680 this victim. They don't leave a trace of themselves behind. 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:56.439 Then here comes this wandering necrophiliac who comes across the 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:59.520 body and decides to defile it. I mean, we've heard 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:01.320 a lot of excuse us for DNA in our time, 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:03.120 but this one may take the prize. 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:07.800 It's unbelievable that they would even present this to a jury. 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:12.160 It's that insane. But you have to understand in the 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:19.240 context of a climate of fear, the irrational becomes rational. Now, 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:22.600 in the opening statement in this case, the prosecutor said 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:27.400 that these men, pointing at the five teenagers, these men 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:31.040 came from a world where so called friends were turned 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:34.760 into a pack of jackals hunting down their prey, and 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:38.360 then they were done with it, killing it for sport jackals. 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:41.120 Can you believe that this really is Chicago's own wolf pack? 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:49.840 Again, it's a lot easier to fathom locking up a young, beastial, 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:53.800 feral thing than it is a child, which is in 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:54.840 fact what we were doing. 0:19:55.240 --> 0:19:58.720 And when you talk about children as if they were animals, 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:03.560 it becomes so much easier to throw away their lives. 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:05.679 To just not worry about doing that last bit of 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:08.520 DNA testing, figure out whose DNA it was actually left on. 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:09.800 Katries and Matthew's body. 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:12.840 It becomes easier to try them as adults. It becomes 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:16.480 easier to sentence them to life sentences or even the 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:21.800 death penalty. It becomes easier to just lock them up 0:20:21.840 --> 0:20:35.000 and throw away the key. 0:20:36.200 --> 0:20:40.520 The dehumanizing story embedded in these boys confessions. While it works, 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:44.080 each of the Dixmore five is convicted, and the three 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:47.240 who don't cut deals, Robert Taylor, Jonathan Barr, and James 0:20:47.240 --> 0:20:51.080 Harden are sentenced to life in prison. Cheyenne Sharp and 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:54.199 Robert Veale serve their time and are eventually released with 0:20:54.359 --> 0:20:58.000 murder convictions on their records, But the other three languish 0:20:58.040 --> 0:20:59.960 behind bars forgotten people. 0:21:02.680 --> 0:21:05.560 But they were not forgotten by their parents or their 0:21:05.600 --> 0:21:09.600 loved ones. You know, I'll never forget learning that Jonathan 0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:13.880 Barr and James Hardin's dad would literally drive around with 0:21:14.200 --> 0:21:17.959 boxes full of files regarding their cases in his trunk, 0:21:18.800 --> 0:21:23.320 trying to get lawyers interested in taking his son's cases, 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:26.680 and Robert Taylor's family did similar things. They would write 0:21:26.760 --> 0:21:32.400 letters and letters and letters to lawyers begging them for help. Finally, 0:21:32.600 --> 0:21:35.760 in twenty ten, we learned about the case of the 0:21:35.760 --> 0:21:41.200 Dixmore Five. Our colleague Josh tepfer knew a public defender 0:21:41.280 --> 0:21:45.120 named Jennifer Blagg who had represented Robert Taylor on appeal. 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:49.040 She referred the case to Josh and we agreed to 0:21:49.119 --> 0:21:50.160 take Robert's case. 0:21:50.280 --> 0:21:52.879 By this time, Robert was in his early thirties. 0:21:53.040 --> 0:21:56.960 That's right, he had served over fifteen years of his sentence. 0:21:57.760 --> 0:22:01.480 Robert Taylor grew up with his parents, sister, and in Harvey, Illinois, 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:05.199 right next to Dixmore. From day one, Robert's dad, a 0:22:05.359 --> 0:22:09.439 Navy vet, was his strongest defender. Robert Senior refused to 0:22:09.480 --> 0:22:11.600 be broken by the fact that his son had gone 0:22:11.600 --> 0:22:13.800 to prison because of the words he'd signed his name to. 0:22:14.720 --> 0:22:17.640 When the Center on Wrongful Convictions agreed to take Robert's case, 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:20.679 his dad became a major presence in our lives. I 0:22:20.680 --> 0:22:23.160 can still remember the smell of his leather jacket when 0:22:23.160 --> 0:22:25.920 he hugged us and welcomed us to his family's struggle. 0:22:26.640 --> 0:22:29.680 Around the same time, organizations like the Innocence Project and 0:22:29.800 --> 0:22:33.280 Exoneration Project got involved in representing other members of the 0:22:33.320 --> 0:22:37.800 Dix Moore five. Our collective first priority was identifying whose 0:22:37.920 --> 0:22:40.240 DNA had been left at the crime scene. 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:43.359 We had a new tool called CODIS the combined DNA 0:22:43.480 --> 0:22:47.120 index system, and over the time frame since the advent 0:22:47.200 --> 0:22:51.400 of DNA testing in the late nineteen eighties, that database 0:22:51.480 --> 0:22:55.800 had grown, and so the chances of finding the identity 0:22:56.280 --> 0:22:59.399 of the person who raped and killed Katsa. Matthews had 0:22:59.440 --> 0:23:00.359 grown exactly. 0:23:00.440 --> 0:23:02.440 I mean, let's remember for a moment that we're talking 0:23:02.440 --> 0:23:05.400 here about DNA that was taken from the semen left 0:23:05.440 --> 0:23:08.560 on a rape victim. You cannot ask for better evidence 0:23:08.600 --> 0:23:11.479 than that, and it's just sitting there forgotten. How can 0:23:11.520 --> 0:23:14.080 you not want to know whose DNA that was? Isn't 0:23:14.080 --> 0:23:16.199 that the most important question in this case had been 0:23:16.200 --> 0:23:19.280 sitting there unanswered for fifteen years? 0:23:21.520 --> 0:23:24.199 But where was it sitting? That was the first challenge. 0:23:24.240 --> 0:23:28.640 And after a year of searching, we found the DNA 0:23:29.119 --> 0:23:32.360 in some warehouse or in some trailer, and we then 0:23:32.440 --> 0:23:35.680 had to get permission from the court to test the DNA. 0:23:36.520 --> 0:23:39.600 We then sent the DNA off for testing to a lab, 0:23:40.160 --> 0:23:44.240 and we waited and a lab extracted a profile, and 0:23:44.280 --> 0:23:46.879 when that profile was extracted, it was run through the 0:23:46.920 --> 0:23:50.879 code ISS database. A miracle of miracles, in March of 0:23:50.920 --> 0:23:55.840 twenty eleven, we got a hit and the hit was 0:23:55.840 --> 0:24:03.320 to a man, not a boy, a man named Randolph. 0:24:02.400 --> 0:24:05.320 Now Willy Randolph, was a troubled guy. He was much 0:24:05.359 --> 0:24:09.320 older than Kateresa or the Dixmore five. When Kateresa disappeared, 0:24:09.600 --> 0:24:12.960 he was thirty three years old, more than twice her age. 0:24:13.480 --> 0:24:15.639 Willi had been in and out of prison his entire 0:24:15.680 --> 0:24:19.200 adult life for all sorts of different offenses. In fact, 0:24:19.240 --> 0:24:22.320 he'd been paroled only a few months before Kateresa was 0:24:22.400 --> 0:24:25.560 killed to a house within a mile of where she lived, 0:24:26.200 --> 0:24:29.359 and Willie Randolph had previously been accused of rape in 0:24:29.400 --> 0:24:33.159 that very same field by the interstate where Kateresa's body 0:24:33.320 --> 0:24:36.479 was found. This is a person with a history of 0:24:36.520 --> 0:24:40.000