Speaker 1: It's a clear fall day in America's heart land. You
Speaker 1: sit in a chair outside your trailer contently looking out
Speaker 1: over your farm. It's cool and the sun is setting
Speaker 1: behind the dense forest that surround your property. Everything seems
Speaker 1: just right. That evening, your stepdaughter and Nette, stops by
Speaker 1: with her boyfriend. You and your wife were pretty upset
Speaker 1: when Annette told you she was moving away from the
Speaker 1: farm and moving in with her boyfriend, Todd and his
Speaker 1: parents downtown. You don't want a Nette to be caught
Speaker 1: up with someone from town. All those townies seemed to
Speaker 1: care about his church and gossip. You want nothing to
Speaker 1: do with them, and they don't seem to want anything
Speaker 1: to do with you. But in Net's already eighteen, she's
Speaker 1: an adult. You can't really control her. You try to
Speaker 1: act supportive, so you nod to Todd and helping Nette
Speaker 1: pack the last of her things into his trunk. You
Speaker 1: give her a hug before she gets into the car
Speaker 1: with him, and you watch as Todd pulls away to
Speaker 1: drive them back into town, and you're feeling a little helpless.
Speaker 1: The next day is pretty routine for you. You pick
Speaker 1: up loads of hay to bring to your barn, it's
Speaker 1: strenuous work. You work hard all day, you're exhausted, and
Speaker 1: you go to bed early. The next morning, the phone rings.
Speaker 1: It's Todd's mother. She says, Arend and Todd with you? No,
Speaker 1: you say, I thought they were with you. Todd's mother
Speaker 1: becomes frantic. She says, the kids went for a walk
Speaker 1: around four pm yesterday and they never came home last night.
Speaker 1: But there's something else going on there. There's a hint
Speaker 1: of something, a tone of accusation in her voice, like
Speaker 1: she's somehow blaming you. You hang up and call the
Speaker 1: police immediately. You wait all day, hoping to hear something,
Speaker 1: but there's nothing. You're just waiting and waiting, and the
Speaker 1: police finally get back to you in the evening. They
Speaker 1: can't find them. One sleepless night bleeds into another, and
Speaker 1: then another and another. This is one terrible nightmare for
Speaker 1: you and your wife. Ten days go on like this.
Speaker 1: All you and your wife can do is sit and worry.
Speaker 1: You're not eating, you're not sleeping, you don't know what
Speaker 1: to do with yourselves. It's raining outside. When you finally
Speaker 1: get a call from an officer, and you can hear
Speaker 1: it in the tone of their voice. This is not
Speaker 1: going to be good. Um, the news I have for
Speaker 1: you is not going to be easy to hear. He says,
Speaker 1: we found Todd in the net in the Hawking River.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. You you can't stand. Your body is trembling.
Speaker 1: You try to restate what the officer just said. You're
Speaker 1: trying to wrap your head around what this means. You
Speaker 1: found their bodies, their dead bodies. The officer says, they
Speaker 1: didn't find their whole bodies, just their torsos. Their bodies
Speaker 1: have been dismembered. You're completely sick. Officers spent two days
Speaker 1: searching the corn fields between the railroad tracks and the
Speaker 1: river where the torsos were found. They find Todd in
Speaker 1: the nets, limbs and heads buried in shallow graves. You
Speaker 1: and your wife drive into town to the police station,
Speaker 1: and you're taken aback by the attitudes of these cops.
Speaker 1: When you're separated from your wife and pulled into an
Speaker 1: interrogation room, officers tell you to take off your boots,
Speaker 1: your shirt, your pants. You sit shivering in your underwear
Speaker 1: for eight and a half hours, and then the detective
Speaker 1: comes in. He sits down right next to you, puts
Speaker 1: his finger in your face and says you did this.
Speaker 1: We know you did this. We found your bootprint down
Speaker 1: by the river bank. Once we match that boot to
Speaker 1: the print that was left at that river bank, it
Speaker 1: will prove you were there. You kill your stepdaughter, and
Speaker 1: then you, sick bastard, you cut off her arms, her legs,
Speaker 1: her head. You better confess, because I'll tell you right now.
Speaker 1: It's gonna get worse for you if you don't. You say,
Speaker 1: over and over and over again, what in the world
Speaker 1: are you talking about. I didn't murder a net. I
Speaker 1: just came here to help you find out who did.
Speaker 1: What is this all about. They don't have enough evidence
Speaker 1: to charge you for the murder of Annette and Todd,
Speaker 1: so they have to let you go. They impound your
Speaker 1: car so it can be searched for evidence. It's dark
Speaker 1: and cold when they drive you home. They let you
Speaker 1: and your wife out of the car and you're still
Speaker 1: naked except for your underwear. You walk barefoot to your trailer.
Speaker 1: Your toes are totally dumb by the time you get
Speaker 1: to the door. Downtown, rumors start to spread. People are
Speaker 1: saying this murder must have been some kind of cult ritual,
Speaker 1: that it must have been you who did it? The quiet,
Speaker 1: stern stepfather who never says much, never goes to church,
Speaker 1: keeps his family hidden away. Who knows what goes on
Speaker 1: at that farm. They didn't like you before, but now
Speaker 1: they're straight up hostile. They crossed the street to get
Speaker 1: away from you when they see you coming. It takes
Speaker 1: them a year to build a case against you. Are
Speaker 1: they even looking at other suspects. The whispering of your
Speaker 1: name around town grows to a fever pitch. You can
Speaker 1: hear their accusations ring in your ears. Murderer, molester. You're
Speaker 1: eventually arrested in charge with the butchering murder of your
Speaker 1: stepdaughter in Net and her boyfriend Todd. When you finally
Speaker 1: go to court, you do something very out of the ordinary.
Speaker 1: You waive the right to a jury trial. Finding twelve
Speaker 1: impartial people in Logan, Ohio really not gonna happen. The newspapers,
Speaker 1: everyone around town, they all think you're guilty. Everyone just
Speaker 1: wants to feel safe again. They won't be satisfied until
Speaker 1: someone is convicted and they are sure that person is you.
Speaker 1: Instead of a jury, you put your fate in the
Speaker 1: hands of a three judge panel. A jury might not
Speaker 1: see it. But three judges they have to. It's their
Speaker 1: job to apply the facts to the law without any
Speaker 1: outside influence from the court of public opinion. Your lawyer
Speaker 1: calls to the standard FBI analysts, who says the plaster
Speaker 1: mold of what the prosecution claims is your bootprint at
Speaker 1: the river bank is quote unquote unsuitable. The analyst says
Speaker 1: it lacks sufficient detail for meaningful comparison, and that it
Speaker 1: looks more like the footprint of someone who was walking barefoot.
Speaker 1: There is no way to claim your boots match that print,
Speaker 1: so you're optimistic. But then the prosecution calls an anthropology
Speaker 1: professor to the stand. She says she studied footwear impressions
Speaker 1: of countless samples. Her delivery is slow and deliberate and
Speaker 1: really credible. She says, quote, no person's footprints are the
Speaker 1: same as another. There is unique as a fingerprint. I've
Speaker 1: analyzed the wear patterns and the inside of the defendant's boot,
Speaker 1: and I can say with certainty, scientific certainty, that the
Speaker 1: footprint found by the river bank was made by the defendant.
Speaker 1: This sounds unbelievable, but you see the judges are nodding along.
Speaker 1: There's no whether buying this is there after a very
Speaker 1: short deliberation, the judges apparently believed the testimony of the
Speaker 1: prosecution's anthropologists who put you right at the scene of
Speaker 1: the crime. They convict you, and you are sentenced to death.
Speaker 1: The story you just heard is based on the murders
Speaker 1: of Annette Cooper Johnston and Todd Schultz Dale. Johnston was
Speaker 1: wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death in he was exonerated
Speaker 1: in over twenty years after the murder, the true killer
Speaker 1: finally confessed, but even then the people in the town
Speaker 1: of Logan still chose to believe that Dale was guilty
Speaker 1: in one way or another. On today's episode, we're going
Speaker 1: to examine how a supposed footprint put an innocent man
Speaker 1: on death row. I'm Josh Duban, civil rights and criminal
Speaker 1: defense attorney, an innocence ambassador to the Innocence Project in
Speaker 1: New York. Today, on Wrongful Conviction junk Science, we examine
Speaker 1: footwear comparison evidence, even when done correctly, impression analysis of
Speaker 1: evidence like shoe prints and tire tracks as purely subjective.
Speaker 1: Many experts recognize its limitations, but one so called expert
Speaker 1: in particular pushed the limits of this forensic discipline to
Speaker 1: produce horrific outcomes. It turns out that Dale Johnson wasn't
Speaker 1: the only innocent person to be convicted of a crime
Speaker 1: based on faulty footwear comparison evidence. The Pacers Foundation is
Speaker 1: a proud supporter of this episode and of the Last
Speaker 1: Mile organization, which provides business and tech training to help
Speaker 1: incarcerated individuals successfully and permanently re enter the workforce. The
Speaker 1: Pacers Foundation is committed to improving the lives of hoosiers
Speaker 1: across Indiana, supporting organizations dedicated primarily to helping young people
Speaker 1: and students. For more information on the work of the
Speaker 1: Pacers Foundation or the Last Mile Program, visit Pacers Foundation
Speaker 1: dot org or the Last Mile dot org. In archaeologists
Speaker 1: made one of the most exciting discoveries of our time.
Speaker 1: They found footprints dating back three point seven million years
Speaker 1: immortalized in the volcanic ash in Tanzania, and they looked
Speaker 1: like human prints. Archaeologists were thrilled. They thought these footprints
Speaker 1: could shed some light on when human beings began walking
Speaker 1: upright on two ft. Luis Robbins was an anthropology professor
Speaker 1: at the University of North Carolina. At Greensboro. She too
Speaker 1: was excited about these footprints and wanted to know exactly
Speaker 1: who left them behind. Louise had been conducting her own
Speaker 1: studies and footprint analysis. She started collecting footprints from people
Speaker 1: who were still alive. Five people put ink onto their
Speaker 1: feet and then stood on a piece of paper. Based
Speaker 1: on those prints, Louise tried to find characteristics and feet
Speaker 1: that were specific to age, sex, stature, and wait. Using
Speaker 1: her own system of measurement. She would then compare those
Speaker 1: characteristics to the footprints found in the caves. Her conclusion,
Speaker 1: no two footprints are the same. In fact, she thought
Speaker 1: she could tell a great deal about a person just
Speaker 1: by looking at their footprint. Her methods were never tested
Speaker 1: by her peers, nor were they confirmed by other scientists,
Speaker 1: But Louise she thought she was onto something. She claimed
Speaker 1: to do something. No one else could identify a person
Speaker 1: solely through their footprint, and so in n to eight,
Speaker 1: when a team of scientists went to excavate the site
Speaker 1: in Tanzania where the prehistoric footprints were found, Louise went
Speaker 1: to when she saw the prince, she claimed that one
Speaker 1: of them was left by a woman that was five
Speaker 1: and a half months pregnant. Now, other scientists on the
Speaker 1: expedition scratched their heads. It was hard enough to figure
Speaker 1: out if the prints that they were looking at were
Speaker 1: even human at all. No one had ever claimed to
Speaker 1: know the gender of the person that made the print,
Speaker 1: let alone of that person was carrying a child. Then
Speaker 1: Louise took a dangerous leap. She positioned herself as a
Speaker 1: forensic expert, authoring a book on footprints. She didn't write
Speaker 1: this book with her scientific peers in mind, but she
Speaker 1: wrote it for law enforcement and crime labs. Only five
Speaker 1: pages in this book were dedicated to the analysis of
Speaker 1: actual shoe prints, and yet based on these five pages,
Speaker 1: Louise claimed that she was an expert in this area
Speaker 1: of forensic science. Lawyers began to hire her as an
Speaker 1: expert witness. They told judges that her work was on
Speaker 1: the cutting edge of forensic science. Critics of her work
Speaker 1: called it Cinderella analysis. After all, she usually made sure
Speaker 1: that the shoe fit when she matched the suspects foot
Speaker 1: to the shoe prints found at a crime scene. In
Speaker 1: the more than twenty cases for which she testified, twelve people,
Speaker 1: some of whom who have since been proven to be
Speaker 1: innocent were sent to prison, including Dale Johnston, who was
Speaker 1: sentenced to death. Dale Johnson and his wife Sarah at
Speaker 1: the time, came down to Logan several days after the
Speaker 1: bodies had been discovered, and they they came to the
Speaker 1: Logan police department. They wanted to be helpful to them,
Speaker 1: and Dale was immediately taken up to an interrogation where
Speaker 1: him his boots, his pants, his shirt, we're all confiscated.
Speaker 1: So he was sitting there in the chair and his
Speaker 1: underwear and they were bombarding him. You did it, didn't you,
Speaker 1: And we know you did it, over and over and
Speaker 1: over again. He kept saying, no, I had nothing. I
Speaker 1: just came. I came into town to try to help.
Speaker 1: Here today is Bill Osinski, a journalist who covered the
Speaker 1: Dale Johnson case for years and wrote a book about
Speaker 1: it called Guilty by Popular Demand. So Bill, tell us
Speaker 1: a little bit about yourself and how you started covering
Speaker 1: this case for nearly forty years. I was a reporter.
Speaker 1: I worked for eleven different newspapers around the country. I
Speaker 1: worked for the Acron Beacon Journal at that time, which
Speaker 1: is nearly two hundred miles away from Logan on Hio,
Speaker 1: where the murders took place. But in those days, the
Speaker 1: newspapers valued a major story and would make that kind
Speaker 1: of an investment in time and resources to cover a
Speaker 1: widely publicized case like that. So, Bill, you actually went
Speaker 1: to Logan, Ohio to cover Dale's trial? What was that Like?
Speaker 1: I drove into Logan, which is about thirty five miles
Speaker 1: southeast of Columbus, Ohio. Never been there before, and I
Speaker 1: drove in on a January morning, and it was one
Speaker 1: of the coldest days I can remember. Temperatures were well
Speaker 1: below zero. And I went to the center of the
Speaker 1: little town and found the courthouse. And here, you know,
Speaker 1: eight o'clock on a weekday morning, there was a line
Speaker 1: outside the courthouse. People were standing in that below zero
Speaker 1: cold waiting for a chance to get into hear all
Speaker 1: this salacious details of this horrific murder of a teenage
Speaker 1: couple who were found uh, dismembered parts of their bodies
Speaker 1: buried in a cornfield near the Hocking River in Logan, Ohio. Wow,
Speaker 1: this is a really brutal crime. I mean, you have
Speaker 1: body parts buried in in fields. And the prosecutors claimed
Speaker 1: that del Johnson committed these murders and putting aside what
Speaker 1: his motive would have been. Um, how did they claim
Speaker 1: he committed the murders? The prosecutor alleged in a scenario
Speaker 1: that Dale Johnston had kidnapped these two kids in downtown Logan,
Speaker 1: made a stop on his way home at a doctor's
Speaker 1: office and drove him on to his trailer, where they
Speaker 1: got into an argument about a little used car that
Speaker 1: the parents were supposed to have given a net but
Speaker 1: hadn't yet. And out of that argument, Dale went into
Speaker 1: a jealous fit and pulled out a gun which they
Speaker 1: never found, and shot his stepdaughter and a boyfriend, and
Speaker 1: then took them outside apparently and butchered them, and then
Speaker 1: brought them back to on town Logan where they had
Speaker 1: last been seen, and put some body parts, heads and
Speaker 1: limbs in the cornfield. I mean, it just it made
Speaker 1: absolutely no sense. They had no evidence that that he
Speaker 1: was actually back in town at night trying to bury
Speaker 1: these bodies. But that's what they all let Dale was
Speaker 1: not a warm guy. I mean he you know, he
Speaker 1: was the outsider. He didn't have a high opinion of
Speaker 1: the locals. They didn't like him, you know, he was
Speaker 1: convenient guy for them to hang it on. So Bill
Speaker 1: did anyone think that Dale was innocent. I mean, what
Speaker 1: was your sense of of the you know, atmosphere surrounding
Speaker 1: the case. There was such an atmosphere of the cages
Speaker 1: having been already tried in the court of public opinion
Speaker 1: before the trial even started. More than a year passed
Speaker 1: between the murderers and the trial, and obviously the only
Speaker 1: story coming out of the instigation was that Dale Johnson
Speaker 1: did it. So that in effect, was why the defense
Speaker 1: waved a jury trial and asked for a three judge panel,
Speaker 1: because they knew that that people in Hockey County were
Speaker 1: so predisposed to believe that Dale Johnson was the killer. Now,
Speaker 1: very little evidence was found at the scenes where these
Speaker 1: body parts were found, but we know investigators found some
Speaker 1: sort of print in the mud by the river bank.
Speaker 1: And Dale goes down to the police station with his
Speaker 1: wife Sarah, and he thinks he's going there to help
Speaker 1: them find the killers, but they confiscate his boots, and
Speaker 1: of course those boots would be compared to the impression
Speaker 1: found at the scene. So tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: more about what happened. There were so many cops out
Speaker 1: there that, according to the testimony of an Ohio Bureau
Speaker 1: of Investigation agent. They totally ruined the crime scene as
Speaker 1: far as being able to collect any valid evidence. They
Speaker 1: were they were cops pomping all over. Well, what happened
Speaker 1: was the sheriff of Hockey County had a impression made
Speaker 1: of a depression in the river bank and they made
Speaker 1: it casting, and they sent it off to the FBI,
Speaker 1: and it was examined by a nationally known footprint expert
Speaker 1: at the FBI, and he was brought in to testify
Speaker 1: to his findings, and he testified that, well, all he
Speaker 1: could say that this casting was more likely a footprint
Speaker 1: than any kind of a shoe print or bootprint. And however,
Speaker 1: he forwarded this plaster casts at his own volition to
Speaker 1: a woman anthropologist, Louise Robbins, for her examination. And she
Speaker 1: had a a theory of how he could identify footprints
Speaker 1: from the wear patterns on the inside of someone's footwear.
Speaker 1: She had this cockamami theory that by examining the interior
Speaker 1: of a footwear she could get wear impressions and use
Speaker 1: that to analyze the casting of a print from a
Speaker 1: shoe or a boot. And so she she testified and
Speaker 1: trial that, well, you can't really say that Dale Johnson's
Speaker 1: boot fits this, but from the wear patterns that she
Speaker 1: observed from the interior of the boot, when you looked
Speaker 1: at it that way, then yes, this was made by
Speaker 1: Dale Johnson's boot. And you know, I had never heard
Speaker 1: of that before. It didn't make any sense to me.
Speaker 1: It was only later, after the damage was done, that
Speaker 1: it came out how irresponsible and unreliable and untrue. Her
Speaker 1: testimony was, so let me hit this straight. This is like,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of mind blowing here. Louise Robbins said
Speaker 1: that she could match the depression found by the river
Speaker 1: bank to Dale based on where patterns made by his
Speaker 1: foot inside his boot. I mean, it just sounds ridiculous.
Speaker 1: I've never even heard of that before. This seems to
Speaker 1: go so far outside the bounds of any verifiable science.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's important for our listeners to keep
Speaker 1: in mind that with impression pattern matching methods, um, that's
Speaker 1: that's the type of signs we're talking about, or ledge
Speaker 1: science that we're talking about. With shoe prints and tires,
Speaker 1: there's a database that experts have and they refer to
Speaker 1: this database when they're matching a shoe or a tire
Speaker 1: to an impression at a scene, and tires and shoes
Speaker 1: are mass produced, so the same rubber mold is used
Speaker 1: to make them. But that just tells an expert what
Speaker 1: class that piece of evidence came from. So, for instance,
Speaker 1: they can say that this footwear impression was made by
Speaker 1: a size ten Nike Air Jordans. But the problem is
Speaker 1: a lot of people own a size ten Nike Air Jordan's,
Speaker 1: so it's not enough to put somebody at the scene.
Speaker 1: So impression analysis really comes down to the individual characteristics
Speaker 1: in the specific shoe or shoes that belong to the accused,
Speaker 1: and we're talking about things like um cracks in the
Speaker 1: sole of the shoe, gums stuck to the bottom of
Speaker 1: the heel, you know, characteristics that are often caused by
Speaker 1: routine wear and tear. But the problem is there is
Speaker 1: no standard regarding the number of unique characteristics that are
Speaker 1: needed to make a positive identification. And it sounds like
Speaker 1: from the mold they were working with in this case
Speaker 1: that the FBI analysts couldn't even tell if the impression
Speaker 1: was made by a bare foot or a shoe, let
Speaker 1: alone what kind of a shoe. So that should tell
Speaker 1: you something about the quality of the impression they were
Speaker 1: working with. But miss Robbins makes this huge leap, and
Speaker 1: it's really really hard to imagine that this could have
Speaker 1: been allowed in a courtroom when someone's freedom was on
Speaker 1: the line. And yet here she is one of the
Speaker 1: prosecution's key witnesses when it came to analyzing the physical
Speaker 1: evidence of the scene. Um So, how prominently did Miss
Speaker 1: Robin's testimony play in the prosecution's closing arguments? Bill, Well,
Speaker 1: it was very prominent because it was the only piece
Speaker 1: of evidence that link they'll Johnson to the murder shape.
Speaker 1: I thought it was a very weak link to begin with,
Speaker 1: but apparently it was strong enough for three judges. His
Speaker 1: closing line was, murder is the ultimate form of molenstation,
Speaker 1: so you must be guilty of murder too. He had,
Speaker 1: of course, been alleging without evidence that deal Johnson had
Speaker 1: inappropriate relationship with Annette. So after he's convicted, um and sentenced,
Speaker 1: what happens next? Bill? He was sent immediately to death row.
Speaker 1: But you know, it was such a weird, hostile atmosphere
Speaker 1: in that town. I mean, I will never forget. When
Speaker 1: it came time for the verdict, all the spectators had
Speaker 1: gathered on the lower level of the courthouse that listened
Speaker 1: to the verdict by radio, and I will never forget
Speaker 1: that when the guilty verdict was announced, there was this
Speaker 1: eerie cheering that came from below, you know, that filled
Speaker 1: up the core room. And these people wanted somebody to
Speaker 1: pay and deal. Johnston happened to be the guy who
Speaker 1: they were able to hang it on. I mean, it
Speaker 1: seems Bill that they didn't even have anything other than
Speaker 1: a hunch um that Dale Johnston did this. I mean,
Speaker 1: I it's hard to make sense of this. I mean,
Speaker 1: do you think that they did this on purpose? Do
Speaker 1: you think that they set out to frame Dale Johnson? Well,
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone wants to accept that the prosecutors
Speaker 1: and police would knowingly fabricate an entire case against the
Speaker 1: murder defendant. And uh, I know, I came down to
Speaker 1: Logan with no preconceptis I do remember, you know, having
Speaker 1: the belief that you know, the state wouldn't bring these
Speaker 1: charges unless they had something against this guy. And by
Speaker 1: the end, I said, where is the case? I was
Speaker 1: shocked at the prosecutor's summary. I mean it was it
Speaker 1: was total high opera and total total fantasy. Everything that
Speaker 1: was presented in that trial was alive. I believe somewhere
Speaker 1: before I die, I'm going to learn the truth in
Speaker 1: this case. And and then just so happens that I did.
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting that oftentimes, when one of these
Speaker 1: disciplines of junk science is used in a case and
Speaker 1: the person is convicted, it's not the exposure of that
Speaker 1: junk science as being total bullshit that leads to the exoneration.
Speaker 1: It's often that DNA testing is used to prove that
Speaker 1: they have the wrong person. Um. What's really interesting about
Speaker 1: this case is that Dale is eventually released from prison
Speaker 1: because his lawyers were able to prove that some of
Speaker 1: the evidence that was used to convictim was not admissible.
Speaker 1: And oddly enough, it wasn't the shoe evidence that was
Speaker 1: thrown out, but another witnesses testimony. It turns out that
Speaker 1: a witness had been hypnotized by a detective and was
Speaker 1: persuaded to give this awful testimony against Dale at the trial,
Speaker 1: and you know, testimony that he like forcefully put a
Speaker 1: net in and Todd into a car. And that testimony
Speaker 1: was never supposed to be admitted in court. Um, And
Speaker 1: that was what was deemed inadmissible, and Dale was let
Speaker 1: out because of that, and of course Louise Robbins testimony
Speaker 1: about his you know, the inside wear patterns on his
Speaker 1: boots um, you know, being definitive proof that the impression
Speaker 1: left on the river bank was his that was left undisturbed.
Speaker 1: And everyone still believed he was guilty. But then someone
Speaker 1: else confessed to murdering a net and Todd, so Bill
Speaker 1: tell us about that. Who actually committed this crime, a
Speaker 1: sorry little fellow named Chester McKnight was nicknamed Chester the
Speaker 1: Suster just because apparently because it was weird, and uh,
Speaker 1: it was a habitual criminal, habitual drunk, even though he
Speaker 1: had a history of assaults against women. And Chester actually
Speaker 1: got married and then lasted a couple of weeks before
Speaker 1: she kicked him out and left. And it was in
Speaker 1: that atmosphere where Chester just went over the deep end
Speaker 1: and was drinking day in and day out. He was
Speaker 1: obviously depressed, the wife had left him, and he was
Speaker 1: just drinking incessantly. He came on that afternoon, early evening
Speaker 1: of October fourth, to Kenny Lynn Scott's house, a local
Speaker 1: drug dealer. You know, they were drinking buddies. Anyway, there
Speaker 1: was a kind of a makeshift party in Kenney's yard
Speaker 1: and Chester joined in and here comes Todd in the net.
Speaker 1: So they joined the party for a little while. I
Speaker 1: think they may have had a beer, and uh, Chester
Speaker 1: decided to hey, let's keep the party going. I've got
Speaker 1: some I've got some stuff. And so they started walking
Speaker 1: down the railroad tracks and according to Chester's account, he
Speaker 1: wanted to have group sex with Annette, and she of course,
Speaker 1: you know, and and Todd tried to get her out
Speaker 1: of the situation, and that's when Chester pulled a gun
Speaker 1: and shot him, and that started screaming. She shot her.
Speaker 1: At that point, Chester and Kenny dragged the bodies down
Speaker 1: to the riverfront at the edge of the cornfield and
Speaker 1: dismembered them. And Kenny, maybe with help maybe not, got
Speaker 1: the bodies back into the cornfield and dug shallow holes
Speaker 1: and put the limbs and the heads into a kind
Speaker 1: of a bare spot in the middle of the cornfield
Speaker 1: that he knew about. And Kenny the next few nights
Speaker 1: he would go out to that railroad bridge and cry
Speaker 1: and moan, and friends say what's wrong Kenny, And he
Speaker 1: told him, you know, you wouldn't understand his neighbors knew
Speaker 1: what he was doing. His neighbors saw his behavior. His
Speaker 1: neighbors told the police that they should be investigating him,
Speaker 1: but they never did, and they did have a record then,
Speaker 1: of this strange call made the night before the body
Speaker 1: parts were found. Kenny Lynn Scott made the call and said,
Speaker 1: have you found the bodies yet? And nobody at that
Speaker 1: point knew that the kids were even dead or that
Speaker 1: there were bodies to be found, And that call was
Speaker 1: logged and it became the thing that that led to
Speaker 1: Kenny and ultimately to Chester. And so I have a
Speaker 1: law enforcement source that helped me with this, and he
Speaker 1: told me that, you know, everybody knew Kenny was acting
Speaker 1: weird after the killings, and he said, well, let's go
Speaker 1: talk to Kenny. And the sheriff says, no, no, we
Speaker 1: we can find him when the we need him. So
Speaker 1: at the very beginning, Lynn Scott's name came up, but
Speaker 1: yet the police just dismissed him right out of my hand.
Speaker 1: In reflecting on all this, I just want to go
Speaker 1: back to Louis Robin's testimony about the shoe print for
Speaker 1: a moment. I understand why Jerry would be persuaded by her. Um,
Speaker 1: she's got this anthropology degree, she's a professor, Um, she
Speaker 1: comes across. I'm sure convincingly she went and studied these
Speaker 1: ancient footprints in Tanzania. Um, that all makes sense. But
Speaker 1: the three judges hearing this, you know, the inside were
Speaker 1: patterns on the boot and that being definitive proof that
Speaker 1: it was Dale Johnson's bootprint. I mean, what what did
Speaker 1: they make of her testimony? I can tell you how
Speaker 1: strongly her testimony was accepted. Years later, you know, when
Speaker 1: the real truth came out. I interviewed two of the
Speaker 1: three judges in the case and they both said, well,
Speaker 1: we had Dr Robbins testimony before us, and that was
Speaker 1: very convincing. This was even after they learned the truth,
Speaker 1: after they learned that everything this woman said was was
Speaker 1: a lie, they still wanted to wanted to believe in her.
Speaker 1: I have summed up this case as a total collapse
Speaker 1: of a local justice system and I and I still
Speaker 1: believe that. It left me with such a sense of
Speaker 1: outrage that this kind of thing can be done in
Speaker 1: our system of justice. Tom, And I mean, you know
Speaker 1: it was it was not even close. But the lies
Speaker 1: that were told in that courtroom were enough to send
Speaker 1: an end to Someman to death row sitting there through
Speaker 1: the entire trial. It is they never they never presented
Speaker 1: a rational case, and the evidence that they did present
Speaker 1: was you know, challenged very successfully by the defense. I mean,
Speaker 1: what I learned is that someone with an academic position
Speaker 1: and and the claim of scientific expertise is automatically granted
Speaker 1: some level of believability, even by judges and and and
Speaker 1: prosecutors and investigators. And they really accepted Louise Robbins testimony,
Speaker 1: and as fact I called it in my book Fantasy Forensics,
Speaker 1: and as events have proven, it was totally fabricated. I
Speaker 1: can only attribute it to the desire to get a conviction,
Speaker 1: any conviction. That people in that town were petrified. The
Speaker 1: judges knew it, They knew what would happen if they
Speaker 1: didn't get a conviction, and they knew that they wouldn't
Speaker 1: have another crack at Dale Johnson if they acquitted him.
Speaker 1: So they convicted him and and just you know, went
Speaker 1: went back home. The use of Dr Robbins is a
Speaker 1: forensic expert, is an example of walking go horribly wrong
Speaker 1: when courts allow unverified signs into our courtrooms. She testified
Speaker 1: in twenty cases, truly a hired gun by attorneys looking
Speaker 1: for a particular outcome. Her work was reviewed by a
Speaker 1: panel of a hundred and thirty five anthropologists, forensic scientists, lawyers,
Speaker 1: and legal scholars sponsored by the American Academy of Forensic Sciences,
Speaker 1: and they concluded that her methodology for identification had no
Speaker 1: basis in science, but the damage had already been done.
Speaker 1: Dale Johnson spent four years on death row for a
Speaker 1: double homicide that he didn't commit. But he was fortunate
Speaker 1: and that even though his trial left him impoverished, his
Speaker 1: attorney stayed on his case pro bono and took on
Speaker 1: the appeals. The psychological trauma inflicted on those who were
Speaker 1: wrongfully convicted, especially for people who are innocent and sit
Speaker 1: on death row, is well documented. It isn't just the
Speaker 1: conviction that stays with the wrongfully convicted, it's the aftermath.
Speaker 1: Dale lost it all. He lost his step daughter, his property,
Speaker 1: his wife divorced him. It wasn't until well into his eighties,
Speaker 1: actually earlier this year, that Dale finally received some compensation
Speaker 1: for his time spent in prison. The Innocence Project provides
Speaker 1: support for therapy and social services for its clients who
Speaker 1: are forced to cope with the harms associated with their
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction. You can donate to the Innocence Project by
Speaker 1: visiting www. Dot Innocence Project dot org, slash give. Next week,
Speaker 1: we'll explore the junk science of fingerprint evidence. Wrongful Conviction.
Speaker 1: Junk Science is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
Speaker 1: in association with Signal Company Number One. Thanks to our
Speaker 1: executive producer Jason Flom and the team, it's Signal Company
Speaker 1: number One executive producer Kevin Wardis and senior producers Kara
Speaker 1: corn Haber and Britt Spengler. Our music was composed by
Speaker 1: j Ralph. You can follow me on Instagram at dubin dot.
Speaker 1: Josh followed the Wrongful Conviction podcast on Facebook and on
Speaker 1: Instagram at wrongful Conviction and on Twitter at wrong Conviction