WEBVTT - #455 Jason Flom with Darrell Siggers at the 2024 Innocence Conference 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:03.280 The following interview was recorded in person at the twenty 0:00:03.360 --> 0:00:10.080 twenty four Innocent Network conference in New Orleans. On February sixteenth, 0:00:10.240 --> 0:00:13.160 nineteen eighty four, a fight broke out at a party 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:17.160 in Detroit, Michigan, and three young men were told to leave. 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:21.440 About a block and a half away, a gunman opened 0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:25.640 fire on them, fatally shooting twenty five year old James Montgomery. 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:30.800 The police focused on those who attended the party, including 0:00:31.280 --> 0:00:34.760 twenty year old Daryl Singers, even though the shots came 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:37.760 from about one hundred feet away in the dark. The 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:41.960 two survivors identified Daryl as a shooter. Then the police 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:45.959 sergeant testified that bullets found near Darrell's apartment matched bullets 0:00:46.000 --> 0:00:55.000 pulled from the body. But this is wrongful conviction. Wrongful 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:57.960 conviction has always given voice to innocent people in prison, 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:01.639 and now we're expanding that voice to you. Call us 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:04.959 at eight three three two o seven four six sixty 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:07.319 six and tell us how these stories make you feel 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:09.920 and what you've done to help the cause, even if 0:01:09.959 --> 0:01:12.759 it's something as simple as telling a friend or sharing 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:16.120 on social media, and you might just hear yourself in 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:19.679 a future episode. Call Us eight three three two oh 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:32.959 seven four six sixty six. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:36.640 Today's episode. Well, if you're not angry by the end 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:38.920 of this, you weren't paying attention. You should probably rewind 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:41.120 and do it again. And this is a story that 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:44.640 comes out of Detroit, Michigan that probably will surprise no 0:01:44.680 --> 0:01:45.680 one who listens. 0:01:45.360 --> 0:01:45.839 To the show. 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:49.480 So here to tell the story is the man himself, 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:53.760 Darryl Siggers, who lived through this thirty four year nightmare 0:01:53.800 --> 0:01:58.200 of wrongful conviction. Darryl, glad you're here. Yes, thank you, 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:03.760 thanks for being here with him to present this incredible story. 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:07.520 Is his attorney, Wolfgang Mueller. Go by Wolf right Wolf, 0:02:07.600 --> 0:02:09.959 and I love Wolf because Wolf was just flying upside down. 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:10.280 Yeah. 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:14.320 Yeah, So Darryl, before we get into this crime, what 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:15.600 was your life like growing up? 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:18.280 Did you grow up in Detroit? Yes, East Satura, Detroit. 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:20.600 It's real rough, but my mother and father it tried 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:22.520 to do the best that it could to keep a 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:25.640 handle on us. At the age of sixteen, some things changed. 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:28.800 I'm began to smoke weed, I start having sex and 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:32.480 going to dance parties, and I had a real direction. 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:34.720 I'm just finding myself at this point. 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:36.840 Sounds about like my life too, you know what I mean, 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:38.799 except when we grew up in very different zip codes, 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:40.680 And I'm very aware that the color of my skin 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:43.040 and the place and neighborhood I grew up and had 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:44.720 a lot to do with me not ending up where 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:45.280 you ended. 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:47.800 Up in my neighborhood. They had all these type of 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:51.040 different police units. They had STRESS. 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:54.200 The Detroit police in the late sixties and early seventies 0:02:54.240 --> 0:02:57.120 had a unit. STRESS was the acronym Stop the Robberies 0:02:57.160 --> 0:02:59.480 and enjoys Safe Streets. It was a bunch of big 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:02.800 white who would abuse black men. 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:06.320 It was doing horrible stuff to guys in the hood. 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:09.680 Every time anybody in my neighborhood spoke with the police, 0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:10.880 it was not a good. 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:14.800 Outcome, including planting evidence on them that one cop was 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:17.880 charge of planting a knife on a person he shot. 0:03:17.960 --> 0:03:20.480 So there was such abuse of black people, black men, 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:23.919 particularly in that timeframe. They ended up disbanding the STRESS 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:27.120 unit because of that abuse. And so when Darryl talks 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:30.720 about in his neighborhood, if the police are coming, it 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:32.720 is not going to be a good outcome. It's because 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:35.160 they had that historical perspective. 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:39.360 And Detroit was is no different from so many jurisdictions 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:42.840 across the country where we see co werced and incentivized witnesses, 0:03:42.960 --> 0:03:47.240 junk science, cops or experts test the lying, all of 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:49.360 which appeared to have been a factor in this case, 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:52.640 which started in nineteen eighty four when Daryl was twenty 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:56.080 years old. He had two children with his ex girlfriend, Christine, 0:03:56.160 --> 0:03:59.480 who threw a party on February sixteenth, nineteen eighty four, 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:04.160 attended by the victims in this case, Derek Lawson, Renard Jackson, 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:05.680 and James Montgomery. 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:08.440 There were a lot of people at the party, Daryl 0:04:08.520 --> 0:04:11.680 being one of them and being eighteen nineteen, twenty years old, 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:15.000 a lot of testosterone mixed with alcohol, I think, and 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:19.080 somebody dating Daryl's baby mama and he's in the house. 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:21.279 Things got to be a little heated. There was a 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:23.640 fight that broke out and a guy who was at 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:27.000 the party named Toby Red real light skinned guy, black 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:30.160 guy who passed for white, reddish hair. How he got 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:32.720 the name. He leaves the party after getting in a 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:35.640 brawl with one of these guys and he walks out 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:38.360 of the house threatening I'll be back. I got something 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:42.000 for your ass. Several minutes later, the three guys who 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:44.200 were ultimately the victims who got shot at one of 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:46.760 whom Montgomery got killed. They leave the house. About a 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:49.440 block and a half away, somebody comes out between two 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:54.000 houses with a rifle and shoots Montgomery gets killed to 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:56.440 the other guy as they run away, and the police 0:04:56.720 --> 0:04:59.800 end up finding out that there was this party. The 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:03.159 interview everybody at the party. They interview a guy named 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:06.440 Gary Kelly, who lives a block in a half down 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:10.200 where the shooting happened. Kelly ends up telling the lead detective, 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:12.920 Joseph Alex, there was a light skin guy. I thought 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:15.000 it was my white neighbor. He was wearing a light 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:17.360 blue shirt. This is February, it's cold, but he's wearing 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:20.240 a light blue shirt. He's carrying a long gun walking 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:24.280 past his garage. Alex interviews that neighbor. That guy says 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:27.799 it wasn't me, and so Alex now closes this alternate 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:29.039 suspect issue. 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:32.279 There was another neighbor who not only saw, but spoke 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:34.760 with this light skin man and gave a lot more detail, 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:37.560 But it appears Detective Alex may have chosen to keep 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:42.200 that information to himself instead. Daryl's name came up, and 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:44.480 we're not sure who was the initial source or why 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:48.160 he was mentioned, but the shooting survivors, Lawson and Jackson, 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:51.159 a few days after the shooting, eventually claimed to have 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:54.599 recognized Daryl as the shooter from one hundred feet away 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:55.680 in the dark. 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:59.479 The evidence against Darryl came down to a kid who 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:02.320 was drunk and hi who said it was Darryl Siggers. 0:06:02.360 --> 0:06:04.320 They call him little Man. He was the guy who 0:06:04.320 --> 0:06:07.919 shot us. As soon as they got somebody, the expediency 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:10.839 of it makes them not look at anybody else and 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:14.320 ignore all of the other evidence that might suggest it's 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:16.599 not who they think it is, and they just focused 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:16.960 on him. 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:19.680 I didn't know at that time. Somebody got killed. Well, 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:22.960 a couple days after the party, my son and daughter's mother, Christine, 0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:25.520 calls me. She said, the police came back. They want 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:27.720 to talk to you. A guy got killed. She said, well, 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:30.800 I gave them your father's number, so they called. So 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:32.760 my father convinced me. He said, listen, if you ain't 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:35.440 got none to hi, woay talk to these people. So 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:37.880 I agree to talk to him. I come back home. 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:40.479 As soon as I walked in the door, he said, 0:06:40.520 --> 0:06:43.280 you're under arrested first v murdered, slapped the cuffs on me. 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:46.000 After they arrest me, they take me to thirteen hundred 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:50.120 bogiin Detroit downtown. I'm on the ninth floor, and then 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:51.800 they bring me back down to the fifth floor, which 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:53.960 is homicide. They put you in this little bitty chair 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:57.160 and they leave you there for hours, this little iron chair, 0:06:57.720 --> 0:07:01.320 and they begin this good cop, bad cop routine. Good 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:03.679 cop comes and hey, would you like some water? Would 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:06.080 you like some coffee? I say yes. He go back 0:07:06.080 --> 0:07:08.520 out me and cop comes back in. We know you 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:11.080 did this. You're gonna tell us you did this. And 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:12.800 they go on and on back and forth with this, 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:14.960 and they keep you there for hours to their way down, 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:18.920 trying to get me to confess. I don't, so he 0:07:18.960 --> 0:07:22.640 gets frustrated with me after this long ordeal. I keep 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:24.680 telling this guy, you got the wrong guy. I don't 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:26.840 know who did this. I don't know nothing about this case. 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:29.360 And he says, listen, I'm gonna go get a pen 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:33.040 and a piece of paper and you're gonna tell me 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:35.400 that you did this or I'm gonna knock the shit 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:35.760 out of you. 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:37.080 Now. 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:39.600 I'm scared to death. I'm twenty years old, never been 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:43.480 in trouble, and here's a big white cop screaming and hollering. 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:47.400 So I look over. I see a window. I don't know, 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:50.400 I'm just high up. I run jump out the window, 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:57.480 five stories halfway down. I thought to myself this was 0:07:57.560 --> 0:08:01.200 not a good idea, but it was nothing I could do. 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:04.360 I couldn't go back up, so I falled three stories 0:08:04.360 --> 0:08:07.240 down on the landing boom roll over. And at this 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:10.440 point I'm an autopilot, So at this point I would 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:11.920 have liked to went back up, but I wasn't going 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:15.040 to sign a statement confessing to something that I didn't do. 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:17.000 So I felt like that was the only option. So 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:20.080 I jumped another two stories, hit a car, jumped on 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:23.239 the car, fell off, the car rolled over, hop broke 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:26.400 my ankle, broke my wrists, hobbled away. I got maybe 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:29.160 a couple of blocks away, thirty cops around me, They 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:31.960 got the George Floyd knee on my neck, thirty guns 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:34.960 pointed at me, and I'm an extreme pain. They get 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:36.880 me up, throw me in the car, take me to 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:39.200 the hospital, patch up my arm, patch up my leg, 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:41.000 and then take me to the county jail. 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:44.640 One minute you're talking to your father, everything's normal. Next 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:48.760 minute you're like living in this alternate reality. These cops 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:51.800 are threatening to beat you up or worse, and you 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:54.839 jump out the fucking window and you literally didn't know 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:55.600 what floyd you were on. 0:08:56.880 --> 0:08:59.960 They were terrorize me, and Who's I gonna call the police? 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:02.360 They were the ones who was cheerizing. There's nothing I 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:02.679 can do. 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:05.560 That's a miracle you lived through that. 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:07.440 You know, there was only one other guy had done that, 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:09.319 and he did die. He broke his neck. 0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:10.679 He broke out that same window. 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:12.480 Yeah, he broke his neck. 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:25.560 You're listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen to this 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:28.319 and all the Lava for Good podcasts one week early 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:31.800 and ad free by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:40.480 on Apple Podcasts. So now you're taken to jail and 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:42.880 held there for how long we're waiting trial? 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:47.680 Six months? Wayne County Jail, which is horrible, just horrible. 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:50.280 When I first got there, I got cast on my leg, 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:54.320 cast on my arm. I'm in his bullpin and it's alcoholics, 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:57.480 it's drug addicts. Is people laying all over the floor. 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:00.600 The stench is horrible. This room is built for maybe 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:03.160 like twenty five people. They got fifty in it. There's 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:05.160 nowhere if you can sit. And the full of was 0:10:05.240 --> 0:10:07.640 just full of grime and dirt. It was just the nastiest, 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:11.040 funkiest And in my mind, I'm saying to myself, I'm 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:14.960 not finna sit on this nasty, dirty floor. There's people 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:17.480 laying all on the benches. So I stood for maybe 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:20.080 like two hours, but my leg is injured. I can't 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:22.040 stand no more. So I got to sit on this floor. 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:24.240 I sit on the floor. They wake you up for 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:26.800 any court seeing at four thirty in the morning, they 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:28.719 seem you to another bullpen. You wait a couple hours dead, 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:30.520 they seems to another bull You're ready a couple hours there. 0:10:30.600 --> 0:10:33.000 It's all part of the processing. You just go from 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:35.720 bullpen to bullpen and you get to the court where 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:38.080 you're gonna go to the bullpen that's behind the court 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:40.520 room where you're about to go to trial. And that 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:43.880 said like eight thirty, never on time. When these county 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:45.880 jails are cold, and so all I got on this 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:50.200 little jail uniform and it's and I'm freezing every day. 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:51.880 This is how it is every day. 0:10:52.120 --> 0:10:54.560 How are you supposed to think straight when you're coming 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:58.560 out of an environment like that, sleep deprived, hungry, freezing, 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:01.439 you know, and then you supposed to present like somebody 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:03.800 who looks like an upstanding citizen, right that the jury's 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:04.920 going to look at and go, yeah, I know, he 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:06.720 like you look now, you know. 0:11:07.200 --> 0:11:08.839 I think it's a really under. 0:11:09.200 --> 0:11:14.439 Reported aspect of the way our system works, the dehumanization 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:18.520 that's designed to drive people crazy before. 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:18.960 They get to the court. 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:21.480 I mean, my exaggerating is you're in the midst of it. 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:23.520 You are one hundred percent correct. You come in and 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:26.680 disheveled wreck. My clients have told me the Wayne County 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:31.240 jail is designed to get you to plead guilty. 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:32.760 And then here comes to trial. 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:36.640 I was represented by an attorney called Timothy Murphy. He 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:38.760 did the best that he could, but the deck was 0:11:38.760 --> 0:11:40.680 stacked even before we got there. 0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:44.920 So the two other guys who were shot at Lawson 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:48.280 and Jackson, they identified you as a gunman. It's pretty 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:50.680 ridiculous to think that someone is going to make a 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:54.160 positive identification in the dark from one hundred feet away 0:11:54.240 --> 0:11:57.679 in a situation that's chaotic and violent and dangerous. You know, 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:00.720 if you're one hundred feet away from a shoot, you're 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:03.040 going to be running or turned the other way, or 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:05.000 you know you can't help it, You're going to be 0:12:05.040 --> 0:12:09.559 your instinct right. But eyouldness identification is a very powerful 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:10.800 thing in the court of law. 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:12.760 One of the things we didn't know was these guys 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:17.079 was in jail also with me. They let these guys collaborate, 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:19.640 talk to each other so that they could get their 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:21.040 stories together. 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:26.319 However, the crazy circumstances of the ideas made these witnesses 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:31.520 impeachable on cross examination. So police Sergeant Claude Houseworth, an 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:34.720 alleged ballistics expert, came in to testify about a bullet 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:37.840 that was allegedly found in an apartment that was neighboring 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:38.800 Daryl's apartment. 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:42.160 This expert gets up there and he's with all these 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:46.280 nice professional words, and he tells the jury he's been 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:50.760 in the Detroit crime lab for six years. Later on 0:12:50.840 --> 0:12:53.560 I filed the Freedom of a masonach request for his personnel. 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:56.440 We found out this guy an expert. The report showed 0:12:56.559 --> 0:12:58.640 he had been in a Detroit crime lab for less 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:02.280 than three hundred and six ft four days, not the 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:06.079 two years that was required to even give testimony, and 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:08.840 not the six years that he claimed he had been 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:12.480 in the Detroit crime Lab. All lies so under oath. 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:17.439 Under oath, this so called expert claimed that a bullet 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:22.000 allegedly found at my home matched a bullet that was 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:24.319 found in the deceased body and according to him, in 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:27.560 it identical lands and grooves. Now, I don't know nothing 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:30.280 about ballistic identification at this time. I'm twenty years old. 0:13:30.520 --> 0:13:32.360 I'm a city kid. I don't know nothing about hunting 0:13:32.440 --> 0:13:34.280 guns and none of that type of stuff. But I'm 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:35.920 telling my lawyer it's not true. 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:39.679 Ballistics evidence has covered on the tool mark Identification episode 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:41.880 of Wrong for Conviction Junk Science, and we'll have it 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:45.480 linked in the episode description. A ballistics evidence is only 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:48.680 capable and only really meant to rule a gun out. 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:51.400 It's not able to identify a weapon to the exclusion 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:54.960 of all others. But that's what Sergeant Houseworth did at 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:55.720 Dalls trial. 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:59.679 If you have a weak witness, if you throw on forensics, 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:03.320 and that supports the testimony cases over because I don't 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:05.360 have to believe these guys. Maybe they were a little 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:07.960 bit drunk and high and maybe they didn't see what 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:10.240 they saw, but there was a bullet came out of 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:13.320 an apartment next to Darryl Siggers, and it matches the body, 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:16.960 then he did it. Now it strengthens the identification, and 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:21.280 everybody knows who's in the business. Eyewitness identifications are notoriously 0:14:21.320 --> 0:14:26.280 the courts know it are notoriously unreliable, but juris don't. 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:28.440 And why would this person say he did it if 0:14:28.440 --> 0:14:30.640 he didn't, And that's what convicted him. 0:14:30.960 --> 0:14:32.600 When I heard the jury say guilty, it was like 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:34.440 somebody hit me in the head with a brick because 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:35.040 I was dizzy. 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:38.440 So you're convicted and sentenced to life in prison. 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:42.440 Yes, without the possibility pull. It was a sensing on 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:44.800 death rope. I didn't have a date to go to 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:47.400 the gas chamber. That's how I looked at it. That's 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:48.640 just the true facts. 0:14:48.440 --> 0:14:49.800 Of their living death sentence. 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:53.320 Yes, what they do is they put chains around your waist, 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:56.600 chains on your wrists, chains on your legs, and then 0:14:56.640 --> 0:14:57.920 they march you out and you got a duck or 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:00.400 they chain me to twenty other guys, and I feel 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:17.720 like a slave. First. When I got there, I'm seeing 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:19.720 all types of crazy stuff. You know what I'm saying. 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:23.880 It stabby rapes, you know, I've seen guys hang themselves, 0:15:23.920 --> 0:15:28.280 all types of stuff, drugs, gangs, gambling. So I'm walking 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:31.440 the yard and an older gentleman sees me. His name 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:34.360 is Madrick Bonnard. He said, listen, young fellas, you walking 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:36.440 around there acting tough, you need to be in a 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:38.640 law library so you can learn the law and get 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:40.080 your bod out of here. He takes me to the 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:43.080 law library and he begins to teach me the law. 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:46.480 And as I began to learn this stuff, I felt 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:48.800 in powered. The more I learned, the more I wanted 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:50.320 to learn. The more I read, the more I wanted 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:54.280 to read. And so now I'm understanding how they got 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:56.600 me here, At least from a legal standpoint, I was 0:15:56.680 --> 0:16:00.440 laser focused on being in a law library learning the 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:03.400 law so I could get out. Had children and family, 0:16:03.520 --> 0:16:05.560 mother and father out there, but I wanted to get 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:09.600 back to and they were my motivating force and inspiration 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:13.040 to keep going until I could prove that I was innocent. 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:15.120 And that was the key factor that I knew I 0:16:15.160 --> 0:16:17.760 was innocent. I was not going to just surrender my 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:20.440 liberty like a coward and just give up. I couldn't 0:16:20.440 --> 0:16:20.720 do it. 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:24.280 With his growing knowledge of the law, Daryl was very 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:27.960 active in post conviction, but nonetheless he was denied throughout 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:31.480 his state and federal proceedings. He really needed a team 0:16:31.600 --> 0:16:33.920 on the outside to reinvestigate the case. 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:39.080 Every day I wrote somebody, I got piles of letters 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:41.960 denying my requests for saying we couldn't help you. I 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:45.120 remained undeterred, and I just kept writing. In two thousand 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:48.360 and two, University of Michigan appointed me four law students, 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:53.080 two professors. They came worked the case up, researched it, 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:58.040 and they were the ones who ultimately discovered the identification gaps. 0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:01.320 Where these guys couldn't see what they said he saw 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:03.920 from where they said he seen it from. It was impossible, 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:06.360 physically impossible. They found out all type of evidence. 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:10.200 In addition, Ernard Jackson's cousin came forward saying that Jackson 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:14.120 admitted to testifying Paulsey against Darrel under threats from the police. 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:17.320 Then evidence of the hidden alternate suspect came to light. 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:19.840 If you remember, the neighbor Gary Kelly, had seen a 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:22.399 light skinned man or potentially his white neighbor, with a 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:25.080 long gun near the scene that night, But it appears 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:28.520 Kelly wasn't the only person who mentioned this alternate suspect 0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:29.600 to Detective Alex. 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:32.800 There was a friend of christineau Daryll's baby mama. His 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:36.520 name was Fuka. He lived about Kitty corner behind the 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:38.720 house of the party. He said there was this guy 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:41.399 Toby Read, who he knew, came to his house with 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:43.720 a long gun looking for one of the guys at 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:46.280 the party. Fuka wouldn't let him in his house and 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:50.560 Toby Red left. So we have two identifications. One who 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:53.199 says Toby Red has a long gun right after the 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:56.040 party comes to Fuchal's house a block and a half away. 0:17:56.080 --> 0:17:58.760 You have a neighbor with no connection to any of 0:17:58.800 --> 0:18:01.720 these people, interested witness and he says there's a light 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:05.159 skin guy. Well, when they eliminated the white neighbor, that 0:18:05.359 --> 0:18:09.040 left a light skin guy with a long gun out there. 0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:11.399 He put two and two together. That's Toby Red. 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:17.600 They ignored two very credible witnesses, and not only Daryll 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:20.560 not fit the description, not even by a stretch, right, 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:23.320 I mean, nobody's going to mistake him for a light 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:27.880 skin guy with reddish hair. That's ridiculous. If you remember, 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:30.480 Toby Red had left the party after the fight, saying 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:33.199 some menacing words on the way out. The Jack Bucher 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:36.320 Brady violation didn't come out until civil litigation, but the 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:39.320 Michigan law students found two other witnesses who said that 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:42.560 Toby Red admitted to being the shooter, and one man, 0:18:42.680 --> 0:18:46.440 Daryl Doolan, claimed to have seen Toby Red shoot James Montgomery. 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:50.119 But despite this evidence of actual innocence, Darrel's motion for 0:18:50.160 --> 0:18:53.320 a neutrial was denied. The judge ruled that the witnesses 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:57.560 were not credible, so Daryl moved on to the ballistics evidence. 0:18:58.400 --> 0:19:01.520 Joseph Alex was the officer in charge of the case. 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:04.399 He testified that he had found a bullet in my home, 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:07.440 but he himself signed a return wants for my home 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:10.959 saying nothing taking dry hole results negative. He didn't get 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:12.960 anything from my home. None of that stuff came out 0:19:13.080 --> 0:19:13.520 at trial. 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:16.640 They claimed they found the bullet in the wall, right, yes, right, 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:18.760 like you were shooting guns in your own house. 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:21.639 Yes, next door was what guys who used as a 0:19:21.640 --> 0:19:25.400 shooting gud and so guys in the hood would come 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:28.840 in fire weapons in the next door apartment, and so 0:19:29.240 --> 0:19:31.600 this is where they found this bullet. 0:19:32.000 --> 0:19:33.040 But it gets deeper. 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:35.840 The bullet that they found in the wall that they 0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:39.480 claimed matched. The bullet that was from the deceased body 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:42.280 had four lands and grooves. The bullet that they got 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:44.679 from the deceased body had twelve lands and groups, so 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:47.840 it was impossible for them to match, and even the 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:49.480 first year of cadets should have known this. 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:55.000 Fortunately, Darryl obtained an examination by a guy named Dave 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:58.960 Baalas who was retired in Michigan State Police firearms expert. 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:02.359 He is the one who busted the DPD crime lab. 0:20:02.440 --> 0:20:04.359 The crime lab was shut down in two thousand and 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:06.960 eight at the order basically of Kim Worthy who was 0:20:07.000 --> 0:20:09.800 the prosecutor at the time, Wayne Kunty prosecutor, because a 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:13.199 defense lawyer had Ballish look at some identification issue and 0:20:13.240 --> 0:20:16.439 it was completely wrong. And when Baalish exposed this, the 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:19.119