WEBVTT - #370 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Tyra Patterson 0:00:05.440 --> 0:00:08.520 Hey, it's Laura and I writer. This week on False Confessions, 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:12.400 we're bringing you the deeply compelling story of Tira Patterson, 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:15.840 a young woman who was coerced into confessing to a robbery, 0:00:16.160 --> 0:00:18.880 but then who ended up with a murder conviction. The 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:23.920 reasons for this include archaic rules, teenage drama, and plenty 0:00:24.000 --> 0:00:26.800 of dirty police tactics. It's a story too good for 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:28.920 me to spoil before you get to the episode. But 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:31.360 this week we wanted to bring you an update on 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:34.880 Tyra and the incredible impact her story and her work 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:38.320 has made on the community. She's still working with the 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:42.520 Ohio Justice and Policy Center as a community outreach strategist, 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:46.720 and she recently joined represent Justice, a project that turns 0:00:46.760 --> 0:00:50.720 stories like hers into change in the system. In twenty 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:55.120 twenty one, Ohio State Representative Jean Schmidt proposed a bill 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:58.760 that would abolish the death penalty in Ohio. She cited 0:00:58.800 --> 0:01:02.560 her meeting with Tyra as a catalyst for the new bill. Tyra, 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:05.600 you're a rock star and a change maker. Keep doing 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:08.800 what you're doing, but there's still more to come. Late 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:11.959 last year, filming wrapped up on a documentary film about 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:14.880 Tyra's life and work. We're so excited for its twenty 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:17.720 twenty three release and so excited to see what Tyra 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:29.880 will accomplish. Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura, 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:33.280 and I writer, and I'm Steve Dressing. In today's episode, 0:01:33.319 --> 0:01:35.679 will take you to Dayton, Ohio to tell you about 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:39.840 Tyra Patterson. Nineteen year old Tira falsely confessed to stealing 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:43.280 a necklace, but an obscure law turned her false confession 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:45.560 to robbery into something far worse. 0:02:00.560 --> 0:02:03.120 I was sitting in my office one day in the 0:02:03.160 --> 0:02:05.800 phone rank and on the other end of the call 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:09.160 was David Singleton, the director of a group called the 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:14.239 Ohio Justice and Policy Center. David was looking for somebody 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:19.120 who could assist him in a case that involved a 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:24.920 false confession. It was Tyra Patterson's case. We've told a 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:28.480 lot of stories about people who falsely confessed to murders 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:31.480 last season, but the crazy thing is, this is a 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:35.320 case where a false confession to robbery is converted into 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:39.880 a false conviction for murder. And it's all because of 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:44.920 an obscure, archaic rule called the felony murder doctrine. The 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:49.679 felony murder leads to people going down for murders who 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:50.840 never killed anyone. 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:54.440 When most people think about people in prison who they'd 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:58.120 been convicted of murder, they think of truly bad people, 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:00.760 you know, scary folks. But there are a lot of 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:05.120 people in prison for murder who never touched a gun 0:03:05.280 --> 0:03:06.800 or a murder weapon at all. 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:12.480 The prisons are filled with people convicted of felony murder, 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:14.120 people like Tyra Patterson. 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:20.960 Today's story starts in Dayton, Ohio. It was a manufacturing 0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:23.600 town back in the day, but those jobs left in 0:03:23.639 --> 0:03:27.160 the eighties and nineties and never came back now. Dayton's 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:29.360 claim to fame is that the guys who invented the 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:33.480 airplane used to live there, Wilbur and Orville Wright. In fact, 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:36.240 our story starts in a part of town named after 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:40.240 the Wright brothers, a lower income, mixed race neighborhood called 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:43.800 Right View. It was just after midnight on a Tuesday 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:48.040 in Right View, September twentieth, nineteen ninety four. Tyra Patterson 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:52.000 was awake and bored. Tyra was nineteen and smart as 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:55.040 hell with a sunny personality. She was full of promise, 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:57.560 but there weren't many open doors in front of her. 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:01.280 Tyra's home life was really tough. Her dad was an 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:04.360 alcoholic who hit her mom when he'd been drinking. He 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:06.720 left when Tyra was just a kid, and they got 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:10.040 evicted when her mom couldn't pay the bills. Tyra dropped 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:12.240 out of school in sixth grade. She was tired of 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:15.200 the other kids bullying her about being poor. She got 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:17.240 a job at a fast food restaurant, and they put 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:19.960 her at the register because she was so friendly. But 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:23.120 Tyra hadn't learned enough math to make change. She was 0:04:23.200 --> 0:04:25.800 humiliated every time someone handed her at twenty and. 0:04:25.800 --> 0:04:26.360 Quit the job. 0:04:27.279 --> 0:04:29.880 By the time Tyra reached her late teens, the family 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:32.320 had found an apartment to live in again, but Tyra 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:35.080 had lost her way. She smoked a lot of weed 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:37.440 and tried not to think about how her life could 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:41.120 have been different. It was around two am on September 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:44.680 twentieth when Tyra's boring night started getting a little too interesting. 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:48.200 Tyra and her friend Rebecca were hanging out at Tyra's place, 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:51.200 and they decided to go for a walk outside. They 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:54.440 ran into five other young people from right View. Tyra 0:04:54.520 --> 0:04:56.839 barely knew most of them, but she and Rebecca stuck 0:04:56.839 --> 0:05:01.080 around anyway. The group was mixed gender and mixed. Five 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:04.680 were black, including Tyra, and two were white, including Rebecca. 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:07.000 To keep things clear in our story, we're going to 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:10.280 call all of them the Right View Group. Sometime after 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:13.680 two am, a gray Chevrolet rolled into an alley near 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:16.480 where the group was hanging out. The Chevy was filled 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:20.240 with five teenagers, all white girls from another part of town. 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:23.680 They'd driven to Right View to steal stuff from people's 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:27.440 garages in the alley. Two of these would be thieves 0:05:27.480 --> 0:05:29.880 got out of the Chevy to steal a radio. They 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:32.320 were gone about ten minutes before they returned to the 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:35.480 car in a hurry. Following them on foot were three 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:38.920 members of the Right View Group, Lashawna, Angie, and Joe, 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:42.599 and on a leash. Joe had a pit bull. Before 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:45.080 the girls in the Chevy can drive away, another car 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:47.680 pulls up in front of them, blocking the alley's exit. 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:50.560 It's the other four members of the Right View Group, 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:54.000 and crammed into a corner of that car. Wondering what 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:58.919 she's gotten herself into is Tira Patterson. Tyra's friend. Rebecca 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:00.880 gets out of the car and heads for the Chevy 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:03.760 along with the other Right View people. Not knowing what 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:06.760 else to do, Tyra gets out too, but she's not 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:11.239 prepared for what happens next. There's a confrontation. Everyone starts yelling. 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:14.200 One of the right View girls, not Tyra, calls the 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:17.480 girls in the Chevy white bitches. Two other right View 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:20.600 girls join in, still not Tyra, and start telling the 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:23.239 girls in the Chevy to check it in. That means 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:27.120 throw your money and jewelry on the ground. The girls 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:30.320 in the Chevy don't immediately comply, and that's when things 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:33.840 really escalate. Tyra hangs back, but three of the right 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:37.360 View girls open the car doors and start landing punches. 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:40.440 Joe lets his pit bull into the car and orders 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:43.680 it to attack. Now it's a melee. Some of the 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:46.120 girls in the Chevy do check it in, throwing their 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:49.360 jewelry onto the ground. Tyra's not used to this kind 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:51.680 of stuff. She doesn't have a record, and she has 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:55.720 no interest in violence. She tries to calm the situation down, 0:06:56.120 --> 0:06:59.440 but no one listens. As the punch is intensify, Tyra 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:02.640 and her friend and Rebecca starts slipping away. They want 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:06.560 no part of this, but as they leave, Tyra spots 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:10.920 a necklace on the ground costume jewelry, a cheap gold cross. 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:13.880 She's never owned that kind of jewelry, and it seems 0:07:13.960 --> 0:07:17.200 valuable to her. Tyra picks up the necklace, puts it 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:19.240 in her pocket, and keeps walking away. 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:23.520 When Tyra picked up that necklace, at worst it was 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:25.520 a theft. It might not even have been a crime. 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:29.920 Picking up a necklace off the ground is not something 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:33.360 that prosecutors are interested in. It's not something that people 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:36.320 go to prison for, and it's certainly not murder. 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:40.720 Right as Tyra's walking away, she hears words being yelled, 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:43.640 yelled maybe to her by one of the girls in 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:47.640 the chevy. Eighteen year old Holly Lay, Please make them stop. 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:51.320 Holly calls, we don't have anything. Before Tyra can respond, 0:07:51.720 --> 0:07:55.680 a gunshot rings out. Lashawn Aa Keeney, part of the 0:07:55.760 --> 0:07:58.600 Right View group, had pulled out a gun and fired 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:01.800 into the car. The bullet went straight into the temple 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:06.960 of Michelle Lay, Holly's fifteen year old sister. Michelle died instantly. 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:11.320 Later on another one of the Right View girls, Angie, 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:15.280 expressed bewilderment that had all happened so fast. We just 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:18.520 meant to punk them out, she said. Within minutes though 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:25.800 punking out turned into murder. The moment the shots rang out, 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:29.600 everyone scattered. Most members of the Right View Group fled 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:33.079 to a nearby motel, but Tyra ran to her apartment 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:36.360 only a few hundred feet away, where she panicked and 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:39.440 flushed the necklace down the toilet. She was afraid it 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:42.280 would connect her to a shooting she didn't commit. For 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:44.800 her part, Holly Lay got out of the Chevy and 0:08:44.840 --> 0:08:48.920 started banging on doors, pleading desperately for someone, anyone to 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:52.720 call an ambulance help her sister. Eventually, someone did call 0:08:52.800 --> 0:09:05.920 nine one one. It was Tyra. A Police only needed 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:08.680 about twelve hours to figure out who'd been there when 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:11.719 Michelle Lay was shot. The girls from the Chevy gave 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:15.720 some pretty good descriptions of both their assailants and the pitbull. 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:19.320 Police found the dogs sitting outside its owner's house, and 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:22.679 when the owner matched the girl's descriptions of Joe, police 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:25.840 knew they'd found one of the Right View Group. Pretty soon, 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:28.640 several people had been rounded up and the police were 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:33.120 knocking at Tyra's door. Two before long, Tyra Patterson found 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:43.640 herself in an interrogation room. 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:47.680 This episode is sponsored by AIG, a leading global insurance 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:51.520 company and Paul Weiss Rifkin, Wharton and Garrison, a leading 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:55.360 international law firm. The AIG pro Bono program provides free 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:59.600 legal services and other support to many nonprofit organizations and 0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:03.160 in individuals most in need, and recently they announced that 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:05.760 working to reform the criminal justice system will become a 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:09.520 key pillar of the program's mission. Paul Weiss has long 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:13.440 had an unwavering commitment to providing impactful pro bono legal 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:16.760 assistance to the most vulnerable members of our society and 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:20.440 in support of the public interest, including extensive work in 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:22.200 the criminal justice area. 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:29.760 The police were angry. The shooting was tragic, and they 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:32.720 wanted to nail as many people as possible for murder, 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:36.440 not just Lashana who pulled the trigger, but the others too. 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:39.360 But how do you get someone who didn't kill anyone 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:42.640 to go down for murder. Well, one tool that police 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:46.840 and prosecutors have is that felony murder rule. We mentioned earlier. 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:51.520 This little known law can be the source of enormous injustice. 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:56.439 In its purest form, the felony murder rule is felony 0:10:57.160 --> 0:11:02.319 plus death equals first to go. So if you commit 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:06.400 a felony and during the course of that felony, someone dies. 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:10.320 You are convicted of first degree murder, even though you 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:13.560 never intended to kill somebody, even though you couldn't have 0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:17.080 foreseen that somebody would have died. It is the intent 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:22.600 to commit that felony that substitutes for the intent to kill. 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:26.680 They didn't coerce Tyra into confessing to murder because they 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:32.040 knew before the interrogation who the murderer was. It was Lashawnakini. 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:34.880 All they needed to do was get Tyra to say 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:38.200 that she grabbed a necklace by force from one of 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:41.520 the girls in the car. That's a robbery. They could 0:11:41.640 --> 0:11:45.360 get her for the same murder that Lashawna Keeney committed. 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:49.320 So getting Tyra to say she snatched the necklace instead 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:55.280 of picking it up is what this interrogation is all about. Now, 0:11:55.320 --> 0:11:58.360 like all interrogations that aren't fully recorded, there are two 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:01.320 stories about what happened in the room. There is the 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:04.439 official story told in police reports, and then there's the 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:08.560 story told by the defendant. They almost always diverge. In 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:12.560 Tyra's case, the police story goes like this. Tyra admitted 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:15.480 to being there, but she denied being involved in the robbery, 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:18.839 assault or shooting. But as she was being booked, Tyra 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:22.600 spontaneously announced that she wanted to tell the truth and 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:25.600 admitted reaching into the car and grabbing the necklace off 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:28.560 one of the girls. That's when police captured her confession 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:33.480 on videotape. No coercion, no drama. But according to Tyra 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:37.079 and her lawyer, she confessed after a very different sequence 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:40.920 of events. Here's David Singleton, that lawyer who called Steve 0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:44.480 about this case. David has represented Tyra for the past 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:45.320 eight years. 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:51.080 Tyra recalls very clearly the detective screaming at her, saying 0:12:51.160 --> 0:12:54.200 she's a murderer, that she's going to be locked up 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:57.760 for the rest of her life, cursing at her telling 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:01.920 her she's an effing liar, was saying I didn't rob anybody, 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:07.400 I didn't shoot anybody. Eventually, the detective takes Tyra out 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:12.720 of the interrogation room and walks her past where Tyra 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:15.760 could see Rebecca sitting in a police car about to 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:19.000 go home. And Tyra's like, well, you know Rebecca's going home. 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:23.400 Why am I not going home? The detective said, well, 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:27.080 she gave us a videotape statement, and Tyra said, well, 0:13:27.080 --> 0:13:29.840 I give you a videotape statement. The detective said, well, 0:13:29.880 --> 0:13:33.080 you don't have anything to tell us, and Tyra said, well, 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:34.920 I picked up a necklace from the ground, and the 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:38.360 detective smiled and took her back in to try and 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:39.120 charge her. 0:13:40.800 --> 0:13:43.640 The police tell Tyra she just needs to change one 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:46.439 thing in her story about the necklace. She didn't pick 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:49.559 it up off the ground. Instead, she robbed it from 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:53.040 the girls. After all, they say, wouldn't it be better 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:56.400 to go down for a robbery than for murder? Getting 0:13:56.440 --> 0:13:58.680 caught up in a murder is what Tyra's been terrified 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:02.360 of all along, so this is what breaks her. She 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:05.200 falsely admits to snatching the necklace off one of the 0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:08.960 girls in the chevy. Now she's confessed to robbery and 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:12.240 the cops have their felony. It's only at this point 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:13.800 that the video camera gets turned on. 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:24.560 Describe the necklace? Is it a gold necklace? 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:28.240 I wouldn't have web that. 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:29.840 I don't know why I grab it, okay? 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:32.200 And from which girl in the back seat did you 0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:32.520 take that? 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:40.120 Next the driver? Okay, from the person behind the driver okay. 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:41.040 Yeah. 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:44.880 What struck me about Tyra's appearance in that video is 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:46.520 she did look tired. 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:49.040 She also looks scared. 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:52.680 At one point, you hear somebody screaming in another room, 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:58.520 and she's just terrified. And another point I recall very vividly, 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:04.320 she's looking to the detective for an answer. I mean, 0:15:04.400 --> 0:15:07.520 she was trying to satisfy what he wanted because she 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:11.000 thought that was her ticket to go back home and 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:15.240 continue on with her life. And the minute that she 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:19.120 finished the video and the camera was turned off, she said, 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:22.320 do I get to go home now? And he said no, 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:25.280 I'm booking you for murder. That's when the nightmare truly began. 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:28.560 How is Tyra to know that one little change in 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:31.440 her story was enough to charge her not just with robbery, 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:35.840 but with felony murder, That one little change made Tira 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:40.000 as liable for Michelle Lay's death as the murderer herself. 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:44.600 You know, there's a huge irony in this case. They 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:48.360 needed Tyra to confess to a robbery, not a theft, 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:50.880 and the way they did it was they told her 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:54.640 it's better to go down for a robbery than it 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:58.520 is for a murder, and she accepted that explanation. 0:15:58.720 --> 0:15:59.960 She believed that premise. 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:04.320 Everybody believes that, of course, because they don't understand the 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:08.840 felony murder rule. We've seen police officers lie before, but 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:13.280 this is a particularly dangerous lie because it sets somebody 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:15.440 up for murder charges. 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:18.160 There's actually a second irony in this case too, because 0:16:18.160 --> 0:16:21.120 here you have the felony murder rule being applied to 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:24.520 Tyra Patterson. She didn't have a weapon with her that night. 0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:27.280 She didn't know the people who did come to that 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:30.800 scene with weapons. She tried to intervene and stop the fight. 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:33.360 She tried to de escalate as things were getting more 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:36.440 serious and more violent, and when she couldn't stop the fight, 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:39.240 she walked away after the gunshot. She called nine to 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:41.920 one to one. Tyra is a hero here. She's not 0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:45.680 a murderer. She's the one, though, who ends up going down. 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:52.400 Tyra Patterson's only crime, if it even was a crime, 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:55.800 was picking up a necklace from the ground. But suddenly, 0:16:55.880 --> 0:16:59.240 somehow she was on trial for murder and facing life 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:03.320 in prison. And like too many murder trials, Tyra's was 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:04.600 a shit show. 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:09.240 So Tyra was represented by attorneys in the local public 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:15.000 Defender office. The problem was that they were overwhelmed and 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:20.480 didn't have the resources to defend Tyra. 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:21.640 Appropriately. 0:17:22.320 --> 0:17:25.439 The primary evidence against Tyra was her confession, but her 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:29.000 attorneys never argued that it was false or coerced. In fact, 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:32.359 no one, not the judge or the jury, ever heard 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:36.560 Tyra's account of her interrogation. Her attorneys actually advised her 0:17:36.680 --> 0:17:39.600 not to testify in her own defense, not to tell 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:41.600 her side of the story, and why not. 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:48.200 They said that she was too unsophisticated and talked too 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:54.040 much like she was from the ghetto, that she'd be 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:57.480 eaten alive by the prosecutors. And I think that Tyra 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:00.160 got ridden off in that way. 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:03.480 Did hear though from Holly Lay, who testified that she'd 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:06.520 seen Tyra reaching into the car. A few other girls 0:18:06.560 --> 0:18:09.880 from the Chevy testified the same way. Their stories went 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:13.680 unchallenged by Tyra's lawyers, even though they could have called 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:17.960 Rebecca to testify that Tyra never snatched a necklace off anyone. 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:20.920 The lawyers didn't even play Tyra's nine one call, which 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:22.760 would have showed that she was trying to help. 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:26.359 We were able to find out by talking to the 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:29.800 jurors years later that that nine to one one call 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:31.680 would have made a difference had they heard it when 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:33.400 I played it for them. They were like, we never 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:35.320 would have convicted her had we known. 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:36.399 That she had called nine one one. 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:39.480 But the defense gave the jurors nothing to work with. 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:47.320 Nothing, And that's how Tira Patterson, the woman who never 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:50.840 touched a gun or robbed anyone, was convicted of one 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:55.040 kind of aggravated murder and four counts of aggravated robbery. 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:58.359 When the jury announced its verdict, she stood up and 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:02.760 shouted in disbelief. But I didn't do it. It didn't matter. 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:06.639 She was sentenced to forty three years to life. That's 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:10.040 thirteen more years than Lashawna, who actually pulled the trigger. 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:15.800 And in December nineteen ninety five, Tira Patterson became Ohio 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:20.040 Department of Correction's inmate number three seven seven three seven. 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:38.560 Fast forward to twenty eleven, Tira Patterson had been in 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:42.160 prison for just over sixteen years, not even halfway through 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:45.760 her sentence. When she got her first break. Ohio Governor 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:48.639 Ted Strickland learned about her case. He thought it was 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:51.440 unfair that her sentence was more severe than the shooters, 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:54.040 so he issued what's called a commutation. 0:19:55.240 --> 0:19:59.080 Tyra tried to stop this from happening. She walked away 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:03.520 before the shots were fired. All she did was pick 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:07.600 up a necklace off of the ground. Lashawna Keeney brought 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:11.080 the gun to this event and she pulled the trigger 0:20:11.119 --> 0:20:15.280 that led to Michelle Lay's death. It is grossly unfair 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:18.879 for Lashawna to be sentenced to thirty years and for 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:22.680 Tyra to be sentenced to forty three years, and that's 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:27.439 why the governor commuted tyra sentence to sixteen years to life, 0:20:27.800 --> 0:20:30.880 which made her immediately eligible for parole. 0:20:31.600 --> 0:20:34.760 But Tyra's hopes of freedom were dashed a few months later. 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:38.919 The Ohio Parole Board denied her request for parole, and 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:41.440 they said she had to wait up to seven years 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:45.280 before asking again. They said her crime was too severe. 0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:49.119 That's when David Singleton got involved. He'd heard about her 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:51.879 case from a friend and he decided to go meet 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:55.960 Tira Patterson. When David met Tyra in prison, she was 0:20:56.040 --> 0:20:58.960 different from that nineteen year old girl whose future looked 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:02.479 like a broken promise behind bars. Tyra had redeemed her 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:05.439 own promise. She had gained skills in prison, working as 0:21:05.480 --> 0:21:08.920 a porter, a food service worker, a maintenance person. She'd 0:21:08.960 --> 0:21:11.680 gone from an illiterate sixth grade dropout to someone who 0:21:11.760 --> 0:21:15.560 earned her ged, she'd participated in more than two hundred 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:19.560 self improvement programs, and most importantly, she was becoming an 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:24.240 incredible advocate for herself and for justice. When she told 0:21:24.320 --> 0:21:27.320 David she was innocent, he believed her, and he set 0:21:27.359 --> 0:21:30.800 out to prove it, enlisting Steve Drison's help in the process. 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:35.679 There's no DNA miracle for people like Tyra and for 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:38.280 most of the people who are locked up in prison. 0:21:38.320 --> 0:21:41.920 I mean, DNA is only present in maybe ten percent 0:21:42.160 --> 0:21:43.359 of all cases. 0:21:43.560 --> 0:21:45.600 Well, that's the thing. Even if the shooter had left 0:21:45.680 --> 0:21:48.720 DNA on the gun, everybody already knew that Lashana Kini 0:21:48.800 --> 0:21:50.600 was the one who pulled the trigger. This is not 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:53.480 a case where DNA testing is going to exonerate Tira Patterson. 0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:58.480 What she needed here was a reinvestigation, an advocacy. 0:21:58.960 --> 0:22:01.520 As David and Steve dove into the case against Tyra, 0:22:01.760 --> 0:22:05.560 they found some major cracks. First, David discovered that the 0:22:05.640 --> 0:22:09.199 victim's sister, Holly Lay, had testified at the trial of 0:22:09.240 --> 0:22:11.560 another one of the Right View girls a year before 0:22:11.680 --> 0:22:15.600 Tyra's trial. Back then, Holly had testified that Tyra wasn't 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:18.000 the one who reached into the car and snatched the necklace. 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:22.240 It had actually been someone else. Second, David uncovered the 0:22:22.359 --> 0:22:24.679 very first statements the girls in the chevy gave to 0:22:24.720 --> 0:22:28.399 police right after Michelle Lay was shot. And when he 0:22:28.520 --> 0:22:32.280 and Steve reviewed those early statements, well, it was revealing. 0:22:32.720 --> 0:22:35.240 Remember some of these were given within an hour or 0:22:35.320 --> 0:22:39.919 two of the crime, so the memories were fresh for 0:22:40.000 --> 0:22:44.240 their witnesses, and Tyra was like a ghost. The two 0:22:44.359 --> 0:22:49.400 people who were mentioned far less than everybody else in 0:22:49.520 --> 0:22:54.000 all of these accounts were Tyra and Becca, and so 0:22:54.119 --> 0:22:56.359 that's squared with Tyra's story. 0:22:56.960 --> 0:22:59.919 Third, David talked to some of the other Right View girls, 0:23:00.200 --> 0:23:02.080 the ones who were born involved in what went down 0:23:02.119 --> 0:23:06.520 that night. Three of them signed affid David supporting Tyra's innocence, 0:23:06.880 --> 0:23:11.960 including Lashawna Keeney. Lashawna confirmed that far from participating, Tyra 0:23:12.080 --> 0:23:16.560 had actually tried to stop the confrontation from escalating. Before long, 0:23:16.640 --> 0:23:20.080 Tyra's case was attracting attention among some pretty influential people. 0:23:20.600 --> 0:23:24.520 Ohio State Senator Peggy Lanner visited Tyra in prison, and 0:23:24.560 --> 0:23:27.560 she was so compelled by Tyra's story that she got 0:23:27.600 --> 0:23:31.040 four other state senators to back Tyra's efforts for release. 0:23:31.600 --> 0:23:36.159 Celebrities and advocates also began getting involved, everyone from actor 0:23:36.240 --> 0:23:40.119 Elfrey Woodard to mad Men creator Matthew Weener. They began 0:23:40.160 --> 0:23:43.560 tweeting and posting in support of Tyra, using the hashtag 0:23:43.840 --> 0:23:45.800 I Am Tyra Patterson. 0:23:45.680 --> 0:23:49.159 This I Am Tyra Patterson campaign the hashtag. What it 0:23:49.280 --> 0:23:54.080 meant was they were in solidarity with her. People were 0:23:54.119 --> 0:24:00.000 saying We're there for you, we see you, we hear you, 0:24:00.160 --> 0:24:03.520 and that was a powerful message. 0:24:03.720 --> 0:24:05.399 You know, I think the first time I heard the 0:24:05.480 --> 0:24:08.520 name Tira Patterson was when I opened up my Twitter 0:24:08.560 --> 0:24:11.080 feed one day and there I see a video of 0:24:11.240 --> 0:24:15.440 Steve giving a speech and holding a poster that says, 0:24:15.480 --> 0:24:18.320 in big black letters, I am Tyra Patterson. 0:24:18.720 --> 0:24:23.359 That was take five of that video, because the first 0:24:23.440 --> 0:24:26.800 take went along what I thought was really well, and 0:24:26.800 --> 0:24:29.600 then I picked up the sign I am holding it 0:24:29.760 --> 0:24:34.359