Speaker 1: Hi, There is Steve Fishman from Orbit Media, and we're
Speaker 1: back with a fantastic new true crime series, Death and
Speaker 1: Deceit in Alliance. This series is a little different from
Speaker 1: others we've done. It's a live investigation, meaning that the
Speaker 1: reporter host is publishing information almost at the same time
Speaker 1: she learns it, and we her listeners, side by side
Speaker 1: with her or ear by ear with her, are figuring
Speaker 1: it out as the series unrolls. Luckily, we're in great hands.
Speaker 1: Our host reporter is Maggie Freeling, who is one of
Speaker 1: true crime's more interesting creators these days. Maggie won a
Speaker 1: Pulitzer Prize for her work on Suave, a great podcast
Speaker 1: you should check out. She's been a champion of the
Speaker 1: wrongfully convicted since way before it was popular, and in
Speaker 1: this show, it's that championing that leads to terrible complications
Speaker 1: for the podcast and for herself. It broke me, she says.
Speaker 1: This is Maggie's creator's cut of a show originally released
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen. For access to all fourteen episodes, ad
Speaker 1: free and all at once, subscribe with Apple Podcasts on
Speaker 1: our show page.
Speaker 2: Enjoy the Worst Thing that Happened to Me As a
Speaker 2: journalist occurred while making this podcast formerly called Murder an Alliance.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty one, myself and two private investigators embarked
Speaker 2: on a real time investigation to see if a convicted
Speaker 2: murderer was innocent. For twenty two years, he maintained that
Speaker 2: he was. Initially, the case seemed straightforward, a scandal ridden
Speaker 2: small town police department who used psychics and coercion to
Speaker 2: get results. I was sure the wrong people were in prison.
Speaker 2: In fact, I wasn't alone, many journalists did. But once
Speaker 2: I was on the ground in Ohio with the pis interviewing, investigating,
Speaker 2: setting up billboards and tip lines, I was not ready
Speaker 2: for what we found. The deeper we dug, the more
Speaker 2: unsettling our findings became. I found myself questioning everything. Were
Speaker 2: my instincts wrong or was there something actually profoundly off
Speaker 2: about this case? The conclusion broke me for a bit,
Speaker 2: But now, almost five years later, I'm staring down this
Speaker 2: case once more with a new lens because it remains
Speaker 2: one of the most impactful events of my life. The
Speaker 2: timing of release is also significant because I encounter this
Speaker 2: exact issue in my latest investigation called Bone Valley. Graves County.
Speaker 2: I encountered a journalist in my reporting who refused to
Speaker 2: discuss his mistakes and instead doubled down. It made me
Speaker 2: think of my own journey, and consequently I thought it
Speaker 2: was the perfect time to re examine my mistake instead
Speaker 2: of hide from it. It is crucial to discuss are
Speaker 2: all two human fallibilities as journalists. It not only keeps
Speaker 2: us honest, but it also keeps us humble.
Speaker 3: Today.
Speaker 4: Date of July fourteenth, nineteen ninety nine, Wednesday, it's thirteen
Speaker 4: or nine hours. My name is Detective Bud Sampson. We're
Speaker 4: in the we're avent a police department interview room.
Speaker 5: Along with me.
Speaker 4: Is Detective William Mucklow and Detective John Leach of the
Speaker 4: Alliance Police Department. Also in the room is Joseph Isaac
Speaker 4: Book and we're in best getting his honest side of
Speaker 4: Yvonne Lee? Can you tell us you're part in this?
Speaker 2: The tape you're listening to is Joe Wilkes, a nineteen
Speaker 2: year old boy confessing to murder.
Speaker 6: She was like, Hey, what are you doing here? She goes,
Speaker 6: I haven't seen you in a long time. I was like, oh,
Speaker 6: they did, just wanting need to stop buy and see
Speaker 6: how things were. And then we're sitting talking for about
Speaker 6: three to five minutes, and then okay, I know this
Speaker 6: is gonna be hard.
Speaker 5: We got to go through and you tell me what
Speaker 5: happened here.
Speaker 6: Where were you sitting when you're sitting upstairs or downstairs?
Speaker 6: We were on the second floor, that the third one. Ok.
Speaker 5: And we're still doing the cops talking and story. Okay,
Speaker 5: the cheek it up and trying to run why run
Speaker 5: up the door?
Speaker 6: Did you try to run up the glass doors?
Speaker 5: And then.
Speaker 2: You it's saying we thought it so, Joe just said,
Speaker 2: David told me to David as in David Thorn. On
Speaker 2: April first, nineteen ninety nine, twenty six year old Yvonne
Speaker 2: Lane was found with her throat slashed dead in her
Speaker 2: home in Alliance, Ohio.
Speaker 7: Twenty six year old Ivonne Lane, a beautiful, vivacious woman,
Speaker 7: found in a pool of her own blood, her throat
Speaker 7: slashed while her children slapped.
Speaker 2: She was discovered by her mother, who had arrived to
Speaker 2: take her six year old grandchild to kindergarten. Yvonne was
Speaker 2: a mother to five kids. David Thorn was the father
Speaker 2: of one of the children. Although he and Yvonne were
Speaker 2: not together anymore.
Speaker 7: The murder of a mother of five in her own
Speaker 7: home stunt the small town of Alliance, Ohio.
Speaker 2: David had recently been ordered to pay child support three
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty one dollars a month, and Joe said
Speaker 2: in his confession that he was hired by David Thorn
Speaker 2: to kill Yvaughn so he didn't have to pay and
Speaker 2: so he could have his son to himself, the.
Speaker 7: Father of one of the children. The motive child support
Speaker 7: Thorn was ordered to pay.
Speaker 2: To the untrained listener at one point myself too. This
Speaker 2: seems like a pretty clear cut case, someone confessing and
Speaker 2: someone with a motive. But when you start deaking, going
Speaker 2: through documents and talking to people, the more complicated things get,
Speaker 2: and it seems like just about everyone around Yvonne also
Speaker 2: had a motive to kill her. This is death and
Speaker 2: deceit and Alliance a real time investigation into whether David
Speaker 2: Thorn killed ev Lane. I'm Maggie Freeling. The murder of
Speaker 2: Yvonne Lane and David Thorne's claims of innocence were never
Speaker 2: the feature of a Netflix film or made for TV series,
Speaker 2: but it wasn't a blip on the radar either journalists
Speaker 2: were drawn to it.
Speaker 7: For years, the attack grabbed headlines as police hunted for
Speaker 7: a killer.
Speaker 2: Like investigative journalist Dwayne Pullman, who you also heard in
Speaker 2: the previous clips. Dwayne looked into David's claims for three years. However,
Speaker 2: that was over a decade ago, and since then, former prosecutors,
Speaker 2: private investigators, sleuth's and the like have all looked into
Speaker 2: David's claim of innocence. Yet the question still remains.
Speaker 7: Did the system convict the wrong man?
Speaker 2: So here we are. Since Yvonne's murder, David has continued
Speaker 2: n Nuali said he had no involvement. He says he
Speaker 2: never paid Joe Wilkes or anyone to murder his ex
Speaker 2: girlfriend and the mother of his child. When you make
Speaker 2: it to David's official website WCODT dot org, you discover
Speaker 2: that this was an incredibly brutal murder. Yvonn Lane's throat
Speaker 2: was slit to the spine, almost decapitating her. Blood was
Speaker 2: all over the house.
Speaker 4: She begins to spur blood, pumping blood violently out of
Speaker 4: her neck.
Speaker 2: The living room where her body was found looks like
Speaker 2: someone took buckets of blood and threw it around the room.
Speaker 2: It just didn't look like a hit or a random
Speaker 2: murder to me. This looked personal. Police had to process
Speaker 2: this absolute mess of a room, which I'm sure was
Speaker 2: not easy, especially because they also had to get four
Speaker 2: of her kids out of the house, because all but
Speaker 2: one of her children were home when she was killed,
Speaker 2: but they were too young to be helpful to the police.
Speaker 2: That is, except for one of them, a four year
Speaker 2: old who'd play a part in the investigation. The police
Speaker 2: say they tried to get the kids through the crime
Speaker 2: scene without seeing their mother's body, So some flubs may
Speaker 2: be understandable if they're focusing on the boys, but not
Speaker 2: to the extent that happened here. Part of the problem
Speaker 2: may just be in experience. Murders in Alliance are rare.
Speaker 2: A bad year might see two homicides, but most the
Speaker 2: city saw just one. If any I feel confident saying
Speaker 2: at minimum they were not ready to deal with this
Speaker 2: particular homicide. Police say they covered Yvonne's body with a
Speaker 2: blanket from one of the bedrooms, potentially contaminating any evidence
Speaker 2: on her. As every watcher of c as I knows,
Speaker 2: this probably wasn't best practice. No one wore shoe coverings
Speaker 2: or gloves to preserve evidence, and investigators went back and
Speaker 2: forth stepping over Yvonne's body when crossing the room. A
Speaker 2: bloody footprint between her legs apparently came from a detective,
Speaker 2: not the killer, and the chief even brought a woman,
Speaker 2: a civilian, into the crime scene. It was an absolute disaster.
Speaker 2: Evidence was collected from the scene and never tested, and
Speaker 2: the evidence that was didn't match David or Joe. Yet
Speaker 2: the case still made it to trial, and that's thanks
Speaker 2: to Joe's confession, the one you heard part of at
Speaker 2: the top of the episode. The prosecutor said that David
Speaker 2: hired Joe to kill Yvonne, and as you heard, that's
Speaker 2: the story that Joe told. He said David gave him
Speaker 2: three hundred dollars to kill Yvonne. His confession, Joe took
Speaker 2: the police to the alleged murder weapon, a three inch
Speaker 2: pocket knife that he said he tossed in a storm drain.
Speaker 2: He also showed them where he disposed of the pants
Speaker 2: he allegedly wore when he killed von Another key element
Speaker 2: of the States case a witness who said she saw
Speaker 2: Joe the knight of the murder. Rose Moore said, Joe
Speaker 2: told her and her boyfriend that he was on his
Speaker 2: way to kill someone. Will come back to this later,
Speaker 2: but I just want to point out that, in this version,
Speaker 2: the prosecution's version, this nineteen year old was so excited
Speaker 2: about an evening out with his knife to kill someone
Speaker 2: that he wanted even strangers to know about it. If true,
Speaker 2: Joe's boast is pretty damning, but it's worth noting that
Speaker 2: there was no physical evidence linking even Joe to the scene.
Speaker 2: No fingerprints, no shoeprints or DNA. The pants Joe allegedly
Speaker 2: war when he killed Vaughan, there was no blood on them,
Speaker 2: much less anything linking David to the crime. Sure, Joe
Speaker 2: took cops to a knife, but there's no evidence linking
Speaker 2: that knife to the murder. In fact, the prosecution will
Speaker 2: rest on witness testimony alone. But some witnesses were never called.
Speaker 2: And here's a key one. Keep him in mind. A
Speaker 2: neighbor who saw a man leaving Yvonne's house in the
Speaker 2: morning after her murder. He told cops that man was
Speaker 2: not David or Joe.
Speaker 8: I was not asked to test to find the trival
Speaker 8: of David Thorne. I was shown a photo of David
Speaker 8: Thorne in December of two thousand. That was not the
Speaker 8: man I saw leaving the residents of nine sixty of mine.
Speaker 8: I was showing a photo of Joseph Wilkes a contest
Speaker 8: murder in December of two thousand. It was not the
Speaker 8: man I saw leaving the residents of Maxix.
Speaker 2: The jury never heard this, and after deliberating just the
Speaker 2: three hours, David was convicted of paying Joe Wilkes three
Speaker 2: hundred dollars to murder Yvonne Lane. He was sentenced to
Speaker 2: life without the possibility of parole. Joe took a plea
Speaker 2: deal of thirty to life for his cooperation. He could
Speaker 2: be out of prison very soon.
Speaker 7: It didn't take a jury long to convict David Thorn.
Speaker 7: Wilkes pleaded guilty. Both are now serving life sentences.
Speaker 2: The entire conviction of David Thorn rests on Joe's testimony.
Speaker 2: But was Joe telling the truth and if he was lying,
Speaker 2: why he lost almost as much as David did. But
Speaker 2: I'm skeptical. Hiring a hitman to kill your ex over
Speaker 2: three hundred and fifty one dollars a month seems like
Speaker 2: more risk than it's worth. Sure back then the amount
Speaker 2: was more like six hundred and today's dollars, and that
Speaker 2: might feel like a lot of money to fork over
Speaker 2: monthly if you're working at an hour job, which David was.
Speaker 2: But David was making decent money at a high end
Speaker 2: car shop, and compared to the motives of other folks,
Speaker 2: to me, David's alleged motive appears week. Evidence uncovered in
Speaker 2: later investigations pointed to other potential killers, like any one
Speaker 2: of the men who fathered Yvonne's four other kids, or
Speaker 2: even members of law enforcement Yvonne was reported to be
Speaker 2: sleeping with or the man scene leaving her house after
Speaker 2: she's presumed dead. Journalist Dwayne Pullman was equally as intrigued.
Speaker 7: This case is filled with sex, secrets and surprises.
Speaker 2: And things only got more complicated when I talked to David.
Speaker 2: All Right, you there, yep, a little loud on that way, Okay, So.
Speaker 5: How are you doing it?
Speaker 2: Not too bad? When I first spoke to David, he
Speaker 2: had done twenty one years, almost half of his life
Speaker 2: in prison, and there seemed to be no hope. Left
Speaker 2: pretty much dead in the water.
Speaker 6: We need new evidence.
Speaker 2: David didn't have a lawyer anymore. He ran out of
Speaker 2: money in all of his appeals. If David's going to
Speaker 2: get out of prison by proving his innocence, he needs
Speaker 2: a lawyer and investigator to find new evidence to show
Speaker 2: he deserves a new trial.
Speaker 1: That's why I would have been pushing so hard is
Speaker 1: to find a private investigator that would kind of go
Speaker 1: ahead and kind of almost start the case anew.
Speaker 2: And that's proven difficult to find. Investigators can cost thousands,
Speaker 2: and finding someone to take a case pro bono, that is,
Speaker 2: without pay, is not exactly easy. And then there was me.
Speaker 2: After talking to David and reviewing case files, I had
Speaker 2: enough questions about his conviction that I couldn't let it go.
Speaker 2: I kept thinking, there really needs to be an in
Speaker 2: depth investigation. Other post conviction investigations didn't necessarily take the
Speaker 2: entirety of the evidence into account. One investigation might focus
Speaker 2: on forensics, while another would focus on timelines. And I
Speaker 2: didn't want to piecemeal others' investigations together. I wanted to
Speaker 2: find out for myself if there was any truth to
Speaker 2: David's claims of innocence. So many people had a motive
Speaker 2: to kill Yvon, and that shook me to my core,
Speaker 2: to myself and others before it seemed the cops had
Speaker 2: taken the easy way out. David was the obvious suspect,
Speaker 2: and they didn't really focus on anyone else. I wanted
Speaker 2: to know who did that neighbor see leaving Yvonne's house
Speaker 2: in the morning? What happened to evidence collected at the scene.
Speaker 2: There was a kitchen knife, a more likely murder weapon
Speaker 2: than a pocket knife, with a fingerprint that was never
Speaker 2: linked to anyone, condoms and wrappers, blood smears everywhere. None
Speaker 2: of it matched David, and none of it matched Joe,
Speaker 2: the supposed killer. So who did it match? And here's
Speaker 2: the point I keep getting stuck on. Joe confessed to
Speaker 2: killing Yvonne, but the connection to David is pretty slim.
Speaker 2: Would David? Would anyone really hire a blabby teenager as
Speaker 2: a hitman over three hundred and fifty one dollars in
Speaker 2: child support? At trial, the social worker said that David
Speaker 2: and Yvonne had a good relationship. So does the prosecution
Speaker 2: theory sound credible to you? I'm not saying it's not
Speaker 2: possible that child support is a motive, but is it
Speaker 2: likely for David? I kept stewing turning over the facts
Speaker 2: as I knew them, and the questions which seemed to
Speaker 2: keep multiplying, and admittedly I became obsessed. One reason is
Speaker 2: that I'm a journalist and this seems to be a
Speaker 2: juicy story, but I'm also an advocate. When I see
Speaker 2: it wrong, I will fight to make it right by
Speaker 2: digging and reporting to expose the truth. It makes me
Speaker 2: angry and I can't let it go. I found David's
Speaker 2: case when I was researching for a Wrongful Conviction podcast.
Speaker 2: I became interested in wrongful convictions after I reported on
Speaker 2: Suave Gonzales, a juvenile who was sentenced to mandatory life
Speaker 2: in prison for a homicide. After that, I started looking
Speaker 2: into compelling stories of people who claim to be innocent
Speaker 2: and needed help getting a second look, and David was
Speaker 2: one one of many. The Innocence Project estimate it's that
Speaker 2: anywhere from two to ten percent of incarcerated people in
Speaker 2: the US may be factually innocent, which means tens or
Speaker 2: even hundreds of thousands of individuals are doing time for
Speaker 2: someone else. And I thought maybe David was, and if
Speaker 2: he was, the world needs to know, and are wrong
Speaker 2: needs to be made right. But I felt out of
Speaker 2: my depth doing it alone, and then an opportunity arose.
Speaker 2: What makes you want to continue doing this work? Literally
Speaker 2: immediately upon getting out.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, you know, I've always been a ballum.
Speaker 2: I flew down to Austin, Texas for Wrongful Conviction Day.
Speaker 2: I was meeting with Jason Baldwin from the West Memphis Three.
Speaker 2: Jason's case is one of the most notorious wrongful convictions
Speaker 2: in the country, grabbing the attention of celebrities, activists, and
Speaker 2: lawyers since three little boys were found murdered in Arkansas
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 3: They were convicted of murdering three boy scouts, hogtied and
Speaker 3: left in a ditch a Satanic cult. Today, the West
Speaker 3: Memphis Three walked free.
Speaker 2: Jason and I did a Facebook live together for Wrongful
Speaker 2: Conviction Day to bring attention to the issue of wrongful convictions.
Speaker 2: Oh and then people could see coming. Okay really tail Okay,
Speaker 2: hello everyone, we are live.
Speaker 9: I am here Maggie Freeling in Austin, and I am
Speaker 9: with Jason Baldon of the West Memphis Three, who was
Speaker 9: convicted in nineteen ninety four release in twenty eleven.
Speaker 2: He is also the co founder Jason now has his
Speaker 2: own organization helping to free the wrongfully convicted. He co
Speaker 2: founded Proclaimed Justice with his friend and private investigator John hardin.
Speaker 3: Shall I keep chewing while you're recording? Really?
Speaker 2: They notably helped exonerate Daniel Viegis in twenty eighteen. He'd
Speaker 2: been wrongfully convicted of a double homicide when he was sixteen.
Speaker 8: Verdict forim b leave the Jersey finally defended Daniel viegas
Speaker 8: not guilty of friend.
Speaker 2: Knew at investigating wrongful convictions. I was excited to sit
Speaker 2: down and meet with them to see the work they're doing,
Speaker 2: the care and doggedness and the passion they have while
Speaker 2: doing it. I saw that when we talked about a
Speaker 2: few cases they were investigating.
Speaker 3: Yeah that works. Let me go get a laptop.
Speaker 2: You're going to say you need document? Yeah I need Yeah,
Speaker 2: Like wow, you were very have it all together. We
Speaker 2: went over Nicki Zinger and Daniel Rischer's case.
Speaker 5: We span of a.
Speaker 9: Month, a murderer took her mother away, and then the
Speaker 9: state took.
Speaker 2: Her love away. Andres Muscaro, there's.
Speaker 3: Only two possibilities here. Either somebody is feeding him all
Speaker 3: of those details, or he was there.
Speaker 2: And Marco Wilson, Well, we.
Speaker 3: Have gunshot residue on the victim's jacket, So how do
Speaker 3: you get gunshot residue when when you're shooting from that
Speaker 3: far and there.
Speaker 2: Are We went through files and they talked me through
Speaker 2: the details of each case, and the days in Austin
Speaker 2: weren't just work. I got to know the guys pretty well.
Speaker 9: My brothers Matt and Terry like had me and my
Speaker 9: mom stand back to back with our so we could
Speaker 9: see who was taller on my sixteenth birthday and they're like, oh, Mom,
Speaker 9: Jason's almost as tall as you now, you know, and
Speaker 9: you know, just having that family time and then got arrested,
Speaker 9: you know, a couple months later.
Speaker 2: One of the things you fundamentally need to know about
Speaker 2: wrongful convictions. It's easy to put someone in and nearly
Speaker 2: impossible to get someone out. Convictions are designed and intended
Speaker 2: to be final. One of the only ways convictions get
Speaker 2: overturned is when someone finally digs deep and does the
Speaker 2: investigation that was probably never done in the first place.
Speaker 2: Every day of that trip, I kept thinking, is there
Speaker 2: an appropriate time to bring up this case to them.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to be that person who unsolicitly asks
Speaker 2: these busy and in demand guys with a wait list
Speaker 2: of cases for a favor. But this wasn't just a favor.
Speaker 2: It's someone's life, a man who has spent twenty two
Speaker 2: years in prison and says he didn't do it. And
Speaker 2: if that's true, I can't look away. And so one evening, John,
Speaker 2: Jason and I were having after work drinks and I
Speaker 2: broached the topic, you know, there's this really crazy case
Speaker 2: I'm looking into. Y'all might be interested. We talked a
Speaker 2: little and I told them that the most heartbreaking part
Speaker 2: is it's been almost twenty two years, and David said
Speaker 2: his case is dead in the water. They seemed interested,
Speaker 2: but I didn't want to push it. Maybe they were
Speaker 2: just being nice to their out of town guest. I
Speaker 2: left Austin, went back to New York and we stayed
Speaker 2: in touch. All right, Well, I got to run, and
Speaker 2: you send me the overview of witnesses. Awesome, Thank you, John.
Speaker 2: I'll talk to you all right. I don't know when
Speaker 2: or how, but at some point I must have said
Speaker 2: to John, look, I think you guys should look at
Speaker 2: the files. I wanted to know if he would see
Speaker 2: what I saw a total mess of an investigation and
Speaker 2: a potential wrong doing. David Thorns was a good case,
Speaker 2: at least to me. So I sent over the thousands
Speaker 2: of pages of case file documents and then I waited,
Speaker 2: waited for them to have a moment in their busy
Speaker 2: days working dozens of other cases to review David's file.
Speaker 2: And two months later they.
Speaker 3: Called magg you missed America.
Speaker 7: Hello, Hi.
Speaker 2: John brought on another private investigator from Proclaimed Justice to
Speaker 2: help Danny Waxler. Oh, it's sunny, it's sunny down there.
Speaker 10: Yeah, spicy out there.
Speaker 6: Wow, y'all come down, y'all come on like me.
Speaker 2: On the surface, they were into it, but they don't
Speaker 2: just take a case. They have to investigate it first
Speaker 2: and make sure it's a true innocence claim. They need
Speaker 2: to confirm for themselves that David was indeed telling the
Speaker 2: truth and the case had a leg to stand on
Speaker 2: in court. And if David was innocent, then who did
Speaker 2: kill Yvonne Lane? That was part of the puzzle, a
Speaker 2: key part, and getting an answer would prove to be
Speaker 2: a challenge. Remember, even if there was forensics at the
Speaker 2: messy crime scene that weren't compromised and could be tested,
Speaker 2: that wouldn't exonerate David. By all accounts, David was not
Speaker 2: at the crime scene. It was an alleged murder for Higher,
Speaker 2: so it doesn't matter if his prints aren't there. Getting
Speaker 2: David back in court would come down to Joe proving
Speaker 2: that Joe was either lying when he claimed that David
Speaker 2: paid him to kill yvon or proving that Joe didn't
Speaker 2: kill yvon The more.
Speaker 10: We can dismantle Joseph for Joe, whatever he goes by,
Speaker 10: the stronger plight we have, and if.
Speaker 2: Joe didn't commit the murder, then the prosecution's whole case
Speaker 2: falls apart, of course, Joe said he did it, but
Speaker 2: Joe has said a lot of things over the years.
Speaker 2: Joe has given multiple versions of what happened. In one story,
Speaker 2: David hires Joe to kill yvon In another, Joe shows
Speaker 2: up at Yvonne's house and she's already dead. And in
Speaker 2: two thousand and one, just a year after conviction, Joe
Speaker 2: even recanted his hitman for Higher confession and said he
Speaker 2: was pressured by police and coached what to say to
Speaker 2: implicate David.
Speaker 7: Scared and confused, Wilkes says this former detective forced him
Speaker 7: to confess Wilkes was a friend of David Thorns, and.
Speaker 2: They had told me a general story about how to put.
Speaker 3: David in it.
Speaker 10: Maggie, did you reach out to Joe?
Speaker 2: I did not, because I also I just didn't want
Speaker 2: to really tamper with anything. I did not reach out
Speaker 2: to him. Now, let me clarify that I did not
Speaker 2: reach out to Joe because I did not want to
Speaker 2: engage in any kind of perceived witness tampering because in
Speaker 2: my mind, the case wasn't dead in the water. It
Speaker 2: could go back to court, and I didn't want to
Speaker 2: mess anything up. And I'm glad I didn't because it
Speaker 2: seems like Joe really is the key to the entire story.
Speaker 10: You know, I'd like David to tell us if he
Speaker 10: was our newest investigator, how would he approach this. It's
Speaker 10: always good to hear from our clients on what their
Speaker 10: own thoughts are, how they would proceed with about what
Speaker 10: we're about to launch ourselves into.
Speaker 2: David was on this planning call too.
Speaker 5: I mean, the thing that comes to the forefront of
Speaker 5: mine is Joe's timeline.
Speaker 2: Different accounts and witnesses put Joe at multiple places that night,
Speaker 2: So which version of the story is true. John and
Speaker 2: Danny were ready to go to Ohio and find out
Speaker 2: And then I had an idea. I suggested that I
Speaker 2: document their investigation in real time. I wanted to see
Speaker 2: how it was done, step by step, interview by interview,
Speaker 2: as we try to put the pieces together. And they
Speaker 2: agreed we were all going to hit the ground in Ohio.
Speaker 3: Okay, well, let's well, like I said, we'll stay in
Speaker 3: touch is needed and as things come into focus as
Speaker 3: far as what we want to get accomplished there and
Speaker 3: time frame and all that stuff. But we will plan
Speaker 3: on being there two weeks from today, guys.
Speaker 10: Okay, we'll regroup and be back in touch.
Speaker 2: All right, Okay, by guys, Good to see you too.
Speaker 2: In two weeks, we'd be an alliance Ohio, starting the
Speaker 2: investigation into Yvonne's murder from scratch, exactly what David said
Speaker 2: he needed to move his case forward. What would we find?
Speaker 2: There were so many questions. Danny and John poured through
Speaker 2: case files trying to figure out where to start. They
Speaker 2: sent me a recording of their discussion, and I want
Speaker 2: you to hear it. I want you to hear how
Speaker 2: they approach the case. What stood out to them right away,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 10: And taking this case, I think one of the first
Speaker 10: things we always have to do is say, what do
Speaker 10: we believe was the most significant part of what convicted
Speaker 10: our clients?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and we know, just even if it's.
Speaker 10: Just preliminary research, we know it was the statement of
Speaker 10: Jose Wilks. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because it's not like there's
Speaker 10: an abundant there's no biological evidence, you.
Speaker 3: Know, right off the bat. A couple of things that
Speaker 3: raise my eyebrows are the knife in the pants, how
Speaker 3: did Joe lead them to the circumstances? And if it
Speaker 3: was the murder weapon and Joe did lead them there,
Speaker 3: then that's a big fucking deal, you know, just on
Speaker 3: its face, that's one that I'm going to have to
Speaker 3: have a satisfactory answer to you. How did Joe take
Speaker 3: them to that knife? That's a hell of a thing
Speaker 3: right there. Joe's got some explaining to do.
Speaker 6: This is all originating from an Ohio correctional institution and
Speaker 6: maybe recorded or.
Speaker 7: Monitored what was with the knife, though, Joe, I don't.
Speaker 6: Know why I was my clothes gone it? Why was
Speaker 6: I'm so worried about this?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I don't know. Coming up on death and deceit
Speaker 2: in alliance.
Speaker 8: About she actually cheated on him a couple of times.
Speaker 7: In terms of the police force, my god, I had
Speaker 7: eight or nine names of officers who were potential sexual
Speaker 7: partners because she was murdered.
Speaker 9: And I, I mean, you could have just knocked me over.
Speaker 7: Any number of people could have been a suspect.
Speaker 4: He was seen by a neighbor standing at her front
Speaker 4: door at five point thirty at a time of death
Speaker 4: of seven, where he said that they put in a
Speaker 4: room and they changed him to the wall by his
Speaker 4: arm and fit on him, and they told him that
Speaker 4: they wanted him to confess.
Speaker 7: The guy I knew they came into the post office
Speaker 7: that threw up his.
Speaker 4: Hand away and grinned all the time, and he's just
Speaker 4: the nicest guy ever. I thought, no, this can't be.
Speaker 7: Bret Turvey, a nationally no criminal forensics expert, picked apart
Speaker 7: what he calls a botched case.
Speaker 2: I'm curious, why is you know so many guys you
Speaker 2: never asked about that. I wondered about him.
Speaker 10: The officers were involved in the various activity and criminal activity.
Speaker 10: The fact that it was never turned over to the
Speaker 10: defense is shocking.
Speaker 7: The police controlled the narrative.
Speaker 8: I cannot get to the truth.
Speaker 5: Did you know who he identified?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 6: I don't.
Speaker 7: There's a police officer.
Speaker 6: It's like, no, something's missing here and what did the
Speaker 6: prosecution turn this over on?
Speaker 2: What is going on here?
Speaker 3: So it makes me feel like there's more to the story.
Speaker 6: And although you thought that the evidence proved it, I
Speaker 6: know in my heart and saw I did not do this.
Speaker 2: Death and deceit In Alliance is produced and reported by
Speaker 2: me Maggie Freeling, with editorial consulting from Amber Hunt. Aaron
Speaker 2: Case is our legal researcher. Our executive producer is Steve Fishman.
Speaker 2: Our engineer and production coordinator is Austin Smith. Eric Axelrod
Speaker 2: is our assistant producer.