WEBVTT - #377 Jason Flom with Tyrone Noling 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:03.080 Our original coverage of Tyrone Noling's case was released on 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.040 December one, twenty twenty one. Since then, there have been 0:00:06.080 --> 0:00:10.360 some developments. This reissue comes with an update from Ohio 0:00:10.400 --> 0:00:13.640 and Is Project staff attorney Brian Howe on where Tyrone's 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:20.479 case currently lies. In nineteen ninety, eighteen year old Tyrone 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:23.400 Noling lived with friends whose ages ranged from fourteen to 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:28.480 twenty in Alliance, Ohio. With no real adult supervision or resources. 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:31.840 The boys engaged in several minor robberies, including one where 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:35.640 Tyrone had accidentally fired a stolen twenty five caliber pistol 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:38.400 into the floor and no one was hurt. The young 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:41.160 men were arrested and Tyrone and his friend Gary Saint 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:45.520 Clair pled guilty around that same time. One county away 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:49.559 in Atwater, Ohio, on April fifth, nineteen ninety, Bernhardt and 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:51.960 Cora Harding were shot to death in their home with 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:55.680 the twenty five caliber gun. The sheriff's office immediately had 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:59.520 several leads, including Tyrone and his friends, but after ballistics 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:02.360 testing showed the Tyrone's twenty five caliber gun was not 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:04.760 a match to the murder weapon, and with no other 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:08.120 physical evidence or eyewitness accounts, Tyrone and his friends were 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:13.080 dismissed as suspects. Nevertheless, when the investigation failed to nail 0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:16.880 the other more viable suspects, investigators turned back to Tyrone 0:01:16.880 --> 0:01:19.520 and his friends, who were coerced into turning on one 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:22.800 another by lies about non existent evidence and the real 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:27.440 threat of the death penalty. His friends Joey Dallasandro, Butch Walcott, 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:30.560 and Gary Saint Clair agreed to tout the false narrative in 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:34.520 which Tyrone and Gary Saint Clair murdered the Hardings testimony 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:38.800 they all later recanted. However, without knowledge of the much 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:43.240 more likely suspects, and only presented with the false testimonies, 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:46.760 the jury sent Tyrone to death row, from where he 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:50.320 and the Ohioanists Project continue to fight to clear his 0:01:50.440 --> 0:01:51.160 name to. 0:01:51.200 --> 0:02:09.800 This very day. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:10.680 wrongful conviction. 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:13.600 This is a hard one even for me, because this 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:20.440 is one of the most twisted, entangled, nonsensical, and I'm 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:24.480 gonna say evil, wrongful convictions that I know of, And 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:28.239 of course I'm referring to the case of Tyrone Knowling. 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:32.160 Tyrone has been on death row in Ohio for over 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:35.560 thirty years, where he remains to this day and with 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:39.040 us today to talk about the case is a man 0:02:39.080 --> 0:02:41.720 who knows it like the back of his hand, Brian How. 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:46.000 Brian is an attorney with the Ohio Innocence Project. So, Brian, 0:02:46.120 --> 0:02:48.440 I'm glad you're here, but Jesus, this is gonna be 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:51.600 a tough one. Thanks Jason, and Tyrone, I'm so glad 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:54.640 you're here with us today, even though I'm so very 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:57.919 sorry because of the reason why you're here and even 0:02:58.000 --> 0:02:59.840 more so because of where you are. 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:00.840 Thank you. 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:06.800 So Tyrone, let's start by going back before everything that's happened. 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:09.040 What was your life like growing up? 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:12.440 I grew up in a small town outside of Kanton, Ohio, 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:14.040 in Stark County called Alliance. 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:16.840 I grew up in a one parent home with four. 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:20.239 Other siblings, and my childhood was like any other childhood. 0:03:20.480 --> 0:03:24.160 Did sports, went to school, and as I got older, 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:27.080 I got in a little trouble, but for the most part, 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:30.960 life at home was pretty good. Turned eighteen and pretty 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:33.600 much found myself on my own, just hanging out with 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:34.880 a group of friends that I. 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:37.920 Had grew up with, and the group of friends that 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:42.320 you mentioned here. You're talking about Johnny Trandafair, Gary Saint 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:45.920 Clair and Joseph Dlasandra and Butch Walcott and the latter 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:48.960 three all play a part in this wrongful conviction. Now, 0:03:49.240 --> 0:03:54.000 you all were staying together in the same house, right, Yeah, I. 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:56.720 Didn't really know, Butch Wilcock. I grew up with Gary 0:03:56.760 --> 0:03:59.840 Saint Clair and Joey Dallas Sandro. We lived pretty much 0:03:59.840 --> 0:04:03.040 in the same neighborhood and knew each other since kindergarten. 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:07.960 Gary's stepdad had an accident and the house became vacant, 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:10.040 so we all just started congregating there. 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:12.160 We were just hanging out. We were doing. 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:16.440 Dumb stuff, you know, bought pizza, chase, girls, stayed up late. 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:19.800 And Brian, I want to bring you back in here. So, 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:24.200 like Tyrone says, he was getting into some trouble, which 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:27.400 is what leads to the connection with this crime, right sure. 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:30.600 I mean the reason that Tyrone was on the radar 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:36.679 of investigators was that there were two burglaries that happened 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:40.280 the next county over the Tyrone was ultimately arrested for 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:46.320 completed guilty to and those robberies were what made him 0:04:46.400 --> 0:04:49.880 a target in the Harding murder investigation to begin with. 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:53.280 Right, Tyrone and the other young men were involved in 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:56.760 some burglaries, and in one he did have a gun 0:04:57.000 --> 0:04:59.320 that they got from another robbery, and the gun went 0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:03.240 off accident and shot directly into the floor, but Tyrone 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:06.559 made sure that no one was hurt before running away. 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:09.800 I mean, this is not a guy who was out 0:05:09.800 --> 0:05:13.400 to hurt anyone. He was definitely doing some very dumb things, 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:16.720 but not a violent guy. And he was arrested for 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:20.360 those robberies, pled guilty, and ended up serving time in prison. 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:25.400 And that leads us up to this crime, which happens 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:29.720 faithfully around the same time. I'm talking about April fifth, 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:32.839 nineteen ninety, which is when Bernhardt and Cora Harding, both 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:34.880 eighty one years old, were shot to death in their 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:37.720 own home. From the look of things, they had been 0:05:37.760 --> 0:05:40.640 doing some spring cleaning and they were shot while sitting 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:43.640 at their dining room table. This isn't at Water, Ohio, 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:45.960 which is a rural town in Portage County. 0:05:46.160 --> 0:05:49.719 And if you don't know at Water, Ohio, it's almost 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:52.480 a stretch to call it a town. The people who 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:56.520 live within a square mile of this you could count 0:05:56.560 --> 0:05:57.240 on your hands. 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:01.559 So let me set the stage. Saturday, April seventh, nineteen ninety. 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:06.520 At six fifteen pm, Chief Detective Dwayne Cayley was notified 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:11.000 by dispatcher Kathy Rabino that Jim Rabino had called and 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:13.799 reported that there were two people laying on the kitchen 0:06:13.839 --> 0:06:17.320 floor at the neighbor's house. Jim's mother, who had lived 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:20.080 next door to the Hartigs for thirty years, asked him 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:22.680 to go check on them when she noticed their garage 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:26.400 had been opened with the lawnmower outside for almost three days. 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:28.720 There was no answer when he knocked on the door, 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:31.480 and their car was in the garage. He looked inside 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:34.320 and saw the heardgs laying on the kitchen floor. Now 0:06:34.520 --> 0:06:37.039 ten twenty five caliber shellcases were found on the floor 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:39.560 of the Hartig home. Papers from the living room desk 0:06:39.600 --> 0:06:42.520 were scattered around the room. Dresser drawers and jewelry boxes 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:45.279 were opened and had been rifled through. At this point, 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:48.400 Detective Kayley reported that they didn't seem to be any 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:52.120 signs of struggle from the victims. Mister Hardigs wallet was 0:06:52.200 --> 0:06:56.440 in his pocket and the money was still inside, so 0:06:56.480 --> 0:06:59.320 there was no force entry found in the house, and 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:01.120 it seemed as if there had been at least one 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:04.479 other person sitting at the kitchen table. You want to 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:07.240 take it from here, because this gets weirder and weirder. 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:12.200 Sure, so, it's not a usual occurrence in at Water, 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:15.520 Ohio to have a double murder, especially eighty plus year 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:20.640 old victims. And so the Sheriff's department began investigating. One 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:23.880 of the first leads that they had, and this is 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:27.800 even as they are processing the scene, they get a 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:31.280 call from a roller rink, maybe a couple of miles away, 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:37.080 and there is a person there saying that he lost 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:40.520 a twenty five caliber pistol there on Friday night. He 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:42.280 was looking for it, trying to see if anyone had 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:44.080 turned it in. He was worried that some kids were 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:46.760 going to find it. And the person is a man 0:07:46.880 --> 0:07:50.640 named Dennis van Steinberg who lived in the area. Police 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:54.080 investigate that, but while they're doing that, leads are sort 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:55.960 of pouring in. Right This is a big deal in 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:58.120 the county, it's a big deal in the city. One 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:01.160 of the tips they get again almost right away, is 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:05.480 from a high school student named Nathan Chesley, and he 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:08.120 says that my foster brother told me that he was 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:11.720 the person who had killed the Heartiggs. And so police 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:14.239 are investigating that lead as well. 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:17.080 Okay, so right off the bat, they have some pretty 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:20.360 strong leads here, right, So what's going on with the 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:22.320 first guy, Dennis van Steinberg. 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:25.320 They go talk to him. He says, well, yes, I 0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:27.400 did have a twenty five. I don't know where it went. 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:29.280 It must have fallen out of my car or something 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:31.680 like that around the time of the murders. He said 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:35.040 he had found it. So the police check the pistol 0:08:35.160 --> 0:08:38.720 to the ballistics of the rounds recovered from the scene 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:41.439 and it's not a match. And so at that point 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:46.000 the investigation into van Steinberg sort of fades away. In 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:49.920 the meantime, a police have followed up on Nathan Chesley's tip. 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:54.480 They go to his house, which is a woman who 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:56.680 had fostered a lot of sort of troubled teens in 0:08:56.720 --> 0:09:00.520 the area. It's less than a mile and a half 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:02.520 from the scene. And you remember, there's not a lot 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:06.400 of people who live as close as Nathan Chesley did 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:09.600 to the victims in this case. And so the police 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:13.160 ask whether there's a foster brother around who they can interview, 0:09:13.679 --> 0:09:16.440 and they're told there's a foster brother. He's only fourteen 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:20.120 years old. And they eliminate this foster brother pretty quickly. 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:23.360 In the meantime, they also get a tip from the 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:28.200 neighboring county, Stark County. Stark County has been investigating a 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:32.520 series of break in where a group of teenagers has 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:36.680 been going to various houses saying my car broke down 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:39.160 and I'd like to use your telephone. When they're let 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:43.440 inside the house, they then produce a shotgun and it 0:09:43.480 --> 0:09:46.000 turns out to be a fake thirty eight caliber revolver 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:50.640 and they take various valuables VCRs, jewelry, things like that, 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:54.360 and that turns out to be Tyrone Noling and his 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:58.479 co defendants. So Tyrone is arrested with his co defendants 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:02.560 and they find a twenty five caliber gun, so now 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:06.080 it's very interesting to the Porge County authorities. They test 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:08.480 that one for ballistics and it turns out that it 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:11.000 does not match the one that was used in the crime. 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:13.640 I mean, there's no getting around that. So at this 0:10:13.760 --> 0:10:17.440 point the sheriff knows that these guys, Tyrone and his 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:19.800 friends are not involved in the murders. 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:22.920 So at that point the investigation sort of stalls out 0:10:23.040 --> 0:10:26.839 for about a year. The detectives are facing pressure, they 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:29.400 come up with another lead, this time they talk to 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:34.360 the Hardiggs doctor doctor Canone. The week before the bodies 0:10:34.400 --> 0:10:37.439 were found, mister Hardigg told doctor Canone that he had 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:40.720 lent ten thousand dollars to an insurance salesman, that the 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:43.360 insurance salesman had failed to pay when the loan had 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:46.440 come due on April first, that something fishy was going 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:49.520 on with this loan and with the insurance salesman explanation 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:51.400 for why I refused to pay, and as soon as 0:10:51.400 --> 0:10:53.120 he got off the phone with doctor Canone, he was 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:55.920 going to go sort this out with the insurance salesman. 0:10:56.400 --> 0:10:59.000 The police start to look at insurance salesmen that the 0:10:59.000 --> 0:11:01.240 Heartiggs had dealt with, and they find a man named 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:06.360 Lewis Leman. Lewis Leman denies having taken out alone, but 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:10.600 he was the insurance salesman for the Hertiggs. And what's more, 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:14.480 he had a twenty five caliber pistol as well. Unlike 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:17.880 the other two pistols that the police have compared, they're 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:20.320 able to look up the make and model and see 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:23.840 that the pistol Lehman had was consistent with the general 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:27.880 rifling characteristics of the rounds that were found in the house. 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:32.480 They asked Leman where his twenty five cal pistol was. 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:34.720 He said, well, I must have sold it. I don't 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:37.320 remember who bought it, I don't remember when I sold it, 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:40.200 and I'm done answering questions from you all. He refused 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:42.960 to take a lot of detector test and basically stopped 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:47.679 talking to detectives, and at that point the investigation had 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:49.199 basically completely stalled out. 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:53.120 So this lead with Lehman, I mean, if this was 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:56.480 a movie script, you'd say that this is it was 0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:59.400 too obvious. Right. What I'm trying to wrap my head 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:02.440 around here is this sounds like the investigators are just 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:07.440 bungling this at every stage and we haven't even gotten 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:10.839 to one of the craziest leads, and that is this 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:12.040 guy Dan Wilson. 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:16.040 That's right. Dan Wilson is arrested for a murder a 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:20.040 few counties over in northern Ohio. Dan had gotten drunk, 0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:22.959 put a young woman that he'd met earlier that night 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:26.439 in the trunk of his car, and set the car 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:31.120 on fire. This was very big news, and law enforcement 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:36.880 across northeast Ohio started looking at Dan for basically every 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:40.440 unsolved murder that they had that included the Portis County 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:43.480 Sheriff's Department. When they did that, they discovered something about 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:47.160 Dan Wilson that they'd missed earlier, and that is that 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:51.560 he was a foster brother of Nathan Chesl, the very 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:54.240 kid who came to them the day after the murder 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:56.320 and said, my foster brother confessed to that. When the 0:12:56.360 --> 0:12:59.600 detectives followed up on that, they never interviewed Nathan Chesley, 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:03.400 eliminated the wrong foster brother. They never connected the dots 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:06.360 to Dan Wilson. They never bothered to interview Nathan Cheslay, 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:10.080 and so Dan Wilson, who lived within a mile of 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:14.040 the house and who police now believe is a serial killer, 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:17.840 was known to them almost immediately after the murder, and 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:20.040 they let it slip through their fingers. He went on 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:21.160 to kill another woman. 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:40.080 This podcast is brought to by Ohio Justice and Policy Center, 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:43.040 a nonprofit law firm that seeks justice for people to 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:47.520 directly impact it by Ohio's criminal legal system. OJPC provides 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:51.680 free legal services to currently and formally incarcerated people. Through 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:55.600 its Beyond Guilt Project. OJPC works to free over punish 0:13:55.679 --> 0:14:00.560 people who have rehabilitated themselves. Ojpc's Second Chance Clinic help 0:14:00.640 --> 0:14:04.800 individuals with criminal records remove barriers to employment and house it. 0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:09.000 Ojpc's Human Rights in Prison project represents people who face 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:12.200 denial of medical care. In its twenty five year history, 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:15.800 OJPC has worked at the policy level and won numerous 0:14:15.880 --> 0:14:19.600 victories in Ohio, including ending juvenile life without parole and 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:23.600 exempting seriously mentally ill people from the death penalty. To 0:14:23.680 --> 0:14:26.800 learn more about Ohio Justice and Policy Center and how 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:31.240 you can support its mission, visit OHIOJPC dot org. That's 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:38.240 OHIOJPC dot org, Ohio Justice and Policy Center. We don't 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:39.160 write people. 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:48.880 Off, you know, at the very least. I think it 0:14:48.960 --> 0:14:51.720 must have been embarrassing to the office that they had 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:55.520 this tip within days of the murder and they didn't 0:14:55.560 --> 0:14:58.280 realize their mistake until Dan Wilson had committed another very 0:14:58.320 --> 0:15:01.880 high profile murder. Right at the same time that that's happening, 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:05.600 someone gets a call from a woman named Marlene van Steinberg. 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:09.960 She is, I believe the aunt of Dennis van Steinberg again, 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:11.840 who was the very first person who they looked at 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:14.760 and who they eliminated after he turned in his weapon. Well, 0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:18.600 Marlene says that in those first days of the investigation, 0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:23.440 Dennis's father had come over to their house and asked 0:15:23.480 --> 0:15:27.040 his brother, who is Marlene's husband, if he could borrow 0:15:27.160 --> 0:15:31.160 his twenty five caliber pistol for a few weeks. And 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:33.760 when Richard van Steinberg asked, why do you need my 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:37.200 twenty five, the response was, well, Dennis had to get 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:40.520 rid of his because he was in some sort of 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:43.880 trouble with the police, and he needed a different one 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:47.520 to give the police, and so they ultimately gave it 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:50.760 to him, and that was the weapon that was turned 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:53.680 into the police and eliminated. What's more, Marlene says that 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:56.960 she called the police to tell them this during that 0:15:57.120 --> 0:16:00.560 original investigation, So the police should have been on notice 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:04.280 that Dennis van Steinberg is turning in the wrong gun 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:09.240 for comparison purposes, and they still eliminated van Steinberg as 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:13.680 a suspect. So those two things are happening right back 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:16.560 to back. Dan Wilson comes to light and it comes 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:20.600 to light that they basically wasted a blistic comparison on 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:22.720 what they should have known was the wrong gun for 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:23.760 Dennis van Steinberg. 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:28.240 So we have these incredibly powerful leads that should have 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:30.760 led them not towards but away from those four boys, 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:33.640 because there's no connection between these nefarious characters and the 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:36.760 four kids. What happens next, So that. 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:40.560 Is when the Porridge County Prosecuting Attorney's office takes over 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:44.120 the investigation and they assigned their own investigator to the case, 0:16:44.600 --> 0:16:46.040 a man named Ron Craig. 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:50.880 Yes, Ron Craig, let's not skip over this character. From 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:57.400 my understanding, he was known for his extremely aggressive interrogation techniques, 0:16:58.000 --> 0:17:02.000 for playing fast and loose with the rules in order 0:17:02.080 --> 0:17:04.320 to get results that he wanted. 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:08.240 That's right. Ron Craig was a person who the prosecuting 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:13.040 Attorney's office turned to who could crack this case open 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:17.919 through aggressive interrogation get results. That is what he was 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:20.720 known for at that time. If you look at where 0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:24.160 the investigation was when they took it over, Dan Wilson 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:26.520 at that time was under indictment for murder. You could 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:29.399 not interview him without an attorney. Lewis Lehman at that 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:33.200 point was not cooperating. He had gotten an attorney as well. 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:36.840 Maybe the most logical place for Ron Craig to go 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:39.960 was back to these other four kids who had also 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:44.000 been eliminated through ballistics and try to see what he 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:47.199 could do in terms of interrogating them, and so he 0:17:47.320 --> 0:17:51.399 started with Butch Walcott, who was sixteen years old at 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:51.760 the time. 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:56.240 Yeah, and this part it gets more and more disturbing 0:17:56.440 --> 0:18:00.040 because they took these four young kids, and with the 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:03.679 very real threat of the death penalty, they were able 0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:08.080 to scare these kids and brow beat them into saying 0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:12.160 things that they knew weren't true because they weren't there 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:15.160 and they didn't know anything. And basically, as in other 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:18.840 false confession cases or false eyewitness cases that we've seen 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:21.840 over and over again, they were fed the information by 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:25.440 the police and then they were given basically a Sophie's choice, 0:18:25.480 --> 0:18:28.560 either you lie and implicate your friends, or we are 0:18:28.600 --> 0:18:31.280 going to send you to death row. Right, am I 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:32.840 missing ay saying no? 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:35.240 And I mean for Butcher if you read the series 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:38.280 of interrogations and statements that he makes, at least my 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:41.400 impression is that he was terrified, and it's clear as 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:45.040 he's just trying to do his best. He continues to 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:47.680 insist he wasn't there, he had nothing to do with this. 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:49.879 He tells them everything they want to know about the 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:52.760 two robberies that happened in Stark County, but he says, 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:55.560 we never went to Fordage County. We never went out 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:58.880 to atwater. He doesn't know where it is. And that's 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:01.880 not an answer that ron Craig is going to accept. 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:05.399 So what they do is they send him to a 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:10.440 child psychologist, who then puts Butch, the sixteen year old kid, 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:14.560 under hypnosis in order to recover what they allege our 0:19:14.960 --> 0:19:18.879 repressed memories of the murder. And so under hypnosis, they 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:21.399 would ask things like when did the murder take place? 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:24.080 And Butch would say, well, it was not quite dark, 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:26.040 but it was not quite light. I don't know, maybe 0:19:26.040 --> 0:19:28.720 somewhere in between. I just don't remember. And he would 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:31.199 give answers like that to every question, and even these 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:34.320 psychologists at the time that if we keep this up, 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:36.879 he's just going to say false things to try and 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:40.639 make the investigators happy because he's so terrified. But it 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:41.560 didn't stop. 0:19:41.320 --> 0:19:43.960 It, right, And I want to also mention that this 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:47.959 detective Ron Craig made sure to separate Butch from his father. 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:52.800 This detective pressured young Butch Walcott relentlessly lying directly to 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:55.760 the kid. That's right, that he had hard evidence implicating him, 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:58.639 including a witness and DNA matches, right, so you know 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:00.960 you can imagine what's going on in poor kid's brain, 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:04.399 where it's just getting completely scrambled. He's just given these answers. 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:07.720 They don't make any sense. And let us not forget 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:12.000 that the tape recorder was only turned on when Walcott 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:14.720 finally made statements that had been fed to him that 0:20:14.800 --> 0:20:17.960 were consistent with what they wanted to hear. Right, that 0:20:18.160 --> 0:20:21.639 was when he implicated the subject of our show today, 0:20:21.840 --> 0:20:25.679 Tyrone Noling. And then Craig turned to one of the 0:20:25.680 --> 0:20:29.160 other kids, the Alessandro, who said he knew nothing about 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:32.040 the murders, but his own attorney convinced him and his 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:34.560 family that he should plead bargain to avoid the electric chair. 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:37.760 That's right, yeah, I mean once they can get Butch 0:20:37.960 --> 0:20:42.000 Wilcott to come up with the story, the rest sort 0:20:42.000 --> 0:20:44.080 of fall in line at that point. They don't need 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:46.920 to go any further. Tyrone's the main target, and he's 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:50.080 indicted for aggravated murder with capital specifications. 0:20:50.480 --> 0:20:53.240 Okay. In addition to the other guys, Saint Clair pled 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:56.320 guilty to the Hertig murders as well. Right, he had 0:20:56.359 --> 0:20:59.520 given into pressure from Detective Craig as well as his 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:04.960 own attorneys and its family and he was understandably scared 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:07.760 out of his mind about the death penalty. And then 0:21:07.880 --> 0:21:11.000 Tyrone Knowling is indicted initially for the murders in nineteen 0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:14.800 ninety three. But this is when things get even weirder. 0:21:15.000 --> 0:21:18.280 In June nineteen ninety three, the court entered a nol pross, 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:22.880 which means that the prosecutor or plaintiff states that they 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:26.879 will no longer pursue the matter, so they dismissed the case. 0:21:27.400 --> 0:21:30.480 The whole thing should have wrapped up right there. That 0:21:30.520 --> 0:21:31.200 should have been it. 0:21:31.520 --> 0:21:33.800 Well, that's right, And the reason that the case was 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:38.359 initially dismissed was that almost as soon as they had 0:21:38.400 --> 0:21:42.200 made the deals, both Joey Delassandro and Gary Saint Clair 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:45.320 started taking them back. You know, it's one thing under 0:21:45.359 --> 0:21:48.320 a lot of pressure, under threats, with deals being offered, 0:21:48.680 --> 0:21:51.200 to sort of agree to it in the abstract, under 0:21:51.240 --> 0:21:55.000 that very immediate pressure. But as the court date actually approached, 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:59.520 Delessandro recanted asserted their innocence, We had nothing to do 0:21:59.560 --> 0:22:02.159 with this. When Gary Saint Clair recant did in a 0:22:02.160 --> 0:22:05.479 prison interview, said we lied, we were pressured, we had 0:22:05.520 --> 0:22:07.480 nothing to do with this. And at that point I 0:22:07.480 --> 0:22:09.720 think the state had no choice but to gree to 0:22:09.720 --> 0:22:12.480 dismiss the case and tyrone. 0:22:12.600 --> 0:22:15.199 This all has to be so crazy because you have 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:17.399 your friends and these guys you've known most of your 0:22:17.440 --> 0:22:20.400 life saying things about this crime that you know you 0:22:20.440 --> 0:22:24.160 weren't a part of, but you're indicted for it. And 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:26.200 then they dropped the charges. 0:22:26.480 --> 0:22:28.760 You know, when they dropped charges against me, I didn't 0:22:28.760 --> 0:22:31.520 see it coming. They offered a deal. I took a 0:22:31.560 --> 0:22:34.600 lie detector test and it was placed on the prosecutor's 0:22:34.680 --> 0:22:38.879 desk on that Friday. By Monday, they were rushing me 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:41.160 in the back of a courtroom with a judge saying, 0:22:41.200 --> 0:22:43.320 you know, you need to cop out. I don't want 0:22:43.320 --> 0:22:45.520 to sentence you to death. And I'm pleading with. 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:47.360 Them back there and I'm telling them I didn't do this, 0:22:47.920 --> 0:22:49.440 and so they send me. 0:22:49.359 --> 0:22:51.160