Speaker 1: Our original coverage of Tyrone Noling's case was released on
Speaker 1: December one, twenty twenty one. Since then, there have been
Speaker 1: some developments. This reissue comes with an update from Ohio
Speaker 1: and Is Project staff attorney Brian Howe on where Tyrone's
Speaker 1: case currently lies. In nineteen ninety, eighteen year old Tyrone
Speaker 1: Noling lived with friends whose ages ranged from fourteen to
Speaker 1: twenty in Alliance, Ohio. With no real adult supervision or resources.
Speaker 1: The boys engaged in several minor robberies, including one where
Speaker 1: Tyrone had accidentally fired a stolen twenty five caliber pistol
Speaker 1: into the floor and no one was hurt. The young
Speaker 1: men were arrested and Tyrone and his friend Gary Saint
Speaker 1: Clair pled guilty around that same time. One county away
Speaker 1: in Atwater, Ohio, on April fifth, nineteen ninety, Bernhardt and
Speaker 1: Cora Harding were shot to death in their home with
Speaker 1: the twenty five caliber gun. The sheriff's office immediately had
Speaker 1: several leads, including Tyrone and his friends, but after ballistics
Speaker 1: testing showed the Tyrone's twenty five caliber gun was not
Speaker 1: a match to the murder weapon, and with no other
Speaker 1: physical evidence or eyewitness accounts, Tyrone and his friends were
Speaker 1: dismissed as suspects. Nevertheless, when the investigation failed to nail
Speaker 1: the other more viable suspects, investigators turned back to Tyrone
Speaker 1: and his friends, who were coerced into turning on one
Speaker 1: another by lies about non existent evidence and the real
Speaker 1: threat of the death penalty. His friends Joey Dallasandro, Butch Walcott,
Speaker 1: and Gary Saint Clair agreed to tout the false narrative in
Speaker 1: which Tyrone and Gary Saint Clair murdered the Hardings testimony
Speaker 1: they all later recanted. However, without knowledge of the much
Speaker 1: more likely suspects, and only presented with the false testimonies,
Speaker 1: the jury sent Tyrone to death row, from where he
Speaker 1: and the Ohioanists Project continue to fight to clear his
Speaker 1: name to.
Speaker 2: This very day. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to
Speaker 2: wrongful conviction.
Speaker 1: This is a hard one even for me, because this
Speaker 1: is one of the most twisted, entangled, nonsensical, and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say evil, wrongful convictions that I know of, And
Speaker 1: of course I'm referring to the case of Tyrone Knowling.
Speaker 1: Tyrone has been on death row in Ohio for over
Speaker 1: thirty years, where he remains to this day and with
Speaker 1: us today to talk about the case is a man
Speaker 1: who knows it like the back of his hand, Brian How.
Speaker 1: Brian is an attorney with the Ohio Innocence Project. So, Brian,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you're here, but Jesus, this is gonna be
Speaker 1: a tough one. Thanks Jason, and Tyrone, I'm so glad
Speaker 1: you're here with us today, even though I'm so very
Speaker 1: sorry because of the reason why you're here and even
Speaker 1: more so because of where you are.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: So Tyrone, let's start by going back before everything that's happened.
Speaker 1: What was your life like growing up?
Speaker 4: I grew up in a small town outside of Kanton, Ohio,
Speaker 4: in Stark County called Alliance.
Speaker 3: I grew up in a one parent home with four.
Speaker 4: Other siblings, and my childhood was like any other childhood.
Speaker 4: Did sports, went to school, and as I got older,
Speaker 4: I got in a little trouble, but for the most part,
Speaker 4: life at home was pretty good. Turned eighteen and pretty
Speaker 4: much found myself on my own, just hanging out with
Speaker 4: a group of friends that I.
Speaker 1: Had grew up with, and the group of friends that
Speaker 1: you mentioned here. You're talking about Johnny Trandafair, Gary Saint
Speaker 1: Clair and Joseph Dlasandra and Butch Walcott and the latter
Speaker 1: three all play a part in this wrongful conviction. Now,
Speaker 1: you all were staying together in the same house, right, Yeah, I.
Speaker 4: Didn't really know, Butch Wilcock. I grew up with Gary
Speaker 4: Saint Clair and Joey Dallas Sandro. We lived pretty much
Speaker 4: in the same neighborhood and knew each other since kindergarten.
Speaker 4: Gary's stepdad had an accident and the house became vacant,
Speaker 4: so we all just started congregating there.
Speaker 3: We were just hanging out. We were doing.
Speaker 4: Dumb stuff, you know, bought pizza, chase, girls, stayed up late.
Speaker 1: And Brian, I want to bring you back in here. So,
Speaker 1: like Tyrone says, he was getting into some trouble, which
Speaker 1: is what leads to the connection with this crime, right sure.
Speaker 5: I mean the reason that Tyrone was on the radar
Speaker 5: of investigators was that there were two burglaries that happened
Speaker 5: the next county over the Tyrone was ultimately arrested for
Speaker 5: completed guilty to and those robberies were what made him
Speaker 5: a target in the Harding murder investigation to begin with.
Speaker 1: Right, Tyrone and the other young men were involved in
Speaker 1: some burglaries, and in one he did have a gun
Speaker 1: that they got from another robbery, and the gun went
Speaker 1: off accident and shot directly into the floor, but Tyrone
Speaker 1: made sure that no one was hurt before running away.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is not a guy who was out
Speaker 1: to hurt anyone. He was definitely doing some very dumb things,
Speaker 1: but not a violent guy. And he was arrested for
Speaker 1: those robberies, pled guilty, and ended up serving time in prison.
Speaker 1: And that leads us up to this crime, which happens
Speaker 1: faithfully around the same time. I'm talking about April fifth,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety, which is when Bernhardt and Cora Harding, both
Speaker 1: eighty one years old, were shot to death in their
Speaker 1: own home. From the look of things, they had been
Speaker 1: doing some spring cleaning and they were shot while sitting
Speaker 1: at their dining room table. This isn't at Water, Ohio,
Speaker 1: which is a rural town in Portage County.
Speaker 5: And if you don't know at Water, Ohio, it's almost
Speaker 5: a stretch to call it a town. The people who
Speaker 5: live within a square mile of this you could count
Speaker 5: on your hands.
Speaker 1: So let me set the stage. Saturday, April seventh, nineteen ninety.
Speaker 1: At six fifteen pm, Chief Detective Dwayne Cayley was notified
Speaker 1: by dispatcher Kathy Rabino that Jim Rabino had called and
Speaker 1: reported that there were two people laying on the kitchen
Speaker 1: floor at the neighbor's house. Jim's mother, who had lived
Speaker 1: next door to the Hartigs for thirty years, asked him
Speaker 1: to go check on them when she noticed their garage
Speaker 1: had been opened with the lawnmower outside for almost three days.
Speaker 1: There was no answer when he knocked on the door,
Speaker 1: and their car was in the garage. He looked inside
Speaker 1: and saw the heardgs laying on the kitchen floor. Now
Speaker 1: ten twenty five caliber shellcases were found on the floor
Speaker 1: of the Hartig home. Papers from the living room desk
Speaker 1: were scattered around the room. Dresser drawers and jewelry boxes
Speaker 1: were opened and had been rifled through. At this point,
Speaker 1: Detective Kayley reported that they didn't seem to be any
Speaker 1: signs of struggle from the victims. Mister Hardigs wallet was
Speaker 1: in his pocket and the money was still inside, so
Speaker 1: there was no force entry found in the house, and
Speaker 1: it seemed as if there had been at least one
Speaker 1: other person sitting at the kitchen table. You want to
Speaker 1: take it from here, because this gets weirder and weirder.
Speaker 5: Sure, so, it's not a usual occurrence in at Water,
Speaker 5: Ohio to have a double murder, especially eighty plus year
Speaker 5: old victims. And so the Sheriff's department began investigating. One
Speaker 5: of the first leads that they had, and this is
Speaker 5: even as they are processing the scene, they get a
Speaker 5: call from a roller rink, maybe a couple of miles away,
Speaker 5: and there is a person there saying that he lost
Speaker 5: a twenty five caliber pistol there on Friday night. He
Speaker 5: was looking for it, trying to see if anyone had
Speaker 5: turned it in. He was worried that some kids were
Speaker 5: going to find it. And the person is a man
Speaker 5: named Dennis van Steinberg who lived in the area. Police
Speaker 5: investigate that, but while they're doing that, leads are sort
Speaker 5: of pouring in. Right This is a big deal in
Speaker 5: the county, it's a big deal in the city. One
Speaker 5: of the tips they get again almost right away, is
Speaker 5: from a high school student named Nathan Chesley, and he
Speaker 5: says that my foster brother told me that he was
Speaker 5: the person who had killed the Heartiggs. And so police
Speaker 5: are investigating that lead as well.
Speaker 1: Okay, so right off the bat, they have some pretty
Speaker 1: strong leads here, right, So what's going on with the
Speaker 1: first guy, Dennis van Steinberg.
Speaker 5: They go talk to him. He says, well, yes, I
Speaker 5: did have a twenty five. I don't know where it went.
Speaker 5: It must have fallen out of my car or something
Speaker 5: like that around the time of the murders. He said
Speaker 5: he had found it. So the police check the pistol
Speaker 5: to the ballistics of the rounds recovered from the scene
Speaker 5: and it's not a match. And so at that point
Speaker 5: the investigation into van Steinberg sort of fades away. In
Speaker 5: the meantime, a police have followed up on Nathan Chesley's tip.
Speaker 5: They go to his house, which is a woman who
Speaker 5: had fostered a lot of sort of troubled teens in
Speaker 5: the area. It's less than a mile and a half
Speaker 5: from the scene. And you remember, there's not a lot
Speaker 5: of people who live as close as Nathan Chesley did
Speaker 5: to the victims in this case. And so the police
Speaker 5: ask whether there's a foster brother around who they can interview,
Speaker 5: and they're told there's a foster brother. He's only fourteen
Speaker 5: years old. And they eliminate this foster brother pretty quickly.
Speaker 5: In the meantime, they also get a tip from the
Speaker 5: neighboring county, Stark County. Stark County has been investigating a
Speaker 5: series of break in where a group of teenagers has
Speaker 5: been going to various houses saying my car broke down
Speaker 5: and I'd like to use your telephone. When they're let
Speaker 5: inside the house, they then produce a shotgun and it
Speaker 5: turns out to be a fake thirty eight caliber revolver
Speaker 5: and they take various valuables VCRs, jewelry, things like that,
Speaker 5: and that turns out to be Tyrone Noling and his
Speaker 5: co defendants. So Tyrone is arrested with his co defendants
Speaker 5: and they find a twenty five caliber gun, so now
Speaker 5: it's very interesting to the Porge County authorities. They test
Speaker 5: that one for ballistics and it turns out that it
Speaker 5: does not match the one that was used in the crime.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's no getting around that. So at this
Speaker 1: point the sheriff knows that these guys, Tyrone and his
Speaker 1: friends are not involved in the murders.
Speaker 5: So at that point the investigation sort of stalls out
Speaker 5: for about a year. The detectives are facing pressure, they
Speaker 5: come up with another lead, this time they talk to
Speaker 5: the Hardiggs doctor doctor Canone. The week before the bodies
Speaker 5: were found, mister Hardigg told doctor Canone that he had
Speaker 5: lent ten thousand dollars to an insurance salesman, that the
Speaker 5: insurance salesman had failed to pay when the loan had
Speaker 5: come due on April first, that something fishy was going
Speaker 5: on with this loan and with the insurance salesman explanation
Speaker 5: for why I refused to pay, and as soon as
Speaker 5: he got off the phone with doctor Canone, he was
Speaker 5: going to go sort this out with the insurance salesman.
Speaker 5: The police start to look at insurance salesmen that the
Speaker 5: Heartiggs had dealt with, and they find a man named
Speaker 5: Lewis Leman. Lewis Leman denies having taken out alone, but
Speaker 5: he was the insurance salesman for the Hertiggs. And what's more,
Speaker 5: he had a twenty five caliber pistol as well. Unlike
Speaker 5: the other two pistols that the police have compared, they're
Speaker 5: able to look up the make and model and see
Speaker 5: that the pistol Lehman had was consistent with the general
Speaker 5: rifling characteristics of the rounds that were found in the house.
Speaker 5: They asked Leman where his twenty five cal pistol was.
Speaker 5: He said, well, I must have sold it. I don't
Speaker 5: remember who bought it, I don't remember when I sold it,
Speaker 5: and I'm done answering questions from you all. He refused
Speaker 5: to take a lot of detector test and basically stopped
Speaker 5: talking to detectives, and at that point the investigation had
Speaker 5: basically completely stalled out.
Speaker 1: So this lead with Lehman, I mean, if this was
Speaker 1: a movie script, you'd say that this is it was
Speaker 1: too obvious. Right. What I'm trying to wrap my head
Speaker 1: around here is this sounds like the investigators are just
Speaker 1: bungling this at every stage and we haven't even gotten
Speaker 1: to one of the craziest leads, and that is this
Speaker 1: guy Dan Wilson.
Speaker 5: That's right. Dan Wilson is arrested for a murder a
Speaker 5: few counties over in northern Ohio. Dan had gotten drunk,
Speaker 5: put a young woman that he'd met earlier that night
Speaker 5: in the trunk of his car, and set the car
Speaker 5: on fire. This was very big news, and law enforcement
Speaker 5: across northeast Ohio started looking at Dan for basically every
Speaker 5: unsolved murder that they had that included the Portis County
Speaker 5: Sheriff's Department. When they did that, they discovered something about
Speaker 5: Dan Wilson that they'd missed earlier, and that is that
Speaker 5: he was a foster brother of Nathan Chesl, the very
Speaker 5: kid who came to them the day after the murder
Speaker 5: and said, my foster brother confessed to that. When the
Speaker 5: detectives followed up on that, they never interviewed Nathan Chesley,
Speaker 5: eliminated the wrong foster brother. They never connected the dots
Speaker 5: to Dan Wilson. They never bothered to interview Nathan Cheslay,
Speaker 5: and so Dan Wilson, who lived within a mile of
Speaker 5: the house and who police now believe is a serial killer,
Speaker 5: was known to them almost immediately after the murder, and
Speaker 5: they let it slip through their fingers. He went on
Speaker 5: to kill another woman.
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Speaker 5: Off, you know, at the very least. I think it
Speaker 5: must have been embarrassing to the office that they had
Speaker 5: this tip within days of the murder and they didn't
Speaker 5: realize their mistake until Dan Wilson had committed another very
Speaker 5: high profile murder. Right at the same time that that's happening,
Speaker 5: someone gets a call from a woman named Marlene van Steinberg.
Speaker 5: She is, I believe the aunt of Dennis van Steinberg again,
Speaker 5: who was the very first person who they looked at
Speaker 5: and who they eliminated after he turned in his weapon. Well,
Speaker 5: Marlene says that in those first days of the investigation,
Speaker 5: Dennis's father had come over to their house and asked
Speaker 5: his brother, who is Marlene's husband, if he could borrow
Speaker 5: his twenty five caliber pistol for a few weeks. And
Speaker 5: when Richard van Steinberg asked, why do you need my
Speaker 5: twenty five, the response was, well, Dennis had to get
Speaker 5: rid of his because he was in some sort of
Speaker 5: trouble with the police, and he needed a different one
Speaker 5: to give the police, and so they ultimately gave it
Speaker 5: to him, and that was the weapon that was turned
Speaker 5: into the police and eliminated. What's more, Marlene says that
Speaker 5: she called the police to tell them this during that
Speaker 5: original investigation, So the police should have been on notice
Speaker 5: that Dennis van Steinberg is turning in the wrong gun
Speaker 5: for comparison purposes, and they still eliminated van Steinberg as
Speaker 5: a suspect. So those two things are happening right back
Speaker 5: to back. Dan Wilson comes to light and it comes
Speaker 5: to light that they basically wasted a blistic comparison on
Speaker 5: what they should have known was the wrong gun for
Speaker 5: Dennis van Steinberg.
Speaker 1: So we have these incredibly powerful leads that should have
Speaker 1: led them not towards but away from those four boys,
Speaker 1: because there's no connection between these nefarious characters and the
Speaker 1: four kids. What happens next, So that.
Speaker 5: Is when the Porridge County Prosecuting Attorney's office takes over
Speaker 5: the investigation and they assigned their own investigator to the case,
Speaker 5: a man named Ron Craig.
Speaker 1: Yes, Ron Craig, let's not skip over this character. From
Speaker 1: my understanding, he was known for his extremely aggressive interrogation techniques,
Speaker 1: for playing fast and loose with the rules in order
Speaker 1: to get results that he wanted.
Speaker 5: That's right. Ron Craig was a person who the prosecuting
Speaker 5: Attorney's office turned to who could crack this case open
Speaker 5: through aggressive interrogation get results. That is what he was
Speaker 5: known for at that time. If you look at where
Speaker 5: the investigation was when they took it over, Dan Wilson
Speaker 5: at that time was under indictment for murder. You could
Speaker 5: not interview him without an attorney. Lewis Lehman at that
Speaker 5: point was not cooperating. He had gotten an attorney as well.
Speaker 5: Maybe the most logical place for Ron Craig to go
Speaker 5: was back to these other four kids who had also
Speaker 5: been eliminated through ballistics and try to see what he
Speaker 5: could do in terms of interrogating them, and so he
Speaker 5: started with Butch Walcott, who was sixteen years old at
Speaker 5: the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this part it gets more and more disturbing
Speaker 1: because they took these four young kids, and with the
Speaker 1: very real threat of the death penalty, they were able
Speaker 1: to scare these kids and brow beat them into saying
Speaker 1: things that they knew weren't true because they weren't there
Speaker 1: and they didn't know anything. And basically, as in other
Speaker 1: false confession cases or false eyewitness cases that we've seen
Speaker 1: over and over again, they were fed the information by
Speaker 1: the police and then they were given basically a Sophie's choice,
Speaker 1: either you lie and implicate your friends, or we are
Speaker 1: going to send you to death row. Right, am I
Speaker 1: missing ay saying no?
Speaker 5: And I mean for Butcher if you read the series
Speaker 5: of interrogations and statements that he makes, at least my
Speaker 5: impression is that he was terrified, and it's clear as
Speaker 5: he's just trying to do his best. He continues to
Speaker 5: insist he wasn't there, he had nothing to do with this.
Speaker 5: He tells them everything they want to know about the
Speaker 5: two robberies that happened in Stark County, but he says,
Speaker 5: we never went to Fordage County. We never went out
Speaker 5: to atwater. He doesn't know where it is. And that's
Speaker 5: not an answer that ron Craig is going to accept.
Speaker 5: So what they do is they send him to a
Speaker 5: child psychologist, who then puts Butch, the sixteen year old kid,
Speaker 5: under hypnosis in order to recover what they allege our
Speaker 5: repressed memories of the murder. And so under hypnosis, they
Speaker 5: would ask things like when did the murder take place?
Speaker 5: And Butch would say, well, it was not quite dark,
Speaker 5: but it was not quite light. I don't know, maybe
Speaker 5: somewhere in between. I just don't remember. And he would
Speaker 5: give answers like that to every question, and even these
Speaker 5: psychologists at the time that if we keep this up,
Speaker 5: he's just going to say false things to try and
Speaker 5: make the investigators happy because he's so terrified. But it
Speaker 5: didn't stop.
Speaker 1: It, right, And I want to also mention that this
Speaker 1: detective Ron Craig made sure to separate Butch from his father.
Speaker 1: This detective pressured young Butch Walcott relentlessly lying directly to
Speaker 1: the kid. That's right, that he had hard evidence implicating him,
Speaker 1: including a witness and DNA matches, right, so you know
Speaker 1: you can imagine what's going on in poor kid's brain,
Speaker 1: where it's just getting completely scrambled. He's just given these answers.
Speaker 1: They don't make any sense. And let us not forget
Speaker 1: that the tape recorder was only turned on when Walcott
Speaker 1: finally made statements that had been fed to him that
Speaker 1: were consistent with what they wanted to hear. Right, that
Speaker 1: was when he implicated the subject of our show today,
Speaker 1: Tyrone Noling. And then Craig turned to one of the
Speaker 1: other kids, the Alessandro, who said he knew nothing about
Speaker 1: the murders, but his own attorney convinced him and his
Speaker 1: family that he should plead bargain to avoid the electric chair.
Speaker 5: That's right, yeah, I mean once they can get Butch
Speaker 5: Wilcott to come up with the story, the rest sort
Speaker 5: of fall in line at that point. They don't need
Speaker 5: to go any further. Tyrone's the main target, and he's
Speaker 5: indicted for aggravated murder with capital specifications.
Speaker 1: Okay. In addition to the other guys, Saint Clair pled
Speaker 1: guilty to the Hertig murders as well. Right, he had
Speaker 1: given into pressure from Detective Craig as well as his
Speaker 1: own attorneys and its family and he was understandably scared
Speaker 1: out of his mind about the death penalty. And then
Speaker 1: Tyrone Knowling is indicted initially for the murders in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety three. But this is when things get even weirder.
Speaker 1: In June nineteen ninety three, the court entered a nol pross,
Speaker 1: which means that the prosecutor or plaintiff states that they
Speaker 1: will no longer pursue the matter, so they dismissed the case.
Speaker 1: The whole thing should have wrapped up right there. That
Speaker 1: should have been it.
Speaker 5: Well, that's right, And the reason that the case was
Speaker 5: initially dismissed was that almost as soon as they had
Speaker 5: made the deals, both Joey Delassandro and Gary Saint Clair
Speaker 5: started taking them back. You know, it's one thing under
Speaker 5: a lot of pressure, under threats, with deals being offered,
Speaker 5: to sort of agree to it in the abstract, under
Speaker 5: that very immediate pressure. But as the court date actually approached,
Speaker 5: Delessandro recanted asserted their innocence, We had nothing to do
Speaker 5: with this. When Gary Saint Clair recant did in a
Speaker 5: prison interview, said we lied, we were pressured, we had
Speaker 5: nothing to do with this. And at that point I
Speaker 5: think the state had no choice but to gree to
Speaker 5: dismiss the case and tyrone.
Speaker 1: This all has to be so crazy because you have
Speaker 1: your friends and these guys you've known most of your
Speaker 1: life saying things about this crime that you know you
Speaker 1: weren't a part of, but you're indicted for it. And
Speaker 1: then they dropped the charges.
Speaker 4: You know, when they dropped charges against me, I didn't
Speaker 4: see it coming. They offered a deal. I took a
Speaker 4: lie detector test and it was placed on the prosecutor's
Speaker 4: desk on that Friday. By Monday, they were rushing me
Speaker 4: in the back of a courtroom with a judge saying,
Speaker 4: you know, you need to cop out. I don't want
Speaker 4: to sentence you to death. And I'm pleading with.
Speaker 3: Them back there and I'm telling them I didn't do this,
Speaker 3: and so they send me.
Speaker 4: Back and I'm talking to my dad on the phone
Speaker 4: and I'm crying and I'm saying I don't know what
Speaker 4: to do.
Speaker 3: And my dad says, did you do this?
Speaker 4: And I said no, and he just said, well, then
Speaker 4: you stick to your guns.
Speaker 3: And that's what I did, even though I knew the
Speaker 3: osber against me.
Speaker 4: So the next day I go back into the courtroom
Speaker 4: and I stand up, and the judge says, the prosecutor
Speaker 4: wants to say something, and he dis misses every charge
Speaker 4: against me.
Speaker 3: And I can't even explain the feeling at that point.
Speaker 3: I was happy. I wanted to cry, I wanted to yo.
Speaker 3: I just wanted to get out of there.
Speaker 1: I can't even imagine to have them trying to get
Speaker 1: you to take a deal while they know their case
Speaker 1: is falling apart, but they're still trying to force you
Speaker 1: into it with the very real threat of death, of
Speaker 1: the death penalty, and then to just drop it. It's
Speaker 1: like you get dizzy from this, right. So what happened next?
Speaker 4: For three years almost I didn't hear nothing, and then
Speaker 4: all of a sudden, the new prosecutor comes in, and
Speaker 4: now they got Joey back on board. Once he realizes
Speaker 4: all the time he's about to do on other charges
Speaker 4: and decides that he's just going to make up some
Speaker 4: stuff and remembers everything they want him to say, and
Speaker 4: I'm being charged again.
Speaker 1: Happens once again, Brian, what Tyrone is talking about here
Speaker 1: with the election of the new prosecutor in Portage County
Speaker 1: and Joey Dallas Sandro coming back on what's going on there.
Speaker 5: Well, Joey at that point had been serving time on
Speaker 5: unrelated charge and was sort of unhappy with his circumstances
Speaker 5: and his sentence. He reached back out and explored the
Speaker 5: option of what would happen if he did go back
Speaker 5: on his recantation and agree to cooperate, which he ultimately
Speaker 5: agreed to do. That is what caused the state to
Speaker 5: reindict Tyrone. Knowing and now with both Butch and Joey Delssandro,
Speaker 5: they were ready to reprosecute the case.
Speaker 1: So Tyrone's trial begins in January of nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 1: six years after the crime. Right, so, Walcott, dallas Sandro,
Speaker 1: and Saint Clair will call this prosecution witnesses. But the
Speaker 1: former two boys gave testimonies that were very inconsistent details,
Speaker 1: but they nevertheless supported the state's narrative. They said that
Speaker 1: after the second robbery and their alliance Ohio neighborhood, all
Speaker 1: four boys allegedly drove to Atwater, where Tyrone allegedly chose
Speaker 1: the house to rob. Once they were at the Harding house,
Speaker 1: Dallesandro or Walcott said they waited in the car while
Speaker 1: Noling and Saint Clair allegedly went to the front door.
Speaker 1: Some time later, according to Walcott and Dallasandro, Nolan and
Speaker 1: Saint Clair came running from the Harding House and got
Speaker 1: back into the car. Dalasandro testified that he allegedly smelled
Speaker 1: smoke coming from Nolan's gun, and that Walcott said he
Speaker 1: saw the gun smoking. They also said that Nolan confessed
Speaker 1: to them. So, Tyrone, you're a trial and you see
Speaker 1: your friends they're telling these crazy lies. Can you take
Speaker 1: us back to that moment?
Speaker 3: It was unbelievable.
Speaker 4: I've known these guys for all my life and for
Speaker 4: them just to disregard my life life and just to
Speaker 4: sit up and they couldn't even look me in the face.
Speaker 4: They just kept their eyes on the prosecutor. And I
Speaker 4: wanted to get up and screen. I wanted to ask,
Speaker 4: why are you doing this?
Speaker 1: And so dallas Andre and Walcott are saying these things.
Speaker 1: But Saint Clair decides not to lie for the state anymore.
Speaker 1: He recanted his statement before trial and again courageously did
Speaker 1: it again on the stand. He denied going to Atwater
Speaker 1: and committing the murders, and then he was declared a
Speaker 1: hostile witness. And get this, the state read the entirety
Speaker 1: of his prior statement to the jury, which when I
Speaker 1: was reading about this case, I was like, how can
Speaker 1: that even for me? That seems beyond the pale, So Brian,
Speaker 1: what did the defense attorney say, I mean the other suspect?
Speaker 1: What about the other suspects?
Speaker 5: Well, all of these plausible and I think likely ultimate
Speaker 5: suspects who the police had originally investigated and who the
Speaker 5: police hadn't really excluded. None of those names came up
Speaker 5: during Tyrone's original trial, and it's plausible to believe that
Speaker 5: it's because that information wasn't turned over to the defense
Speaker 5: at the time of trial. There was only one theory
Speaker 5: ever presented to the jury about who committed the crime,
Speaker 5: and there were problems with that theory. There were holes
Speaker 5: in that theory. You remember, the twenty five caliber gun
Speaker 5: that Tyrone and his friends had taken in the prior
Speaker 5: robbery was still excluded. It was not the murder weapon.
Speaker 5: So they just had to come up with another story
Speaker 5: about how they must have had a second twenty five
Speaker 5: caliber gun and they must have picked it up somewhere
Speaker 5: and then they got rid of it somewhere. And there
Speaker 5: were things about this that didn't make sense. But I
Speaker 5: think the community was still really hurt and outraged by
Speaker 5: this murder, and they were only really given one theory
Speaker 5: as to what happened, and despite the problems in that theory,
Speaker 5: he was convicted.
Speaker 1: Huh So, Tyrone, when the jury went out to deliberate,
Speaker 1: did you have any hope at all all the things
Speaker 1: were going to go with your favor.
Speaker 4: I always stayed optimistic, even though I knew the cars
Speaker 4: were stacked against me, And I kind of remember when.
Speaker 3: They came and got me from the county jail.
Speaker 4: They was taking me up the steps and they were
Speaker 4: lined up with deputy sheriffs all the way up, and that.
Speaker 3: Had never happened before. So my heart just sank at
Speaker 3: that point.
Speaker 4: And I remember being in the courtroom and the jury
Speaker 4: coming in and one of the young ladies that was
Speaker 4: a juror, she sat down and she looked at me
Speaker 4: and she started crying, and I knew it was over.
Speaker 1: Then.
Speaker 3: I was scared to death.
Speaker 4: I'm about to go someplace that they say is the
Speaker 4: worst of the worst.
Speaker 3: You're sentenced to death, You're sentenced to dot people that
Speaker 3: have committed haineous crimes. I mean, I'm still young man.
Speaker 4: I don't know what to expect, and I have no
Speaker 4: choice because they're going to take me regardless.
Speaker 1: So you have a good team of attorneys filing post
Speaker 1: conviction motions, but they were all denied. And it's important
Speaker 1: to mention here that all of the prosecution's witnesses, all
Speaker 1: of them, Walcott, Dallas, Angele, and Saint Clair, every single
Speaker 1: one of them has since recanted their testimonies. Right then,
Speaker 1: in two thousand and six, the Ohio Innos's Project took
Speaker 1: on your case. Can you tell us how that came about.
Speaker 4: Well, my investigator, Vicki Buckwalter, was hired on and she
Speaker 4: stayed with me after my conviction because she could not
Speaker 4: believe what happened. She helped me contact people, write letters,
Speaker 4: and we contacted the Enniscence Project. It was kind of
Speaker 4: weird because Markazi showed up with a couple of students
Speaker 4: and I thought I was just going there for an
Speaker 4: attorney visit. I told me I thought he had the
Speaker 4: wrong room, and then he proceeded to tell me who
Speaker 4: he was, and I just sat down and I felt
Speaker 4: away off my soulas defined and they finally somebody's going
Speaker 4: to help me.
Speaker 3: I had a lot of respect from gratitude.
Speaker 1: For them in those ensuing fifteen years, bringing us right
Speaker 1: up to the present day, they bound a ton of
Speaker 1: stuff that made it seem like the doors of the
Speaker 1: prison should have sprung open by now and you should
Speaker 1: have walked free right out into the sunshine. But of
Speaker 1: course we know that that's not how the justice system
Speaker 1: works in Ohio or unfortunately in the rest of our country. So, Brian,
Speaker 1: can you tell us what the Ohio Innes's Project has
Speaker 1: been doing to fight this case.
Speaker 5: Originally, the Ohio Innescence Project was representing Tyrone just for
Speaker 5: the purposes of trying to get DNA testing. There are
Speaker 5: a few things that we know one percent were last
Speaker 5: touched by the person who committed the crime, and that
Speaker 5: is the ten shellcasings that were found at the scene,
Speaker 5: and the ring boxes and other items that the perpetrator
Speaker 5: had rifled through after the crime or during the crime.
Speaker 5: DNA technology today is since enough to develop profile from
Speaker 5: even just a few human cells, and so the hope
Speaker 5: was that if we were able to conduct DNA testing
Speaker 5: on those items, that you would develop a clear profile.
Speaker 5: And if that profile does not match Tyrone Knowling or
Speaker 5: any one of his co defendants, that's going to be
Speaker 5: very very strong evidence of his innocence. Unfortunately, we were
Speaker 5: not able to convince the court to allow us to
Speaker 5: conduct that DNA testing, and so to this day that
Speaker 5: evidence has not been tested. In the meantime, Tyrone's other
Speaker 5: attorneys had filed a motion for new trial based on
Speaker 5: very specific pieces of evidence that were uncovered at the
Speaker 5: end of the original investigation by the Sheriff's department. Specifically,
Speaker 5: first of all, the Nathan Chesley tip that was uncovered
Speaker 5: in Tyrone's co defendants files. Secondly, the statement by Marlene
Speaker 5: van Steinberg that the gun that had been eliminated from
Speaker 5: Dennis mann Steinberg was not the actual gun that he
Speaker 5: had on the night that the murder may have taken place.
Speaker 5: And finally, it had been own at the time. The
Speaker 5: police had excluded Tyrone and his friends from the cigarette
Speaker 5: butt using DNA testing, but they had been concerned enough
Speaker 5: about Dan Wilson as a suspect that they had tested
Speaker 5: Dan Wilson against that cigarette butt and he was not
Speaker 5: able to be excluded using the prior period of technology
Speaker 5: that was not turned over, we believe to the defense
Speaker 5: at the time of the original trial either now here
Speaker 5: today we are still waiting for an opportunity to fully
Speaker 5: examine the prosecutor's files, to fully examine the sheriff's files,
Speaker 5: to try to see what if anything, was in these
Speaker 5: files that was subject to disclosure back at the original
Speaker 5: trial in nineteen eighty five ninety six.
Speaker 1: Since we last spoke, Brian Howe and the Ohio Ness
Speaker 1: Project have been fighting Tyrone's case by trying to prove
Speaker 1: that compelling leads and evidence had been concealed from the
Speaker 1: defense and trial, specifically the insurance salesman Lehman, the Nathan
Speaker 1: Chesley tip, Marleine van Steinberg, and Dennis van Steinberg's gun,
Speaker 1: and the fact that primitive DNA testing had excluded Tyrone
Speaker 1: and his friends from the cigarette butt, yet an alternative suspect,
Speaker 1: Dan Wilson, was not excluded by zerology. All of this
Speaker 1: can be cleared up by access to the state's file
Speaker 1: in this case, and with a procedural rule from the
Speaker 1: Ohio Supreme Court Rule forty two that took effect in
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, broad access to those files shall be granted
Speaker 1: in the review of a capital case. And shortly after
Speaker 1: the original release of this episode, there was an exciting
Speaker 1: development right.
Speaker 5: So in March of twenty twenty two, the Eleventh District
Speaker 5: Court of Appeals did order the tyrone be given access
Speaker 5: to the States file. We are today discussing with the
Speaker 5: State how to move forward on the Rule forty two access. Specifically,
Speaker 5: there's an issue about the extent to which the defense
Speaker 5: expert is going to have access to the state's file.
Speaker 1: So it's taken a year and a half of pushback
Speaker 1: from the State to decide the conditions of the release
Speaker 1: of these documents.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I think really more importantly, these were ques
Speaker 5: were in years ago, and in fact, the original remand
Speaker 5: order that said the prosecutor's file should be turned over,
Speaker 5: I mean that was from twenty fourteen. It's I think
Speaker 5: frustrating how long the process has taken. What he's asking
Speaker 5: for couldn't be more reasonable. I mean, he's asking for
Speaker 5: documents that the State says that they've already turned over
Speaker 5: to him. Once all of that being said, I mean,
Speaker 5: the state has agreed to now cooperate and move forward
Speaker 5: with at least part of the access that was requested
Speaker 5: and ordered by the Eleventh District. So I think, you know,
Speaker 5: we're at a stage now where progress is happening.
Speaker 1: And maybe the pushback on the progress is telling, because
Speaker 1: if the state had turned over everything at the time
Speaker 1: of trial, then why bother with the feet dragging here. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: he continues to sit on death row for a crime
Speaker 1: for which DNA testing had excluded him and his friends.
Speaker 5: They tested the cigarette but originally at the time of trial,
Speaker 5: and Tyrone and all of his co defendants were excluded
Speaker 5: from the cigarette but they knew at the time that
Speaker 5: Dan Wilson was a possible contributor or at least had
Speaker 5: a consistent blood type, and decided not apparently to seek
Speaker 5: additional testing with him at the time of trial. And
Speaker 5: we believe the idea that Dan WILSLM was even a
Speaker 5: possible contributor to this life when the cigarette butt was
Speaker 5: covered up or at least not disclosed to Tyrone's defense
Speaker 5: attorneys at the time of trial.
Speaker 1: How this even went to trial, let alone continues is
Speaker 1: totally beyond me. The only evidence against him were the
Speaker 1: coerced words of his code defendants who were fearing for
Speaker 1: their own lives in the face of the death penalty.
Speaker 1: And yep, you guessed that all of those guys have
Speaker 1: since recanted. While this battle for clarity about this wrongful
Speaker 1: conviction rages on. We will return now to the episode
Speaker 1: as it ended in this ever twenty twenty one, with
Speaker 1: Tyrone still in the same freaking cell. As we continue
Speaker 1: to hope against hope that Brian and the Ohilanis's Project's
Speaker 1: efforts when Tyrone a new trial.
Speaker 5: If he were to get a fair trial to day,
Speaker 5: with all of the evidence that we know in front
Speaker 5: of a jury, there's no chance that he would be convicted.
Speaker 5: And to be in a world where this is all
Speaker 5: sort of continuing to happen, it's continuing to advance in
Speaker 5: slow motion, I mean, it's surreal. Certainly, our hope is
Speaker 5: that he is successful in his current post conviction litigation,
Speaker 5: that we're able to put this evidence finally in front
Speaker 5: of a jury and give him a fair day in court.
Speaker 1: Aymn to that, And Tyrone, for our audience listening today,
Speaker 1: for someone who wants to see you have that fair shot,
Speaker 1: which I'm sure everyone in our audience does, and who
Speaker 1: wants to help and to get involved with writing this
Speaker 1: wrong Is there something that you'd like to ask them
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 4: I would encourage them to reach out to our governor,
Speaker 4: to reach out to state and local politicians.
Speaker 3: I would ask them to be a voice.
Speaker 4: Somebody out there knows something, and they can go to
Speaker 4: Tyroneoling dot com or they can get a hold of
Speaker 4: the Innocence Cincinnati and is this project if they're willing
Speaker 4: to help or to be a voice, because I need
Speaker 4: a voice.
Speaker 3: I need that more than anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll definitely have Tyrone Noling dot Com linked in
Speaker 1: our bio, so please go there and learn what steps
Speaker 1: you can take to help. And I also want to
Speaker 1: mention there's a TV docu series called Death Row Stories
Speaker 1: that did a piece on this case last year called
Speaker 1: The Lost Boy, which shows a very powerful case for
Speaker 1: the actual innocence of Tyron. And with that we turn
Speaker 1: now to closing arguments. This is the part of our
Speaker 1: show where I thank you Tyrone Noling for just being
Speaker 1: with us today sharing your story, and also Brian Howe
Speaker 1: for fighting tirelessly. So again, thank you for doing what
Speaker 1: you're doing and for being here and sharing this awful
Speaker 1: story with our audience. And now closing arguments works just
Speaker 1: like this. I'll kick back in my chair, turn my
Speaker 1: microphone off, leave my headphones on, close my eyes and
Speaker 1: just listen to any final thoughts you want to share.
Speaker 1: So Brian, why don't you go first and we'll save
Speaker 1: the best last. And that's of course that to you Tyrone.
Speaker 1: So Brian closing arguments, well, you know.
Speaker 5: First, let me thank you Jason for what you all
Speaker 5: are doing here. As surreal as it sometimes seems that
Speaker 5: this is still happening, it feels good to know that
Speaker 5: people care, that people are paying attention. It feels good
Speaker 5: to know that there are people who care about what's
Speaker 5: happening in this case and what's happening to Tyrone. Again,
Speaker 5: our hope is that people understand what's happening, that Tyrone
Speaker 5: get a fair day in court. And the other thing
Speaker 5: is is that the fact that Tyrone is innocent, but
Speaker 5: I'm personally one hundred percent convinced of you know, I'm
Speaker 5: not familiar with every death row case in the country,
Speaker 5: but I wouldn't be surprised if he were the strongest
Speaker 5: case of innocence of anyone currently on death row. That
Speaker 5: means that there's someone who is responsible for this crime
Speaker 5: that was never brought to justice, And it means that
Speaker 5: there could be someone out there right now who knows
Speaker 5: something that may have for whatever reason not wanted to
Speaker 5: come forward and I wanted to get involved. I really
Speaker 5: truly hope that that person is out there and that
Speaker 5: they will reach out and come forward with any information
Speaker 5: that they might have about the hard and murders. There
Speaker 5: is a man's life on the line, an innocent man,
Speaker 5: and if people have information, I truly truly hope that
Speaker 5: they'll come forward with it and allow it to be
Speaker 5: raised and brought before the court.
Speaker 1: And now over to you, Tyron Well, I would like.
Speaker 4: To first thank you, and again I think the most
Speaker 4: important thing here is a voice. I'm an innocent person
Speaker 4: on Ohio's death Row and I don't belong here and
Speaker 4: I need help. Now's the time. This is difficult. It's
Speaker 4: difficult cleaning for your life, especially when you haven't been
Speaker 4: heard for a long time. So I would just like
Speaker 4: to thank everybody and to encourage him again to look
Speaker 4: into my case, to get involved, to be a voice
Speaker 4: for me, and to help me get out of here
Speaker 4: because I'm innocent.
Speaker 3: I don't want to be here, So please.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to wrongful conviction. I'd like to
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Justin Golden, Jeff Cleiburn,
Speaker 1: and Kevin Wardis with research by Lyla Robinson. The music
Speaker 1: in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
Speaker 1: composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and
Speaker 1: on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava
Speaker 1: for Good. On all three platforms, you can also follow
Speaker 1: me on both TikTok and Instagram at it's Jason Flamm.
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good podcast
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