WEBVTT - #105 Jason Flom, John Grisham and Chip Harding with Jens Soering 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:04.280 In nineteen eighty five, Derek and Nancy Haysm were found 0:00:04.320 --> 0:00:07.480 brutally stabbed to death in their Bedford County, Virginia home. 0:00:08.160 --> 0:00:11.560 When their daughter, Elizabeth Haysm became a prime suspect. She 0:00:11.640 --> 0:00:14.880 and her boyfriend Jen Zuring, the son of a German diplomat, 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:19.080 fled together on an international run from this double homicide. 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:22.079 When Athoris caught up with them in London. YenS followed 0:00:22.079 --> 0:00:24.759 through on his promise in this scenario to use his 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:28.840 diplomatic community in order to save the love of his life, Elizabeth, 0:00:29.080 --> 0:00:33.200 from the electric chair, so he falsely confessed to the murders. Now, 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:36.720 Yen's had type O blood and this was before DNA testing, 0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:39.920 so the type O blood founded the scene only served 0:00:39.920 --> 0:00:44.559 to corroborate his involvement, leading to his conviction. Elizabeth was 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:47.960 convicted as an accessory. When that type O blood that 0:00:48.000 --> 0:00:51.520 convicted Yen's was finally tested for DNA, it excluded him. 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:52.080 As the source. 0:00:52.680 --> 0:00:55.680 However, this was still not enough for the Commonwealth of 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:59.520 Virginia to admit their mistake and set him free. On 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:03.560 February fourth, twenty nineteen, we released an interview with En Zurring, 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:07.160 along with two of his most ardent supporters, the legendary 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:10.600 author and former defense attorney and Innocents Project board member 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:15.760 John Grisham and Albemarle County, Virginia Sheriff Chip Harding. Since then, 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:18.680 as many of you now know, the en Zurring situation 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:22.640 has improved immensely. In this episode, we will re release 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:25.400 much of the original interview, along with some new content, 0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:27.720 including an excerpt from an interview that I did with 0:01:27.760 --> 0:01:30.960 doctor Phil in which we spoke with Yen's again from 0:01:30.959 --> 0:01:34.839 Buckingham Correctional Facility. We will of course keep you updated 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:39.360 on this ongoing story. This is Ronfuel Conviction. 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:54.360 Hello, this is a prepage get it call from an 0:01:54.360 --> 0:02:00.640 innate department of Buckingham coersional to accept it, call plus 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:04.880 zero to refuse this call. Y call is from a 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:09.440 correction facility and it's subject to monitoring and recording. Thank 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:09.880 you for. 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:14.600 Having Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:15.200 It's me. 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:18.240 I'm your host, and today we have an episode that 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:21.240 is going to rock your world. 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:24.160 We have three guests today. 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:27.040 I'm gonna save the best for last, but we have 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:30.160 John Grisham in the studio with us. John, Welcome, delighted 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:34.040 to be here. And Sheriff Chip Harding of Albamarle County. Yes, sir, 0:02:34.080 --> 0:02:37.040 good to be here Virginia. And on the phone is 0:02:37.120 --> 0:02:41.360 Yen Surring, one of the most remarkable people I know 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:45.560 and one of the most extraordinary cases of injustice that 0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:49.560 we've ever covered on this show. So, Yen's I always say, 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:51.840 I'm I'm happy you're here, but I'm sorry you're here. 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:55.840 Thank you for having me. I really appreciate this, stadent, 0:02:56.080 --> 0:02:58.239 and thanks to Chip John as well. 0:02:59.000 --> 0:03:02.480 So this is a case that takes us back to 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:06.720 the eighties, believe it or not, a case that has 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:11.639 all the makings of a John Grisham novel. Actually, because 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:16.080 this goes back to Yen's when you were first an 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:19.600 exchange student from Germany, a brilliant young scholar. From everything 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:22.320 I'm told this is a Jefferson scholar, a freshman at 0:03:22.320 --> 0:03:25.280 the University of Virginia. YenS, do you want to take 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:28.640 us back there and tell us how this started? 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:34.520 Sure, this was a nineteen eighty four in the five 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:39.880 I arrived at the University of Virginia as a freshman 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:45.280 called christ students there, and I met a young woman 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:47.640 there who was two and a half years older than 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:54.000 I was, Eliab, and we were both in the same dormitory. 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:57.120 She had entered the university because she had. 0:03:56.960 --> 0:03:58.360 Had an adventuress. 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:03.400 She had gone to an English boarding school and run 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:06.960 away with her girlfriends to Europe, things like that, and 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:10.320 so she came to Uva quite a bit. 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:12.960 Older than the rest of us in that dormitory. And 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:18.520 I was not an American citizen. My father was a 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:21.760 German diplomat, That's why I was living in the United States. 0:04:22.120 --> 0:04:27.840 And her family came from South Africa and from Canada, so. 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:29.000 We were. 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:36.080 Drawn to each other as being foreigners, not Americans. 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:39.800 And in the course of that false semester in nineteen 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:45.440 eighty four, we fell in love. And you know, it 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:47.960 was quite a surprise to everybody else from the dormitory 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:53.479 because she was very experienced and very mature, and I was, 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:55.360 I guess. 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:59.080 A nerd, an uber nerd and virgin to boot it. 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:01.000 So she was my first girlfriend. 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:05.040 You're a German uber version nerd. It's quite a combination, Yen. 0:05:05.240 --> 0:05:08.000 And she was a beautiful young woman, a striking woman 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:11.679 who you know, anyone in your situation would have probably 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:15.360 fallen head over heels for considering the circumstances. But it 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:19.719 was of course a faithful star across love affair, yes, and. 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:22.360 It was a very short lived love affair as well. 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:26.520 Three months after we started dating, or maybe four months, 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:29.680 we went to Washington, d C. Spend the weekend together, 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:34.000 and in the course of that weekend, she told me 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:36.200 that she was still. 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:39.480 Using drugs, which she had previously. 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:41.520 Told me she had to stop doing, and that she 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:45.799 needed to use our rental car to run some drugs 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:46.720 from Washington, d C. 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:50.360 To her dealer, who was also the university student. 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:55.440 Back in Charlottesville. And I wanted to come along, but 0:05:56.320 --> 0:05:58.560 she wouldn't let me because she said that I was 0:05:58.600 --> 0:05:58.960 such a. 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:02.279 Nerd what people would want to do business around me? 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:06.800 So she drove off in the car by herself and 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:10.599 came back eight hours later untild me. She had killed 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:13.640 her parents, and she said that. 0:06:14.160 --> 0:06:16.720 The drugs had made her do it and they had 0:06:16.720 --> 0:06:22.359 deserved it anyway, and if I didn't help her, she 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:23.360 would be executed. 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:26.359 She would be back then they used electric too, she 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:29.480 said that they would try her. She said that I 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:32.640 should be her alibi and tell the police she was 0:06:32.680 --> 0:06:33.160 with me in. 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:35.400 Washington, and I told. 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:37.480 Her that that would never ever work, because the. 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:40.320 Police never believed boyfriends or husbands. 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:41.160 Or wives and people like that. 0:06:42.520 --> 0:06:49.240 So I came up with this brilliant idea, based on 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:54.080 Charles Dickens a Tale of Two Cities, of all things, 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:56.720 I would take the blame for her. I would take 0:06:56.720 --> 0:07:02.240 the rap for her and save her life. That was 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:07.360 based on a character in the Charles Dickens novel Sydney Carton. 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:08.599 Who did that in this novel. 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:13.200 The difference was that in the novel that particular character. 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:14.160 Actually did get fixed. 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:20.720 Whereas my father was a German diplomat, I thought I 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:25.880 had diplomatic community. I thought that I could take the 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:29.400 blame for her crime, and all that would happen with 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:34.200 me was about be sent back to Germany and put 0:07:34.240 --> 0:07:39.600 in prison there, in trivenile prison for about ten years. 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:42.800 And I thought that giving ten years of my life 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:47.520 was worth saving your life from the electric too. 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:55.360 Yeah, it's sort of a twisted nobility. People do crazy 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:58.320 things for love all the time. And we were talking 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:00.360 about this earlier again, and I said that such a 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:03.160 strange fate that you happen to have only been with 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:05.320 one woman, and she turned out to be the devil. 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:10.160 You know, it's calling her the devil is a little oversimplified. 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:15.840 She was later diagnosed with a very severe personality disorder, 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:21.040 so she actually had serious mental health issues. And of 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:24.800 course she claimed that her mother had sexually. 0:08:24.360 --> 0:08:27.880 Abused her with the. 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:30.800 Knowledge and cooperation of her father, and you know, there's 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:33.079 some indications that that may have. 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:35.199 Actually been true. 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:38.199 Of course we'll never know. For Shore, now, she was 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:39.280 a troubled young woman. 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:43.640 As things developed, you initially were not suspects, but then 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:48.280 at some point you decided to make a getaway. And 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:50.959 this is back in the days when for people don't 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:52.760 remember in the eighties, you could sort of travel the 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:55.079 world under a different name and it wasn't so tightly 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:58.640 monitored or regulated, and so you guys went around the 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:01.920 world and ultimately ended up in England. That's when things 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:04.679 began to go wrong, right, because you were ultimately arrested 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:07.320 for passing bad checks. And then we get to the 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:11.360 point where the false confessions come in, or your false confession. 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:16.920 So the police took both Elizabeth and me back from 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:21.280 the jails to the police station and they actually wrote 0:09:21.480 --> 0:09:24.560 into the police station love book that I was to 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:27.240 be held in Kaninakado. In other words, I was to 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:30.959 be isolated from the outside world and not given access 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:31.680 to my lawyer. 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:34.040 And that's exactly what they did. 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:40.040 For four days. They interrogated me four days, many many hours, 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:43.760 at dozens and dozens and dozens of hours. And then finally, 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:48.680 on the fourth day, I decided to keep my promise 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:52.600 to Elizabeth that I'd made fifteen months earlier, and I 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:56.920 decided to take the blame for what she did. And 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:00.560 that's what I did. I told them this story that 0:10:00.600 --> 0:10:03.720 she and I had cooked up. And of course, that 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:09.520 false confession contained many mistakes that the real pillar would 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:15.079 not have made. I described the clothing of one victim incorrectly, 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:19.600 and I placed the other victim in the wrong room, 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:23.959 And there were numerous mistakes like that which you should 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:28.559 have learned the police to the fact that I might 0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:31.840 not be telling the truth. In addition to that, of course, 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:36.760 at that time, the police who were interrogating me were 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:42.679 in possession of an FBI crime scene profile by one 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:47.160 of the people invented crime scene profiling, one of the 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:52.040 leading special agents, and that profile said that the crime 0:10:52.080 --> 0:10:56.439 had been committed by a woman in a close relationship 0:10:56.480 --> 0:10:59.400 to the victims, and of course I was a man, 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:01.840 and I didn't know that they did at the one 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:05.480 time for twenty minutes, so they should have known that 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:09.040 the story I was telling them was not true. And then, 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:12.200 of course the other thing that happened is that just 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:15.640 a couple of hours after I told the police that 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:19.960 I did it, Elizabeth told the police that he did it. 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:23.360 She said, I did it myself. I got off on it. 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:30.800 I did it myself. I got off on it. But 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:33.520 by that stage the police had decided that I was 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:36.720 the guilty one, so they had actually let her withdraw 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:42.640 that confession, which is hilarious in a way because they 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:46.360 found hosting the Prince at the crime scene and not mine. 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:53.400 And you know, it's quite incredible that they let her 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:56.400 with god that confession, but they did, and so they 0:11:56.480 --> 0:12:01.000 ended up charging me with being the and they talked 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:05.520 being an accomplice, and in nineteen ninety they put me 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:08.920 on trial and convicted me of something that I did 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:09.280 not do. 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:13.000 And I do want to bring John and Chip into 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:17.480 the conversation too, just to talk about this scenario that 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:21.000 took place in England and the immediate aftermath of it. John, 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:24.760 you were a criminal defense lawyer in your younger years. 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:29.320 Yeah, it goes back to a confession, false confession. There's 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:33.079 no other proof to convict the ends of the murder, 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:35.760 so all they have is a false confession. And with 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:39.080 any false confession case, what you would hope that the 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:44.359 authorities do is once they managed to extract the confession 0:12:44.920 --> 0:12:47.680 and whatever tactics they used to do that is that 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:49.920 they will match it up to the physical evidence to 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:54.320 see if it in fact matches. In false confessions virtually 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:58.120 never match up because there are too many details specifics 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:02.200 in the murder, the method of murder, the place, the blood, 0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:05.120 the blood splatter, the clothing, the room, whatever, there's a 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:09.160 whole fingerprints, footprints, and there's a long list of items 0:13:09.200 --> 0:13:13.560 that you know. Police go through any investigation, and with 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:18.200 a false confession, it's usually fairly simple to realize once 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:22.440 you start matching the confession given by somebody who wasn't there, 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:25.320 it's impossible for them to remember all the details that 0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:28.120 the real killer would actually know, where he left the bodies, 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:31.240 how he killed them. Well you know who did what, 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:33.240 what was on the kitchen table, what was knocked over, 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:35.680 what was spilt? These are all you know. It's fairly 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:39.080 common common sense, and in Yen's case, you know, there 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:43.840 were so many discrepancies between his confession and the actual 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:47.840 physical crime scene. You just want to scream and say, 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:51.880 why didn't somebody put these together and match them up. 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:54.480 And what frustrates me is when you get to trial 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:57.920 and you have what you think should be a competent 0:13:57.960 --> 0:14:02.560 defense lawyer who cannot walk through the confession step, bust 0:14:02.600 --> 0:14:05.960 up bus step and show the discrepanies between the confession 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:08.319 and the actual crom scene. I'm not sure if this 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:11.800 was done or attempted in Yen's case, but it certainly 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:16.360 was not effective. And so that's what we always start 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:19.040 in a false confession case is let's match it up 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:21.160 with the proof, and it never matches up. 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:23.640 It never does. And this was a crazy case because, 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:25.920 on top of all the other factors that led to 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:29.560 his wrongful conviction, I think there was an inherent bias. 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:31.720 I can't prove this because of the fact that it 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:35.080 was Bedford County, which ironically is the county that lost 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:37.720 more soldiers in World War Two to the Germans per 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:39.560 capital than anywhere else in the United States. It's why 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:42.360 the World War Two memorial is there and so I 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:44.640 think that there's at least an argument that the odds 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:47.320 would stacked against the ends. From the beginning, I want 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:51.560 to bring Sheriff Harding into the conversation. Sheriff Harding, We've 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:54.440 been in law enforcement for several decades, four decades, right, 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:57.400 I mean, his resume is nuts when you look at 0:14:57.400 --> 0:15:00.080 the number of accreditations he has and the number of 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:04.520 awards he's won, and he's one of the most accomplished 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:07.200 people in law enforcement the United States. And you've dived 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:09.920 into this case with all guns blazing, so to speak, 0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:14.440 and you've examined this evidence eighteen ways till Sunday. Is 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:16.880 it theoretically possible that Ian's committed this crime? 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:18.000 Is it possible? 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:19.600 I mean he could have been dropped down with us 0:15:19.640 --> 0:15:22.600 from a spaceship and done it. But is it logical 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:27.120 he was there when these murders occurred? Extremely unlikely he 0:15:27.160 --> 0:15:29.240 was there. There's nothing that puts him there other than 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:33.520 this false confession. And as John was saying earlier, the 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:35.920 confession didn't match the crime scene when you look at it. 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:39.520 I mean there was some huge discrepancies. 0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:39.800 That weren't followed up. 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:43.760 You had a young investigator, his first homicide case she'd 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:47.080 ever investigated, and I'm reading a transcript going, you got 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:49.600 to be kidneyed. You didn't do any follow up. Plus 0:15:49.640 --> 0:15:52.360 he didn't tape the confession. So when he gets to court, 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:57.600 very skillfully, the prosecutor only asked questions that were consistent 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:02.880 with the crime scene in the event and omitted the inconsistencies. 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:05.080 And as John was pouring out, he had a very 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:08.640 very ineffective defense attorney that didn't bring that to the 0:16:08.640 --> 0:16:09.640 attention of the jury. 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:15.640 As far as details that corroborate the confession, at the 0:16:15.760 --> 0:16:21.080 time of trial, the prosecutor pointed out to the jury 0:16:21.840 --> 0:16:26.080 twenty six times that the police. 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:30.240 Found some O type blood at the crime scene, and 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:31.080 that I. 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:34.720 Was the only person involved in the case who had 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:38.360 Type old blood. The victims did not have TYPEO blood, 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:39.800 and my girlfriend did. 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:40.720 Not have type of blood. 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:44.280 The only person involved in the case was type old 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:47.320 blood was me, is what the prosecutor told the jury 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:48.479 twenty six times. 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:50.239 And it would. 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:54.520 Take another two and a half decades to find out 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:58.640 through DNA testing that indeed that was type of blood 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:03.120 that was left by somebody else. So the fact that 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:06.359 seemed to corroborate the concession at the time of the 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:09.200 trial is now shown to. 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:11.560 Actually prove the confession. 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:15.000 You could talk more about that, Sheriff Harding, what percentage 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:17.200 of the population has this type of blood? I think 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:19.800 it's about forty five percent, isn't it. It's pretty high, right, 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:21.920 So I mean that really is I mean, it's a 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:24.160 ridiculous thing to try to pin anything on, but yet 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:26.960 the prosecutor mentioned it twenty sixth time. It's also worth 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:31.680 mentioning that Yens's lead trial lawyer was disbarred a few 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:34.760 years after your wrongful conviction, and he was disbarred because 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:37.520 of mental illness. Drugs were a factor in all of this, 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:41.000 and it was shown that he was suffering from this 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:44.480 during the time of your trial. So it's just another 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:48.600 important thing to recognize. This is a nightmare that no 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:52.119 one can imagine living through. You had been in jail 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:54.160 in England for quite some time before you even came 0:17:54.200 --> 0:17:56.920 to trial. You had nothing in your life experience that 0:17:56.960 --> 0:17:59.960 would prepare you for any of this, and now here 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:05.080 you are in the grip of the justice system in Virginia. 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:08.960 It's sort of an arch villain, right And what was 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:10.719 this like for you to go through this. 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:15.040 At that stage in nineteen ninety, I had already been 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:20.119 in prison for four years, fighting expeditions from England to 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:24.440 the United States. For most of those four years, I 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:27.840 was convinced that all my lawyers were convinced and everybody 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:32.000 thought that I would definitely be sentenced to death. So 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:36.800 I spent four years in prison in effect psychologically on 0:18:36.880 --> 0:18:40.960 death row. Everybody, including my own team, told me that 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:45.399 I had no chance of avoiding the electric too, and 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:48.280 then at the last minute that was avoided. We went 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:50.679 an appeal as the European for the Human Rights and 0:18:50.680 --> 0:18:54.480 I was brought back to America. And that sort of 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:58.719 thing has an effect on you psychologically, living in prison 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:03.679 for four years, believing that you're gonna die, put increasingly 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:09.240 in the electric two and I got brought back to Virginia. 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:13.199 Everybody hated me, everybody was convinced I was guilty, and 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:17.200 it was really scary, and I did not handle it well. 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:18.560 I did not handle it well. 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:21.200 But again you. 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:23.440 Have to put this against the background of my having 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:27.480 just spent three years under comminent breadth of death, then 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:32.399 coming into the new atmosphere and having to see Elizabeth Haysen, 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:37.919 a woman that that sacrificed myself for get up, understand, 0:19:38.280 --> 0:19:41.119 and told you of herself and tell all these lies 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:44.280 to put me away in prison. And when I say 0:19:44.320 --> 0:19:46.760 that she toljured herself, that's not just the claim I make. 0:19:48.520 --> 0:19:53.320 Twenty six years later she actually admitted that in a 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:56.359 newspaper interview. She admitted that she toatured herself at that trial. 0:19:57.240 --> 0:20:00.800 But at that time nobody knew that, and nobody cared. 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:05.360 They just wanted the witness at mean, and she did 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:11.960 that job, she me, and that and my own confession 0:20:12.960 --> 0:20:15.679 and the type of blood that's what did me in. 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:18.880 Then the sock print, of course, was a ridiculous piece 0:20:18.880 --> 0:20:22.120 of evidence that no serious person should have ever even 0:20:22.359 --> 0:20:24.159 it shouldn't been allowed in court, and it shouldn't have 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:26.040 been in the way that was done was very devious 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:28.919 and tariff harding. I want to talk to you because 0:20:29.400 --> 0:20:31.720 it's interesting to me that you know, YenS has assembled 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:34.080 this remarkable team and it's a great credit to him. 0:20:34.520 --> 0:20:37.399 And you're an interesting character in this because you're a 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:40.800 conservative guy or a guy who's obviously law and order guy, 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:44.920 and yet you have devoted yourself selflessly and spent time 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:48.040 that you could have been doing anything else to hundreds 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:51.879 of hours to this case. So can you talk about that, 0:20:51.920 --> 0:20:55.440 and then can you talk about the actual forensic evidence? 0:20:55.600 --> 0:20:55.760 Right? 0:20:55.800 --> 0:20:58.040 Well, Hiss attorney Stephen Rosenfield asked me to take a 0:20:58.040 --> 0:21:00.080 look at part of the pardon petition to see if 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:01.600 I could find a way to strengthen it or to 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:02.920 see if he's miss missed. 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:03.239 Something in it. 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:06.040 And I told Steve at the beginning, I felt like 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:08.919 Ems was guilty based on everything I'd seen. I know 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:11.000 Governor Kane had tried to send him back to Germany. 0:21:11.200 --> 0:21:14.119 I was opposed to that because I felt like he 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:17.960 was guilty. He shouldn't have been given any special consideration 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:20.880 just because he was a German. But so Steve gave 0:21:20.880 --> 0:21:22.560 me the case, said, won't take but a couple of hours. Well, 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:24.520 I ended up taking a bunch of stuff home at night. 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:26.320 My wife thought I lost my mind because I spent 0:21:26.760 --> 0:21:29.840 basically the whole weekend the dining room table covered with 0:21:30.000 --> 0:21:32.480 material that Steve gave me. I said, oh my god, 0:21:32.520 --> 0:21:36.639 this is nothing like what was represented. And in conclusion, 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:39.080 I ended up writing a nineteen page letter to the 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:41.960 governor breaking down the closing arguments of the case. You know, 0:21:41.960 --> 0:21:45.199 it's the strength of the government's case, last bite at 0:21:45.240 --> 0:21:46.920 the Apple, and I. 0:21:46.880 --> 0:21:47.520 Broke that down. 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:50.919 And then after that was published, I had another investigator 0:21:50.920 --> 0:21:52.600 to work with me for twenty five years, said, let 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:55.240 me help form an FBI agent that I know that 0:21:55.280 --> 0:21:58.800 I worked another case with jumped in and one of 0:21:58.840 --> 0:22:01.840 the original investment bedroom investigator said he felt like Yen's 0:22:01.880 --> 0:22:04.560 had been railroaded and was innocent also. So the four 0:22:04.560 --> 0:22:07.040 of us have been working in collectively, we've given a 0:22:07.040 --> 0:22:10.800 couple thousand hours. And you want to talk briefly about 0:22:10.840 --> 0:22:14.600 to forensics. The old blood was very powerful, as was mentioned, 0:22:15.840 --> 0:22:17.600 and I will say if I was on that jury, 0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:20.360 I would have convicted him based on it the way 0:22:20.400 --> 0:22:24.439 the evidence was represented so skillfully by the prosecutor. The 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:26.880 old blood now we know absolutely no one can test 0:22:26.920 --> 0:22:29.359 the fact that it's not inserting. He's not been detected 0:22:29.680 --> 0:22:32.520 in the crime scene. But two other males, one with 0:22:32.600 --> 0:22:35.320 ad blood and one with old blood, had been detected 0:22:35.320 --> 0:22:37.639 in the crime scene and we have not identified those people. 0:22:38.040 --> 0:22:40.560 In my opinion, Bedford County should consider having an open 0:22:40.560 --> 0:22:44.119 homicide investigation. Then you look at the next piece of 0:22:44.160 --> 0:22:46.200 evidence that was pretty powerful. 0:22:46.760 --> 0:22:48.520 The Commonwealth. 0:22:49.440 --> 0:22:52.720 Originally got a certificate of analysis from the State Bureau 0:22:52.720 --> 0:22:55.639 Forensics saying that the shoe in sox size was consistent 0:22:55.680 --> 0:22:57.480 with a six and a half to seven and a 0:22:57.520 --> 0:23:00.919 half woman shoe a man five or six. Well, they 0:23:01.000 --> 0:23:03.879