WEBVTT - #033 Jason Flom with Andrew Krivak 0:00:02.360 --> 0:00:07.520 My interview with Andrew Kreevak originally aired on August twenty 0:00:07.600 --> 0:00:11.719 first of twenty seventeen, and there's been some incredible development 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:17.560 since then. In twenty nineteen, a judge throughout Andrew's nineteen 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:20.680 ninety seven conviction and granted him a new trial in 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:24.440 Putnam County Court. At the time I'm recording this, he's 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:26.960 still in prison awaiting his new trial. But by the 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:31.760 time you're hearing it, I'm really optimistic that he's going 0:00:31.800 --> 0:00:36.400 to be home. I can't even express what that would 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:38.440 mean to me, and I know to a lot of 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:43.440 our audience who followed his case, it's a disgusting miscarriage 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:48.559 of justice. His co defendant, Anthony Depippo, has been out 0:00:48.600 --> 0:00:50.879 now for several years. He's a dear friend, and the 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:58.760 fact is it's incomprehensible and inexcusable that for that long 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:02.560 the authorities have known that Andrew is just as innocent 0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:07.039 as Anthony is, but they've prevented his release for the 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:09.200 simple fact that Andrew confessed to the crime that they 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:13.240 both didn't commit while Anthony did not. So, Andrew Kreevac 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:17.200 justice delayed will not be justice denied. 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:27.080 I think we have the best legal system, it's just 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:28.959 the people that implement it. 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:31.399 They get lost along the way and forget what the 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:32.320 job really is. 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:36.640 He just kept on trying to remind me that who 0:01:36.720 --> 0:01:39.880 was in authority, who was in control, and how easy 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:44.200 it was for my body to be found in any 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:45.600 alley of New York City. 0:01:46.640 --> 0:01:49.320 It's a tough prison when you have the guards going 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:52.720 against you because they are the biggest gang in the prison. 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:54.520 They do that. 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:56.880 They'll give a guy a life sentence and go home 0:01:56.920 --> 0:01:58.400 in eat spaghetti like it was nothing. 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:02.000 Anybody that would say, well, why would you confess to 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:04.800 something that you didn't do? My question to them will 0:02:04.800 --> 0:02:07.720 be why wouldn't you confess when somebody's threatening to kill 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:11.520 your life? Judge, he said, how you feel? 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:12.359 I said, I'm okay. 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:14.320 He said, well the day is You're lucky day. 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:21.520 You going home. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. We have 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:25.560 a very unique case and a very special episode of 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:28.800 wrongful Conviction behind bars. Today is going to be the 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:31.000 noisiest episode. I just want to warn you up front 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:35.480 because we're inside Wendy Maximum Security Prison in Buffalo, New York. 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:38.400 So apologies in advance, but I promise you you're going 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:41.600 to hear an extraordinary interview today, and so hang in 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:45.600 there and hear the story of Andrew Kreeback. You've probably 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:50.040 heard Andrew's co defendant, Anthony Depippo, his episode of wrongful 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:53.239 Conviction aired recently. And so this is a case where 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:58.480 we have Anthony on the show, having been exonerated, and 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:02.399 yet we're still back here behind bars interviewing his co defendant, 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:05.799 which makes no fucking sense, but here we are. If 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:08.480 you hear the cell door slamming, you'll know it's as 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:09.160 real as it can be. 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:13.400 It was a horrific case, the rape and strangulation in 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:17.160 nineteen ninety four evangelically beautiful twelve year old Josette Wright. 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:19.560 Now there was funning development in the sensational case of 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:22.440 a convicted child killer rapist in Putnam County. 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:23.680 What's wrong with this case? 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:26.520 This case was created at a hot cloth by the 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:29.640 deputy sheriff in charge of this case, who himself has 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:32.160 been indicted by this very county for crimes. 0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:34.880 Di Pippo still maintains his innocence. 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:37.000 For jury and Putnam County found him not guilty. The 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:39.440 main witness against him was a former girlfriend who said 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:42.320 she witnessed the attack, but the jury didn't buy. What 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:45.080 we learned at this trial is that the eyewitness was incredible. 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:47.720 The defense was allowed to suggest Howard Gombert is the 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:50.680 real killer, seen with the victims shortly before her disappearance 0:03:50.880 --> 0:03:54.080 and currently in a Connecticut prison on sex assault charges. 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:57.840 Judge Robert nearly ordered DiPippo released on a million dollars bail. 0:03:57.920 --> 0:04:00.520 The Putnam County District Attorney, though, isn't backing down. He 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:03.160 insists not guilty. It's not the same as innocent. 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:06.240 Andrew Welcome to the show. 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:06.960 Thanks. 0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:08.800 In this case, I could say I'm sorry you're here. 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:11.000 Usually I'm happy to have our guests on the show, 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:12.800 but I'm sorry to be taping it in this facility. 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:16.000 I'm looking forward to seeing you on the outside sometime soon. 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:17.680 Thank you very much. I appreciate it. 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:21.640 We also have with us another very special guest, someone 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:24.240 who I considered to be a sort of royalty. A 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:26.760 lot of people to be royalty in the innocents community. 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:29.719 The one and only Adele Bernhard is here. 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:32.520 Adele welcome, Thank you very much. I'm very glad to 0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:35.520 be here. I'm really glad you're focusing on Andy's case. 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:37.560 I think it's important and I'm. 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:41.160 Glad so Adele has been representing Andy for over ten years. 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:42.479 Now, well close to ten, I guess. 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:46.520 Unfortunately, it's easy to get wrongfully convicted and undoing it 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:49.560 we know takes thousands of hours of legal work, and 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:53.640 this case is no different. So Andy, going back to 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:56.520 the beginning, Where were you from? Where were you born? Originally? 0:04:56.920 --> 0:04:59.239 I was rizzily born in Punham County, New York, Punam 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:04.040 County Hospital. Raised there till probably like nineteen ninety. Then 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:06.840 my family moved to Stormville, New York to take care 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:09.680 of my grandmother, Me and my father, My grandmother and 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:10.880 my brother and at the. 0:05:10.800 --> 0:05:11.680 Time my stepmother. 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:15.120 And your childhood, was it a happy childhood? How was 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:16.000 How were things? 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:17.120 It was? 0:05:17.200 --> 0:05:19.080 I mean, you know, we had on normal problems like 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:21.359 anything else. I can't say that, you know, I was 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:24.240 subjected to anything unusual. It was normal for the most part. 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:27.120 I had my you know, little issues growing up, primarily 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:30.240 because i'd know my real mother, so you know, I 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:32.960 was emotional a lot on that end of things. 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:34.760 But it was pretty normal. 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:37.880 And I mean, upstate New York pretty nice place to 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:39.320 grow up. It's beautiful around here. 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:42.000 Did you play sports or yeah, I grew up Actually 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:44.840 I started fifth grade football. From that point on, I 0:05:45.200 --> 0:05:49.840 baseball basketball. I did that probably up until junior high 0:05:50.000 --> 0:05:52.680 with the hopes that I could go into high school 0:05:53.120 --> 0:05:55.040 playing sports and see how far I can go. 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:57.280 Unfortunately that never panned out. 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:01.279 So you were a teenager growing up up doing teenager 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:04.920 type stuff, right, certainly not not getting in trouble right, 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:06.760 A's a double negative. But yeah, I mean like you. 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:10.120 Know nothing major. I mean, you know juvenile things. 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:11.320 But you were not a violent guy. 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:11.760 No. 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:15.400 So you're going along trying to find your way like 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:19.880 a lot of teenagers, and then one day something absolutely 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:23.680 horrifying happens. A young girl, twelve year old girl named 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:29.119 Josette Wright, was raped and brutally murdered. But they didn't 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:30.599 know that at the time. All they knew was that 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:33.000 she had disappeared. Yes, did you know her. 0:06:33.360 --> 0:06:36.280 I knew her from being around the area, seeing her, 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:41.440 knowing her older sisters. Carmos a small community, so everybody interacted. 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:43.320 You know, when a fair comes around and goes to 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:45.000 the fair. They got a plaza, so they have all 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:48.320 these regular areas that you would run into people. So yeah, 0:06:48.640 --> 0:06:52.159 for that part of in passing or being around somewhere 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:54.880 or being in a fair I knew her to that extent. 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:57.719 Yes, and Adel, this is a very strange aspect of 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:01.240 this case because here you have this small community, sounds 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:05.159 sort of idyllic in a lot of ways, and this 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:08.919 lovely young girl disappears one day. Right now. You know, 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:11.200 we all see on TV when these things happen, the 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:14.040 search parties are formed, there's you know, the whole town 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:17.240 comes out almost pandemonium, but control pandemia, where people are 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:19.600 just searching everywhere to find this little girl. But that's 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:22.320 not what happened, right. The authorities didn't at first believe 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:25.400 that she even was really missing, unless she ran away. 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:27.880 Well from what I could tell from the records they've 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:31.080 turned over to us, the police didn't seem to take 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:35.120 her disappearance terribly seriously at all. So they put up 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:38.520 some wanted posters. But that's about it so as far 0:07:38.520 --> 0:07:41.560 as I can see from all of the records that 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:45.760 I've gathered, unless I'm missing something, they figured she'd come back. 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:49.200 They figured she was a runaway. They didn't really take 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:50.080 it very seriously. 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:53.000 They logged a couple of calls people reported seeing her 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:54.320 later on in the malls. 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:57.800 But I guess they thought, well, easy companies. 0:07:57.400 --> 0:08:01.000 To go, she'll be back. I mean, as a it's 0:08:01.120 --> 0:08:02.320 just outrageous. 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:04.360 I think it's very shocking, and. 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:07.720 It's particularly outrageous because of her age. I mean, it's 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:10.000 not like she was seventeen, where you'd say, well, you know, 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:11.440 sometimes seventeen years run away. 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:14.880 She was in school every day, she wasn't getting into 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:17.680 trouble with older people from any place else. So the 0:08:17.680 --> 0:08:21.160 fact that she all of a sudden wasn't there was 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:22.800 I think pretty serious. 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:27.160 Yes, she was twelve, I mean, Jesus, it's so young. 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:31.680 The horror of that is unimaginable. But so months and 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:34.720 months go by, Right, you've obviously heard about the case. 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:38.360 Everybody's probably heard about the case, yes, And then I 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:41.200 think it was thirteen months later her body was found 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:45.040 in the woods. And now everything changes. 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:47.720 Right, all of a sudden, once they found the bones 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:52.400 and they were able to identify the dental records as 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:56.400 belonging to her, Suddenly the police realized that they should 0:08:56.400 --> 0:08:57.400 have been paying more attention. 0:08:57.760 --> 0:08:59.280 This is my interpretation of the. 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:03.000 Records, Like they realized, hey, we should have been taking 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:06.000 this more seriously. All the way along. Now we know 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:09.200 this is a homicide. It's not just a runaway. She's 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:12.960 not coming back, and we didn't follow up the leads 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:17.480 that might have let us discover what happened much much earlier, 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:19.880 when the trail wasn't so cold. 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:23.679 So Andrew, now we have a situation where not only 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:28.319 is there the very real problem of the fact that 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:32.199 there's a brutal childkiller in the midst of this town, 0:09:32.400 --> 0:09:35.400 right and everything that that would mean to the authorities. 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:37.560 Many of them have kids of their own, or relatives 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:40.840 or nieces, whatever might be. So on a personal level, 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:43.160 all of a sudden, there's a real sense of urgency. 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:45.520 But also there's got to be a lot of pressure 0:09:45.520 --> 0:09:48.600 from the community when something like this happens. Absolutely, So 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:51.400 they've now got and we see this over and over again, 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:54.480 they've got to really scramble and they got to find 0:09:54.559 --> 0:09:57.040 somebody because otherwise it's going. 0:09:56.920 --> 0:09:59.760 To be obvious that they didn't do their job. 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:02.400 Going to be a lot more pressure brought to bear 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:04.480 on them. There could be people losing their jobs, who 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:07.040 knows what could happen, people getting voted out. They got 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:10.199 to find this guy or people who did this, right, So, 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:13.480 things start to go downhill quick from this point, and 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:18.280 ultimately you end up being arrested and charged with this 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:22.720 crime that you must have been like are you were you? 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:24.280 I mean, were you? Like? Are you kidding? Like? 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:25.160 I was in shock. 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:29.559 I mean, you know, the actual processes was like fifty 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:32.720 paces behind my brain, like trying to catch up, Like, 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:34.200 wait a minute, your. 0:10:34.400 --> 0:10:36.040 Brain was fifty paces behind. 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:37.680 What's happened my conscious? 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:40.400 You know, it's like trying to am I really sitting here? 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:42.520 You know, as a juvenile, I've been in and out 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:47.520 of little situations, so but to being told that I 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:51.800 raped and murdered somebody at seventeen, Like are you serious? 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:52.400 Right? 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:55.600 You know what I'm saying, Like, I mean, just anybody 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:59.080 who knows me like like they don't correlate the two, 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:01.640 and you know, me to try to process that I'm 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:05.079 being accused of it and sitting in there and having 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:07.320 you know, these people yell at me and say this evidence, 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:10.280 there's witnesses, there's people, and I'm yelling back, You're lying, 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:13.440 You're crazy, You're making it up. I don't really think 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:15.800 it still has hit me because I refuse to let it. 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:18.840 It's like I'm in this altered state of just trying 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:20.640 to figure this out, like, wait a minute, you know, 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:22.560 it's gotta be a bad dream I'm making up sometime. 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:26.360 How did they land on you and Anthony? I mean, 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:28.000 I know the story, but I want to hear from 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:32.040 your perspective because it's so bizarre. There was no physical 0:11:32.080 --> 0:11:35.280 evidence connecting you. What do you understand how that happened? 0:11:35.960 --> 0:11:38.320 No, and I think about it every day, you know, 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:41.280 I have since this has happened. My only consensus of 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:44.760 it is maybe prior run ends being an easy target. 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:47.000 I don't know, Like I said, you know, you try 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:49.520 to make sense of something that doesn't make sense, and 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:50.840 you can drive yourself crazy. 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:54.240 For one thing, what happened is that Denise Rose got 0:11:54.240 --> 0:11:55.160 herself arrested. 0:11:55.559 --> 0:11:57.880 Well eventually, I mean yeah, you know, later on down 0:11:57.920 --> 0:12:00.640 the line through there talking to people wherever the case 0:12:00.679 --> 0:12:03.760 may be, different names came up. And I think, at 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:06.800 least personally, that it still extends farther than just people 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:10.320 mentioning names, because you would think that the professionals that 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:14.640 are actively pursuing leads and looking for the culprits or 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:18.040 the culprit that committed this crime would be able to 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:22.520 hang themselves on to something tangible as opposed to oh, well, yeah, 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:24.760 he knew her or she knew him, or you know 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:26.439 what I'm saying. So I think it's a little bit 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:29.480 more than that. To what extent, I don't know, it's 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:33.959 obvious that there's more to it than just singling us 0:12:33.960 --> 0:12:35.640 out because a name was mentioned. 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:37.840 Do you want to jump in here, adult? Sure? 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:42.959 I mean, when Denise Rose got arrested, they had an 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:47.319 idea of who the likely suspects were in the town. 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:51.360 And I think that Anthony in particular was a likely 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:53.720 suspect just because he was a big guy. 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:55.120 They knew him. 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:59.240 He'd got in trouble for various juvenile kinds of things. 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:03.120 And so when Denise gets arrested and she's in trouble 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:07.960 and they know that she had been his girlfriend at 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:11.160 around the time that they now decided that this little 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:15.040 girl was murdered, they immediately started putting the pressure on her. 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:16.800 Did you know him? You knew him? 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:17.080 Then? 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:19.720 How did you know him? Weren't you with him? Weren't 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:22.679 you with him that night? Didn't you see what happened? 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:26.640 And they talked to her time and time again. They 0:13:27.080 --> 0:13:30.559 talked to her at least three different times while she 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:33.800 was in jail, after she'd gotten arrested, while she was 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:38.199 worried about going to jail herself, and so a little bit, 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:40.880 by little bit, by little bit, they got her to 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:44.000 start thinking that maybe there would be something in it 0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:48.040 for her to put these pieces together for them, when 0:13:48.040 --> 0:13:51.800 she could perfectly well see where they wanted her to go, 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:55.400 which was to give them something about this murder that 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:59.720 involved Anthony. And of course Anthony's friend who he was 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:01.880 with a lot of the time, is Andy. 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:04.520 So it's a little bit of a house of cards. 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:07.640 And Denise would not seem to have been the most 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:10.760 credible witness since, by her own admission, she smoked crack 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:11.880 thousands of times. 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:14.240 Yeah, but I don't know that they knew that then. 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:18.280 Okay, that came out in this third trial where there 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:22.600 was some really very pointed cross examination and a lot 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:25.440 of discovery about who she was and what she had done. 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:28.520 I don't know how much the police knew or even 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:29.840 thought about it at the time. 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:32.920 I just know that they realized that maybe this is. 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:36.120 A way into this case, right, maybe we can put 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:38.760 pressure on this gal and then the whole thing will 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:39.640 fall into place. 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:42.240 Why they would have assumed that she would know who 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:45.360 the killer was. That's for anybody to speculate, right. 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:49.000 Only because they already had in their mind this idea. 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:52.240 I mean, if she had been somebody else's boyfriend during 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:54.320 that time, they might have picked on somebody else. But 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:56.360 I think it was a way like, Okay, we've got. 0:14:56.240 --> 0:14:57.280 Pressure on you. 0:14:57.280 --> 0:14:59.640 You know the other kids, you know all the kids 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:03.240 in this community. Okay, the gal who disappeared was a kid, 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:04.920 maybe you know something about it. 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:06.120 We're going to go. 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:08.440 With this, right And she ultimately came up with a 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:13.600 very farcical story which has been disproven in every imaginable way. 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:15.040 I mean, it never made sense in the first place. 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:18.000 Right now it's actually been disproven. Dell, What was this 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:21.640 story that she satisfactured completely? 0:15:21.840 --> 0:15:24.560 As far as I'm concerned. Incredible story. And so I 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:26.760 think that the police had in. 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:29.320 Their minds because I really think this story came from 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:32.400 the investigating officers. I think they came up with this 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:36.200 idea of how they thought that the crime must have happened, 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:42.600 and they pushed their hypothesis onto everybody, eventually convincing juries 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:46.080 that this is indeed what happened. And it starts from 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:49.120 where they found the body, because they found these bones 0:15:49.560 --> 0:15:53.160 off of a dirt road, which was a road that 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:55.560 all the kids in the community used to go to 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:59.240 the smoke pot, so they knew that people drove down there, 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:02.280 and they knew that people's smoked pots. So from there 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:05.560 they kind of worked backwards and said, oh, what must 0:16:05.600 --> 0:16:08.000 have happened is that she must have gone with these 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:11.120 older kids and they are smoking pot and then they 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:11.760 killed her. 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:13.480 And threw her body into the woods. 0:16:13.840 --> 0:16:17.360 So they had this idea in their minds, is my belief, 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:20.720 before they talked to her, and then they got her 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:24.240 to say exactly what they thought. And remember they had 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:27.920 been investigating the case for months before they talked to her, 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:30.720 so they knew where the body was found, they knew 0:16:30.800 --> 0:16:34.720 how far that road was from where the kids all lived, 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:38.240 they knew who drove down that road. And they said, 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:42.280 isn't this what happened, Denise? And she's like, yeah, that's right. 0:16:42.360 --> 0:16:43.440 We're all in a. 0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:48.600 Van fill high and there were according to her story, 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:52.000 her fairy tale, there were five people besides the victim 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:54.200 in the van, correct, all of whom knew what was 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:56.640 going on, including her, right, But she made a sound 0:16:56.720 --> 0:17:01.040 that she wasn't involved. And what I find absolutely preposterous 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:04.359 about all of this is that let us not forget 0:17:04.680 --> 0:17:07.359 that thirteen months had gone by or more by the 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:12.360 time they interviewed her, and somehow magically, not she or 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:14.680 any of the other people in the van ever breathed 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:16.240 the word of it to anyone. 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:20.440 Right now, she claims that she is present and sees 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:22.800 a rape and a murder of a twelve year old 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:26.840 girl that happens in a car right in front of 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:30.399 her eyes, that she sees the whole thing, and she 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:33.000 never mentions it to a soul. 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:36.280 Not her mother, not a priest, not her best friends, 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:37.000 not her best friend. 0:17:37.040 --> 0:17:40.679 Right, teenage girls have best friends and tell them everything. 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:43.160 I've never been a teenage girl. But our teenage girls 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:46.200 good at keeping secrets. No, they're not going to keeping secrets, okay, 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:48.399 And we don't want to sound sexist here. A teenage 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:50.720 boys are no good at it either. In this case, 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:54.879 you'd have to look at that and go, no, that's 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:59.240 not possible. Somebody's lying because that didn't happen the way 0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:02.520 she says. Somebody else would have known and it would 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:04.760 have gotten out there. So anyway, so she makes up 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:07.960 this story about the five of us in the van 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:10.840 and the victim and we're driving with her to go 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:12.760 smoke pot whatever the hell she's saying. 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:15.720 Can I just interject for a minute before it even 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:18.719 got to that point, you gotta be aware that there 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:21.879 were two previous statements, both of which she doesn't know 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:26.600 nothing more along the lines of the truth. For whatever reasons, 0:18:26.720 --> 0:18:30.680 it came to her disclosing, oh, I witnessed this. Hannia's 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:36.560 crime is obvious in this sense where the police detectives 0:18:36.600 --> 0:18:41.040 in the case, primarily Patrick Costaldo, had seen her several 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:45.800 times and either badgetor threatened her, intimidated her bullet or 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:48.639 all of the above, but finally convinced her that it 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:52.920 was in her best interest to lie and to say 0:18:53.000 --> 0:18:55.880 she was the witness of this crime that she never 0:18:55.920 --> 0:18:58.200 witnessed and that we never committed. 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:00.159 And it wasn't her best interest because who knows what 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:01.720 she would have been facing herself? 0:19:01.840 --> 0:19:04.679 Well absolutely, and again too, she was actually older than 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:07.880 both me and Anthony, so she was already on probation. 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:12.720 She's had arrests for drugs, so it's easy to understand 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:16.320 how that type of threat of going to jail would 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:19.240 influence her to go along with the cops version of events. 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:21.640 It's a very real threat. And also we know too 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:24.119 that she was a teenager. Even though she was older 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:26.120 than you, he was still a very young woman, and 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:28.879 you know, she may not have been able to process 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:33.159 the real consequences of her actions. Your case has many 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:36.600 of the causes that we see most frequently in wrongful convictions. 0:19:36.760 --> 0:19:39.800 Whatever the reverse of a jackpot is, you hit it 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:43.879 because you had incentivized witnesses, you had sloppy or incompetent 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:47.000 police work, a known liar who was the guy who 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:49.879 administered the polygraph. We know that because he was the 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:53.320 same guy from Jeffrey Dedskobek's case who lied in his case. 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:57.840 Then the false confession in your case, which is really 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:01.359 one of the main reasons why you're still here, where 0:20:01.560 --> 0:20:06.400 the state county authorities have admitted that they got it wrong. Right, 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:10.680 Anthony's home and he's been on the show, he's live 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:14.680 and in person, and you're still here, And I think 0:20:14.720 --> 0:20:16.200 it's fair to say that one of the main reasons 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:17.879 for that is the fact that they did manage to 0:20:17.920 --> 0:20:20.679 elicit a false confession from you, which again is confounding 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:24.160 to so many people who look at me with these 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:26.720