WEBVTT - #376 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Norfolk 4 0:00:05.040 --> 0:00:07.240 Hey there, Laura and I writ are here. This week 0:00:07.280 --> 0:00:09.920 we're bringing you an update from the Commonwealth of Virginia. 0:00:10.480 --> 0:00:13.680 In Season two of False Confessions, we explored the story 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:16.720 of the Norfolk four. This is a classic case of 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:20.239 false confessions in all the most horrible ways. It involves 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:24.440 tunnel vision and confirmation bias in the investigation police, lying 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:28.360 to suspect in the interrogation room, preying on suspects of vulnerabilities, 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:32.040 and ignoring forensic evidence. The list goes on and on. 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:35.160 It took twenty years for the truth to be acknowledged 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:38.040 by the Virginia legal system, and the story of this 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:41.320 miscarriage of justice became a rallying point for the entire 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:44.920 legal community, and in twenty twenty one, Virginia took action. 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:48.720 The state abolished the death penalty, making it the first 0:00:48.800 --> 0:00:51.640 state in the South to do so. It was clear 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:55.160 cut cases of wrongful conviction like this one that finally 0:00:55.200 --> 0:01:09.279 tip the balance away from injustice and toward righteousness. Welcome 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:11.080 to wrongful conviction, false confessions. 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:13.600 I'm Laura and I writer and I'm Steve Drisen. 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:18.240 Today's case feels like a recurring nightmare. We'll tell you 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:22.800 about not one but four US Navy sailors who falsely 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:26.640 confess to murdering another sailor's wife. They volunteered to fight 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:29.160 for their country, but they ended up fighting for their 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:42.080 own freedom. 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:46.720 The Norfolk four is an iconic case because it is 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:51.000 one of the most colossal screw ups in the history 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:54.800 of American justice. I've never thought this case would go 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:57.000 to trial, but it did, and they were convicted, and 0:01:57.040 --> 0:01:57.960 I was stunned. 0:01:58.320 --> 0:02:01.440 When you think about these guys from all across the 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:04.960 United States who signed up to serve their country in 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:08.560 the military, and this is what they were handed. It's outrageous. 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:11.280 I mean, Steve, you've had family members in the military. 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:17.640 Yeah, My father served, and he enlisted less than six 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:21.639 months after his own brother was killed at Iwo Jima. 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:26.120 I grew up every Memorial Day we would gather by 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:31.280 my uncle's graveside and these men in uniform would fire 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:34.600 rifles into the air and I can still hear how 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:37.280 loud they were to like a seven year old kid. 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:42.400 The military was something that was respected in my household. 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:44.800 You know, the military is built on honor. 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:48.120 The truth is, every one of the Norfolk four was 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:51.320 there to serve his country and instead, their reputations and 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:53.440 their lives were dragged through the mud. 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:57.040 It's like a war zone at the end of this case, 0:02:57.400 --> 0:03:00.200 with bodies strewn all over the place. 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:01.639 But nobody won. 0:03:01.880 --> 0:03:06.160 That's right. Everybody was a casualty. It took twenty years 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:11.240 to right this wrong completely, and it never should have 0:03:11.320 --> 0:03:12.560 happened in the first place. 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:19.800 Today's story starts at the US Naval Station in Norfolk, Virginia. 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:23.240 It's the world's largest naval base, the headquarters of the 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:26.560 Fleet Forces Command, and it all sits on a narrow 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:30.800 peninsula separating the Chesapeake Bay from the Atlantic Ocean. That's 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:34.000 where the USS Simpson docks at Peer five on July eighth, 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:37.600 nineteen ninety seven, after six days at sea. Among the 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:41.240 hundreds of sailors on board is Billy Bosco, a nineteen 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:45.440 year old signalman. As his ship maneuvers into place, Billy 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:48.840 is scanning the pier. He's hoping to find his eighteen 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:53.560 year old bride, Michelle, waiting for him. Billy and Michelle 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:56.240 were high school sweethearts from Pittsburgh who'd been married for 0:03:56.400 --> 0:03:59.280 just three months. They'd met a few years earlier on 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:02.600 the school bus when Billy's eye was caught by Michelle's 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:06.120 red hair. He tried to impress her by saying, hey, Toots, 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:09.480 nice jacket, but it was her a quick response, my 0:04:09.600 --> 0:04:14.800 name's Michelle, that impressed him. Pretty soon they became inseparable. 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:18.920 After graduating, Billy enlisted in the navy. Michelle followed him 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:22.560 to Norfolk, where they got married. But when Billy's ship 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:25.880 docks that day, there's no Michelle waiting for him. He 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:29.520 goes straight home to their tiny apartment off base. Michelle 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:33.760 usually kept the place spotlessly clean, but today is horribly different. 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:37.680 On the bedroom floor, Billy finds his wife dead, wearing 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:40.360 nothing but a black T shirt and surrounded by blood. 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:45.400 She's been raped, stabbed, and strangled. Billy searches for the phone, 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:48.320 but in his panic, he can't find it. Instead, he 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:51.320 runs next door to the apartment of another naval couple, 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:55.640 Daniel and Nicole Williams. Billy tells them his wife is dead, 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:58.599 and Daniel calls nine one one. The two men go 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:01.640 back to the scene, where they a blanket over Michelle's legs. 0:05:02.160 --> 0:05:05.400 Police arrive just minutes later. There are no signs of 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:08.920 forced entry, so police theorized that Michelle knew her attacker 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:12.040 and had let him in. They asked Michelle's friends who 0:05:12.120 --> 0:05:15.640 might have done this. No one has any ideas. The 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:19.839 police keep pressing, though, and one friend finally mentions the neighbor, 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:24.080 Daniel Williams. Daniel was a twenty five year old sailor 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:27.240 from Michigan who'd also just gotten married. But Daniel and 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:31.080 his wife, Nicole, had recently gotten some terrible news. They 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:35.880 had thought Nicole was expecting, but she wasn't pregnant after all. Instead, 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:40.440 she was dying of ovarian cancer. Daniel was grief stricken, 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:43.200 but the police had ideas of their own about how 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:46.520 he was handling it. They developed a theory that Daniel 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:52.680 had become interested in Michelle. It's only been an hour 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:55.200 and a half since Michelle's body was found, but police 0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:58.640 are somehow already convinced they've got their man. With no 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:02.039 other leads, ask Daniel Williams to come down to the station. 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:05.120 They tell him it's normal to question anyone who'd been 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:08.679 involved in discovering a body, and Daniel finds himself alone 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:12.800 in an interrogation room, totally unprepared for what's about to happen. 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:16.120 This is the worst type of crime you can imagine 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:18.760 not only a murder, but a murder rape of a 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:21.920 young woman. And these are the kinds of cases that 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:24.840 really get the adrenaline of police departments up. 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:27.640 That's our friend Richard Leo, one of the globes leading 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:30.720 experts on false confessions. He's also co authored a book 0:06:30.760 --> 0:06:31.719 about the Norfolk Four. 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:36.440 It's entrenched in the police culture that when you interrogate, 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:39.200 it's because your goal is to get a confession. We 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:42.720 all think an innocent person wouldn't falsely confess. So it's 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:46.800 a puzzle why would people do something that none of 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:48.080 us think we would do. 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:51.440 Some of you may remember our explanation of how false 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:54.880 confessions happen from last season. If you're new to this podcast, 0:06:54.920 --> 0:06:56.960 you can check out our first episode or Steve and 0:06:56.960 --> 0:07:00.240 I take a deep dive into the interrogation room. Here's 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:03.320 how it goes. For Daniel Williams, police accuse him of 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:06.600 raping and killing Michelle Bosco, and Daniel says he had 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:08.960 nothing to do with it. They ask him to take 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:12.200 a polygraph and he agrees. He wants to prove his innocence, 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:15.640 but police lie to Daniel. They tell him he failed 0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:18.920 the polygraph when he really passed it. They say the 0:07:18.960 --> 0:07:20.960 polygraph proves he's guilty. 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:25.640 Polygraphs, in any event, are highly unreliable. They're not scientific 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:29.240 what police pretend they are. You give a suspect polygraph, 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:33.320 you tell them the results indicate that they're lying, and 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:37.240 that the machine is scientific and error free. So it's 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:42.840 an effective interrogation technique in breaking down somebody's resistance and 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:47.240 denials because science has just proven beyond any doubt that 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:48.080 they are guilty. 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:51.640 Daniel's scared as hell. It's dawning on him that the 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:55.160 police will never believe he's innocent. They insist that Daniel 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:58.760 needs to admit he attacked Michelle. The interrogation goes on 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:03.119 overnight for eight hours, but Daniel won't say he did it. Now, 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:05.240 none of the interrogation was taped, so we don't have 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:08.120 a perfect record of what happened, but we do know 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:11.880 that by early morning Daniel still hadn't confessed. So police 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:15.280 bring in a closer, an interrogator who knows how to 0:08:15.280 --> 0:08:19.000 get confessions, and according to Daniel, that's when things get 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:19.640 really rough. 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:24.600 So the detective who was the primary instigator in this 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:29.640 case was a man named Detective Ford, and Daniel Williams 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:34.959 was not equipped to deal with his high stress interrogation tactics. 0:08:35.160 --> 0:08:38.439 According to Daniel, the detective suggests that he'd been attracted 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:41.600 to Michelle. Maybe he couldn't have sex with his dying 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:44.840 wife as much as he wanted to. Ford says, maybe 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:47.720 Daniel wanted an affair with Michelle and he went to 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:48.800 her apartment to get it. 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:54.200 Daniel went from the joy of finding someone to spend 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:56.960 the rest of his life with to knowing that his 0:08:57.120 --> 0:09:02.240 wife was going to die painful, miserable death in all likelihood. 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:07.400 In the middle of that, he's accused of sexually assaulting 0:09:07.720 --> 0:09:11.959 and murdering his neighbor. Unbelievable. 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:16.680 The interrogation only gets worse from there. Daniels told the 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:20.200 evidence against him is rock solid. The death penalty is 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:22.880 on the table, Ford tells him unless he cooperates with 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:24.160 police and confesses. 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:29.040 Daniel is essentially assaulted with threats of the death penalty, 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:34.440 lies about the evidence against him, screaming, shouting, breaking him down, 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:38.320 accusing him of being a liar, and after a long 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:43.800 period of time, Daniel agrees to a preconceived story that 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:46.400 was fed to him by Detective Ford. 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:50.280 That's when police finally turned on the tape recorder. 0:09:52.760 --> 0:09:57.360 I got her in the back round and I forced 0:09:57.360 --> 0:10:07.680 her to the floor. I forced her to have intercourse 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:14.600 with me. She resisted, and I hit her a couple 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:23.800 of times in my hand. I grabbed a flat, hard 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:32.199 shoe and I struck her with it once, and I 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:34.080 got up and I left. 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:38.680 Soon enough, though, police realized they've got a problem. While 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:42.800 they're recording Daniel's confession. The autopsy report comes back and 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:45.760 they learned Michelle hadn't been beaten with a shoe, she'd 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:49.400 actually been stabbed. So now police have to feed Daniel 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:50.160 a news story. 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:52.439 So you stabbed her box me three times? 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:54.000 That Greg, that is correct. 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:59.560 People look at these confessions and say, well, geez, you know, 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:03.760 they described the crime scene, they described the weapon. People 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:06.880 don't know that when an innocent person is broken down 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:10.160 and falsely confesses, the police fed them the crime facts, 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:12.959 and the person, after many hours, repeated that back. 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:16.440 By seven o'clock the next morning, Daniel Williams has become 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:19.800 a confessed killer. He's arrested and calls his mom right 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:23.240 away from jail to recant his confession, but it's too late. 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:27.480 Daniel is charged with capital murder, meaning the death penalty 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:30.560 is on the table and the Norfolk Police close the case. 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:36.520 The case stayed closed for all of four months. That's 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:39.280 when results came back from a DNA test on the 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:42.560 seamen found on Michelle's body. It was a single mail 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:45.120 profile that didn't belong to Daniel Williams. 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:50.160 Game over. This is the kind of evidence that exonerates defendants. 0:11:50.240 --> 0:11:50.800 All of the. 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:52.880 Time, Dan should have been on his way home. 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:55.160 He and his wife should have been able to spend 0:11:55.240 --> 0:11:56.880 her remaining days together. 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:01.480 His confession was false, the DNA proved, but the police 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:05.480 refuse to let go of their belief in Daniel's guilt. Instead, 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:08.920 they developed a new theory. Another man must have been 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:13.160 there too, and before long they picked out a second suspect. 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:25.800 This episode is sponsored by AIG, a leading global insurance company, 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:29.800 and Paul Weiss Rifkin, Wharton and Garrison, a leading international 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:33.400 law firm. The AIG pro Bono program provides free legal 0:12:33.440 --> 0:12:38.319 services and other support to many nonprofit organizations and individuals 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:41.360 most in need, and recently they announced that working to 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:44.120 reform the criminal justice system will become a key pillar 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:47.679 of the program's mission. Paul Weiss has long had an 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:51.960 unwavering commitment to providing impactful, pro bono legal assistance to 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:55.040 the most vulnerable members of our society and in support 0:12:55.080 --> 0:12:58.720 of the public interest, including extensive work in the criminal 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:00.480 justice area. 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:09.520 Joe Dick was twenty one, a Navy sailor who rented 0:13:09.520 --> 0:13:12.520 a room from Daniel and Nicole Williams. Joe had grown 0:13:12.600 --> 0:13:16.040 up in Baltimore with major intellectual disabilities that made him 0:13:16.080 --> 0:13:19.240 think more like a child. Joe was eager to please 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:22.720 and very easy to intimidate. As a high schooler, he 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:25.840 worked at his church mowing the lawn until one day 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:29.400 when the mower clawed, Joe reached inside and the blade 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:32.720 cut off a couple of his fingers. After that, whenever 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:35.600 his high school shop teachers told him to use machinery 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:42.599 that he didn't understand, Joe would hide until class was over. Unfortunately, 0:13:42.760 --> 0:13:47.360 Joe couldn't hide from Detective Ford. Six months after Michelle's death, 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:52.960 naval security turns Joe over for interrogation. Detective Ford accuses 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:57.280 Joe of helping Daniel kill Michelle Bosco. Now Joe is 0:13:57.320 --> 0:14:00.560 really confused because he remembers being on in his ship 0:14:00.640 --> 0:14:04.600 the night Michelle was killed. But again Ford administers a 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:08.960 polygraph and says Joe failed. Ford shows Joe a picture 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:11.960 of Michelle lying dead on the floor and says he'll 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:15.080 get the death penalty unless he admits helping Daniel killer. 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:19.360 It's pretty clear there's only one story Ford will accept. 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:23.120 Innocent suspects come to see their situation as hopeless, that 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:26.160 there's no way out other than to give the interrogator 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:29.960 what they want, and the interrogator is offering them a 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:33.560 way out by suggesting they can go home, or they'll 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:36.400 mitigate their damage, or or they can just put an 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:39.760 end to the interrogation. Most people don't know police are 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:43.520 trained in these manipulative techniques. And of course, if the 0:14:43.560 --> 0:14:45.920 police have the right person, that's a good thing as 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:48.280 long as they follow the law. But sometimes they get 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:49.040 the wrong person. 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:52.960 Soon enough, Detective Ford turns on the recorder and Joe 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:56.960 Dick confesses to helping Daniel rape and murder Michelle Bosco. 0:14:57.120 --> 0:14:58.880 At least he does the best he can. 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:02.800 Why did you two take it upon yourselves to rape 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:03.920 and murder this woman? 0:15:07.440 --> 0:15:07.760 Don't know? 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:18.720 Didn't you describe the knife? All I can say about 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:22.760 the knife is it looked like a normal kitchen knife 0:15:23.040 --> 0:15:26.239 that you would use for Nader song, Charlotte. 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:32.880 Yes, Joe Dick is slow and low functioning and highly suggestible, 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:37.360 and these are personality traits that make somebody more vulnerable 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:41.520 to making false confessions. And so it took less time 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:44.720 to break Joe Dick than it took to break the others. 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:49.120 Joe Dick was even less equipped to deal with the 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:54.360 interrogation tactics of Detective Ford. He was a follower in 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:58.080 the truest sense of the word, and Detective Ford took 0:15:58.120 --> 0:15:58.840 advantage of that. 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:03.240 On this confession. Joe is charged with capital murder as 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:06.880 Daniel's co defendant. The police were sure that this time 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:11.440 they'd closed the case. Then within weeks, Joe's DNA is 0:16:11.480 --> 0:16:14.600 compared to the semen from the crime scene. Turns out 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:18.280 the DNA doesn't belong to him either. Neither Joe Dick 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:21.520 nor Daniel Williams could have been the attacker. But instead 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:24.640 of looking outside their circle of suspects, police decide to 0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:28.400 expand it. They insist that Daniel and Joe must still 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:31.480 be guilty, but now they decide a third man must 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:32.320 have been involved too. 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:39.000 You know, when faced with compelling evidence of innocence, compelling 0:16:39.040 --> 0:16:42.920 evidence that your theory is wrong. You should be examining 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:47.920 the theory, not trying to reinterpret facts to create a 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:52.920 new theory which accommodates the DNA evidence. We see this 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:57.359 over and over again. When prosecutions start changing their theories 0:16:57.680 --> 0:17:01.800 in midstream, you have to be very concerned and an 0:17:01.800 --> 0:17:03.440 injustice is about to happen. 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:09.040 By this point, two injustices had already happened, and more 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:11.960 were still to come. Joe's lawyer told him that his 0:17:12.080 --> 0:17:15.320 best hope of escaping the electric chair would be if 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:19.520 he identified one more perpetrator. Pretty soon, Joe came up 0:17:19.560 --> 0:17:23.400 with a third name, Eric Wilson, and on April eighth, 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:27.520 nineteen ninety eight, Eric became the next domino waiting to fall. 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:32.800 Eric Wilson was a twenty one year old naval recruit 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:35.600 from Texas. He was an eagle scout, the kind of 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:37.920 guy who'd walk girls home from parties when their dates 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:41.920 got too drunk. On April eighth, Detective Ford starts interrogating 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:46.080 Eric Wilson once again. Ford administers a polygraph and tells 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:49.399 Eric he flunked it, just like with Joe. Ford slaps 0:17:49.400 --> 0:17:52.399 a picture of Michelle's dead body on the table. And 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:55.399 says he can prove Eric helped Daniel and Joe commit 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:58.640 the crime. It was all bullshit. Eric barely even knew 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:01.760 Daniel or Joe. But after hours in the interrogation room, 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:05.040 Eric starts to doubt his own memory. Maybe he really 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:06.760 was lying and didn't realize it. 0:18:07.200 --> 0:18:10.879 People come to doubt themselves and their memories or beliefs 0:18:10.920 --> 0:18:16.880 in interrogations. It's a high pressure game of deception, manipulation, 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:20.840 persuasion to get people who deny committing a crime to 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:22.000 confess to committing it. 0:18:22.480 --> 0:18:26.640 Eventually, Eric agrees to the cop story. Detective Ford turns 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:29.560 on the recorder and Eric repeats what he's been told 0:18:29.960 --> 0:18:33.879 that he, Joe and Daniel raped Michelle, but he says 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:36.120 he left before the stabbing started. 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:41.159 I grabbed Michelle by either the shoulders or the upper arm. 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:45.879 I can't remember exactly. I didn't know what to do. 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:47.200 I was real confused. 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:53.680 Well, Dan ended up raping her, and. 0:18:57.040 --> 0:19:00.200 LEVI went in next and I start. 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:05.280 And soon enough Eric Wilson is charged as capital defendant 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:06.680 number three. 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:10.320 He said that the interrogation was so coercive that he 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:13.159 would have said anything if they had told him that 0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:15.600 he needed to confess to the killing of John F. Kennedy. 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:18.159 He would have said he handed Oswald the gun. He 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:20.120 would have said anything just to get out of there 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:23.600 at the end of many, many hours that broke him down. 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:27.840 But again, weeks pass, the DNA is tested, and yet 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:31.040 again it's not a match. By mid June, police are 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:32.320 looking for a fourth man. 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:36.280 Oh for three. This is bad enough for Joe Dick 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:40.919 and Dan Williams and Eric Wilson. Imagine what it's like 0:19:41.200 --> 0:19:45.240 for Billy Bosco. The worst possible nightmare you can imagine. 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:48.760 But it only gets worse because please keep telling him, 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:51.960 it's not just one person that raped and killed your wife, 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:57.080 it's two and then three. She's being violated over and 0:19:57.280 --> 0:20:01.840 over again. He has to relive the trial every time. 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:06.600 The police bring in somebody else to this story, and 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:07.680 it's all a lie. 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:11.000 To find their fourth man, police go back to Joe Dick. 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:15.959 After a lot more questioning, Joe offers another name, George Clark. 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:19.639 Now police have no idea who George Clark might be, 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:23.639 or if this person even exists, so they bring Joe 0:20:23.680 --> 0:20:27.600 an old Navy yearbook. Joe flips through it and points 0:20:27.640 --> 0:20:31.520 to a picture of a former sailor named Derek Tice. Yeah, 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:37.000 Joe says, that looks like him. Derek Tye was born 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:40.080 in North Carolina, a Southerner who called his elders sir 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:43.240 and ma'am. Derek was really smart, but he had a 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:46.560 learning disability and never did well in school. He scraped 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:49.439 through graduation and enlisted in the Navy to get trained 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:53.199 as a paramedic. But now it's Derek Tye's turn to 0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:56.639 be questioned by Detective Ford. When Derek says he knows 0:20:56.680 --> 0:21:01.040 nothing about Michelle Bosco's murder, Ford falsely tells Derek that 0:21:01.119 --> 0:21:03.760 physical evidence had already proven him guilty. 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:07.800 Police routinely pretend to have evidence they don't have, state 0:21:07.840 --> 0:21:11.440 that there is evidence that doesn't exist. That's an acceptable 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:15.080 technique in American policing. In the American legal system, unlike 0:21:15.080 --> 0:21:16.760 in other legal systems. 0:21:17.000 --> 0:21:19.359 Ford follows the same playbook that he used on the 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:22.760 other three. He administers a polygraph and tells Derek he 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:26.320 failed it again. Ford threatens Derek with the death penalty 0:21:26.440 --> 0:21:30.760 unless he confesses. After nearly twelve hours of this, Derek 0:21:30.840 --> 0:21:34.320 agrees to confess. Just like the others on tape, He 0:21:34.400 --> 0:21:37.440 repeats the story that Ford tells him that he committed 0:21:37.480 --> 0:21:40.520 the rape and murder along with Daniel, Joe and Eric. 0:21:41.200 --> 0:21:44.040 This story is enough for Derek to become the fourth 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:46.359 man charged with the attack on Michelle Bosco. 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:50.080 Why did you all agree to go with him? I 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:53.320 agree because of pil pleasure. 0:21:54.160 --> 0:21:56.000 I can't say why the others did. 0:21:56.119 --> 0:21:59.120 I believe it is for the same ways. 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:02.359 Probably guess what I'm about to tell you next. The 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:05.320 DNA is tested yet again and it doesn't belong to 0:22:05.359 --> 0:22:06.040 Derek either. 0:22:06.600 --> 0:22:10.919 This is false confession number four. Laura. I know you 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:12.440 don't know much about baseball. 0:22:12.560 --> 0:22:14.119 Yeah, but I do know that no one gets a 0:22:14.119 --> 0:22:14.840 fourth strike. 0:22:16.240 --> 0:22:18.520 You don't get a fourth strike in baseball, and you 0:22:18.560 --> 0:22:21.960 don't get a fourth strike in law enforcement. It's time 0:22:22.040 --> 0:22:25.400 to call this game. It's time to end this charade. 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:30.639 All four sailors have been proven innocent by DNA, but 0:22:30.760 --> 0:22:34.600 prosecutors ignore the evidence and move forward with cases against 0:22:34.640 --> 0:22:39.439 all of them. Daniel Williams, Joe Dick, Eric Wilson, and 0:22:39.480 --> 0:22:55.000 Derek Tice become known as the Norfolk Four. As prosecutors 0:22:55.040 --> 0:22:57.360 got ready to try the Norfolk Four, the case took 0:22:57.400 --> 0:23:01.560 a serious twist. On February twenty second, nineteen ninety nine, 0:23:01.880 --> 0:23:05.159 a prison inmate named Omar Ballard sent a letter to 0:23:05.200 --> 0:23:09.920 his friend. In it, Ballard mentioned Michelle Bosco's murder and wrote, 0:23:10.160 --> 0:23:16.359 guess who did that me? Omar Ballard was in prison 0:23:16.440 --> 0:23:19.919 for raping a fourteen year old girl and for beating 0:23:20.000 --> 0:23:23.639 up one of Michelle Bosco's female neighbors a few weeks 0:23:23.680 --> 0:23:27.280 before Michelle died. In fact, right after he'd committed the assault, 0:23:27.560 --> 0:23:30.639 Ballard had been chased through the apartment complex by an 0:23:30.680 --> 0:23:34.480 angry crowd eager to exact revenge. To protect him from 0:23:34.480 --> 0:23:37.439 the mob, Michelle let Ballard hide in her and Billy's 0:23:37.440 --> 0:23:41.440 apartment until things calmed down. Two weeks later, Michelle was 0:23:41.520 --> 0:23:48.800 killed in that same apartment by someone she knew. Police 0:23:48.840 --> 0:23:52.119 brought Ballard in from prison for questioning. This time, it 0:23:52.160 --> 0:23:55.760 didn't take a polygraph to get a confession. Ballard admitted 0:23:55.880 --> 0:23:59.840 to raping and stabbing Michelle Bosco, and he insisted that 0:23:59.880 --> 0:24:04.800 he acted alone. Most importantly, police finally had their DNA 0:24:04.920 --> 0:24:08.960 match the semen at the crime scene belonged to Omar Ballard. 0:24:10.960 --> 0:24:12.800 No, no, I guess something, just taking my head and 0:24:12.880 --> 0:24:15.359 I went to the kitchen and got a knife, went 0:24:15.400 --> 0:24:18.840 back to the room, she was getting ab off the bid, 0:24:18.960 --> 0:24:21.679 or she was already above the big when I stabbed 0:24:21.680 --> 0:24:23.679 in the chairs one time, and when she got on 0:24:23.720 --> 0:24:26.200 the floor, I think I said about two or three 0:24:26.200 --> 0:24:28.720 more times. I'm not quite sure was anybody with you 0:24:28.840 --> 0:24:29.600 during this defense? 0:24:30.600 --> 0:24:36.320 No police officers were handed the true perpetrator on a 0:24:36.359 --> 0:24:39.879 silver platter. The wake up call was hand delivered to 0:24:39.920 --> 0:24:44.880 them literally. Omar Ballard confessed to this crime and then 0:24:45.040 --> 0:24:47.479 DNA matched him before trial. 0:24:48.160 --> 0:24:53.439 Walk away, but prosecutors wouldn't walk away. Instead, they offered 0:24:53.520 --> 0:24:57.000 Joe Dick a plea deal if he testified that everyone 0:24:57.080 --> 0:25:00.159 else had been there along with Ballard. For Joe, the 0:25:00.200 --> 0:25:04.240