Speaker 1: MHM. Justice never has an expiration date. If we can't
Speaker 1: correct wrongful convictions, then people are saying, how can we
Speaker 1: trust the whole criminal justice system. Rodney Lincoln's case is
Speaker 1: not an anomaly. Decades of unchecked misconduct leads to decades
Speaker 1: of injustice. Right, I'm Leah Rothman, this is the Real
Speaker 1: Killer Episode eleven. Something stinks in Missouri. You know they
Speaker 1: said justice is supposed to be equal to all. I've
Speaker 1: never taught to anyone that believes that justice is equal
Speaker 1: to all, and some of the people that I talked
Speaker 1: to you would judge I have the judges don't believe
Speaker 1: in it. Who does. Rodney Lincoln spent thirty six years
Speaker 1: and ten days in prison for crimes the vast majority
Speaker 1: of people believe he did not commit. I want to
Speaker 1: know why, Why in Missouri is it so hard to
Speaker 1: free the wrongfully convicted? And to be fair, it's not
Speaker 1: just a problem in Missouri. According to the National Registry
Speaker 1: of Exonerations, in there were one and twenty nine exonerations nationwide,
Speaker 1: with a total of one thousand, seven hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: seven years lost behind bars. Again, we're only talking about
Speaker 1: those who are actually exonerated seven of those exonerations involved
Speaker 1: official misconduct, and thirty exonerations were convictions based at least
Speaker 1: in part on mistaken witness identifications. You know, the Missouri
Speaker 1: state motto is Salus popular least suprema lex esto, which
Speaker 1: translates to let the good or safety of the people
Speaker 1: be the supreme law. Rodney's former attorney, Shawn O'Brien, who
Speaker 1: has been in the thick of the fight to free
Speaker 1: the innocent for decades, may disagree Missouri's measuring up to
Speaker 1: its own motto for all of its people. First of all,
Speaker 1: what percentage of people in prison do you believe are innocent?
Speaker 1: The best estimate was a fellowed by the name of
Speaker 1: Sam Gross, who is a criminal procedure professor at Michigan
Speaker 1: Law School. Um. Really good guy, really smart, scary smart
Speaker 1: kind of person, and his estimate. You can take it
Speaker 1: as high as ten or twelve percent, but more likely
Speaker 1: it's probably closer to um two to three percent UM.
Speaker 1: And so when you think about the fact that we have,
Speaker 1: you know, two point one million prisoners in custody at
Speaker 1: this moment, that's pretty high. That's just people who have
Speaker 1: already been convicted. I think that number would be much
Speaker 1: higher among pre trial detainees. In death penalty cases. I
Speaker 1: can tell you that, for um, every nine people we execute,
Speaker 1: we release one innocent person from death row. And the
Speaker 1: question it is staggering. Yeah. There's an organization called the
Speaker 1: Death Penalty Information Center. They did a study of death
Speaker 1: penalty Where are you most likely to get executed in
Speaker 1: the US if you're convicted of murder? And of course
Speaker 1: a lot of counties in Texas are very high on
Speaker 1: the list. St. Louis City is number nine. St. Louis
Speaker 1: County is number ten, and if you eliminate Texas, St.
Speaker 1: Louis City in St. Louis County are number two and
Speaker 1: three in the US at actually killing people. St. Louis
Speaker 1: is a perfect storm. You have zealous prosecutors, assembly line courts,
Speaker 1: and weak public defenders in that office. Their caseloads are awful,
Speaker 1: and they've been cutting corners for so long that nobody's
Speaker 1: actually practicing law in the defense of cases. I mean,
Speaker 1: a successful result in a case is more of a
Speaker 1: fluke or an accident than the product of how the
Speaker 1: system should work. And in that environment, it's a perfect
Speaker 1: place for detectives like Joe bragoon to function because nobody
Speaker 1: is going to really look at the integrity of his
Speaker 1: work product and question it. It just doesn't happen. If
Speaker 1: an innocent persons on death row, it's obviously a serious
Speaker 1: fight against the clock to free them, but at the
Speaker 1: very least they have a statutory right to an attorney
Speaker 1: up until the moment they're executed. For those not on
Speaker 1: death row, they're kind of on their own. For you know,
Speaker 1: the common person sentenced to length the time in jail
Speaker 1: for something he didn't do. We don't have lawyers digging
Speaker 1: except you know, for the handful of exoneration projects around
Speaker 1: the US. That's really the issue is the resources to
Speaker 1: prove their innocence are scarce. So it's not unusual for
Speaker 1: an innocence project to have a backlog of six or
Speaker 1: seven cases people just asking please look at my case.
Speaker 1: And if someone is actually lucky enough to get an
Speaker 1: innocence project or pro bono attorney to take on their case,
Speaker 1: well it's just the first step in a very arduous process.
Speaker 1: Why do these cases take so long, Well, because the
Speaker 1: standard is so high and there are so many barriers
Speaker 1: to release. You know, the system operates under a very
Speaker 1: heavy presumption that everybody in prison is guilty, and it
Speaker 1: is very difficult to overturn that presumption of finality. And
Speaker 1: I don't want to get into a complicated lecture about
Speaker 1: post conviction procedure. But every case goes through about nine
Speaker 1: possibly available uh stages of review, and it works like
Speaker 1: shoots and ladders. You can get to a certain stage
Speaker 1: and they say, I want to go back to this
Speaker 1: stage and try again. I mean mostly that bouncing around
Speaker 1: is over procedural technicalities. Are you a Douglas Adams fan
Speaker 1: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? I have not read it.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Well, and one of my favorite chapters is
Speaker 1: titled somebody Else's Problem. So they're flying along in their
Speaker 1: rocket ship in outer space and they go through what
Speaker 1: the author calls is somebody Else's problem field where the
Speaker 1: captain is about to crash the ship into a planet
Speaker 1: and he says, it's not my problem. I'm not the navigator,
Speaker 1: and the navigator says, not my problem. IY not the engineer,
Speaker 1: And the engineer says it's not my problem. I'm not.
Speaker 1: It's always somebody else's responsibility to fix. And I see
Speaker 1: the criminal justice system after having read that book, I
Speaker 1: thought that's a perfect analogy for post conviction litigation. You know,
Speaker 1: the judge and post conviction says, well, the jury pronounced
Speaker 1: him guilty, and if they're wrong, the appellate court is
Speaker 1: gonna overturn it. Uh. And if the appellate court's wrong,
Speaker 1: then the post conviction court can take another look at it.
Speaker 1: And the post conviction court says, why should I look
Speaker 1: at it. It's already been looked at by all these
Speaker 1: other people like you. Get to the point of ridiculousness.
Speaker 1: Um at nobody has responsibility because it's spread out over
Speaker 1: so many places. There are so many things about Rodney's
Speaker 1: case that should make everybody who ever touched it very uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: if not ashamed, had the role that they played in
Speaker 1: obtaining and reviewing this conviction. When we talk about how
Speaker 1: much time the crime in this case happened before I
Speaker 1: was born, so the entire time I represented Rodney, he
Speaker 1: had been incarcerated for longer than I had been alive.
Speaker 1: That's Tricia Rojo bush Nell again. She's Rodney's attorney and
Speaker 1: the executive director at the Midwest Innocence Project. Everything I
Speaker 1: ever did in my life until I was thirty six.
Speaker 1: Rodney was incarcerated during it my whole life. It should
Speaker 1: not take that long. M hm. And my whole life
Speaker 1: means his kid's whole life, his grandkids. How much do
Speaker 1: you miss in that time? And it's impossible to explain.
Speaker 1: So it takes forever to even prove in the courts
Speaker 1: that these people are innocent. Then innocence is not enough.
Speaker 1: I don't understand that. Yeah, I mean, it's it's it.
Speaker 1: That is the way the system is designed, right, And
Speaker 1: although everyone in Rodney's case is white, the system is
Speaker 1: disproportionately designed and stacked against people of color. You know.
Speaker 1: I think a lot about this in the state of Missouri.
Speaker 1: One is, we are a Southern state that doesn't want
Speaker 1: to admit that we were a Southern state, right, So
Speaker 1: we were a slave state that did not fight for
Speaker 1: the Confederacy. So we have and we are identified as
Speaker 1: the Midwest. Right, folks think about the injustice and the
Speaker 1: racism and the problems in places like the South, when
Speaker 1: we have all those same problems and racist problems and
Speaker 1: practices are still existing today and the consequences that are
Speaker 1: tuisting today. I mean, in our office, we say that
Speaker 1: systemic racism is the leading cause of wrongful convictions. It
Speaker 1: infects every part of it. Right. The reason we don't
Speaker 1: fund public defenders is also because the vast majority of
Speaker 1: people who need public defenders are black and brown folks
Speaker 1: who come from disadvantaged socio economns status, and so it
Speaker 1: infects every part of it. And it's it's it's like,
Speaker 1: we need just change who's in power that give people
Speaker 1: who are affected real power. I mean, what would the
Speaker 1: criminal legal system look like if the people impacted by
Speaker 1: the criminal skillstem designed it right? And also, we need
Speaker 1: people to care about other human beings. That's what I
Speaker 1: think is so insane when we walk in in the
Speaker 1: court and they say, oh, it's not enough unless you're
Speaker 1: sentenced to death, Like how do you go home? How
Speaker 1: do you write those words down? And I'd be like,
Speaker 1: you know, I feel good about today. And when a
Speaker 1: decision like that, innocence isn't enough unless your sentence to
Speaker 1: death is handed down, it has some laugh sting, life
Speaker 1: altering effects for so many. When we lost Rodney's case,
Speaker 1: not only did we lose it for Rodney, we lost
Speaker 1: it for every other innocent person coming next. Right now,
Speaker 1: that's still the standard innocence is not enough unless you
Speaker 1: are sentenced to death. And one of those people directly
Speaker 1: affected by that loss is forty eight year old Lamar Johnson,
Speaker 1: also from St. Louis. So you know, in Missouri's most
Speaker 1: folks know Lamar Johnson because there is another devastating loss
Speaker 1: also just like Rodney Lincoln. Right, It's another one of
Speaker 1: those cases that seems to defy logic. In during a
Speaker 1: botched robbery, twenty five year old Marcus Boyd is shot
Speaker 1: and killed, and I witness Greg Elking, who was sitting
Speaker 1: next to Marcus Boyd at the time, tells St. Louis
Speaker 1: Metro p D he can't identify the two shooters because
Speaker 1: it was nighttime and the men were wearing masks. Although
Speaker 1: Lamar Johnson has an alibi for the time of the murder,
Speaker 1: Gregg Elking eventually I DA s him as one of
Speaker 1: the two perpetrators. Lamar Johnson is convicted and sentenced to
Speaker 1: life without parole. Then, in nineteen ninety six and two
Speaker 1: thousand and two, the two masked men confessed to the
Speaker 1: murder and say Lamar Johnson was never there. In two
Speaker 1: thousand three, Greg Elking, the witness, recounts to his pastor,
Speaker 1: and in two thousand eight, about fourteen years after Lamar
Speaker 1: Johnson was convicted, the Midwest Innocence Project takes his case.
Speaker 1: By the way. For years before m IP came on board,
Speaker 1: Lamar Johnson was acting as his own advocate, gathering evidence
Speaker 1: which could help prove his innocence. He tried and lost
Speaker 1: several appeals, even with the sworn affidavits of the two
Speaker 1: confessed killers. Then in St. Louis Circuit, attorney Kim Gardner
Speaker 1: and her conviction integrity units start reviewing Lamar Johnson's case
Speaker 1: and in time what they find is shocking. They uncover
Speaker 1: more than four thousand dollars worth the payments paid out
Speaker 1: to the witness, Greg Elking, which was in exchange for
Speaker 1: him identifying Lamar Johnson as one of the killers. Here's
Speaker 1: Tricia again. We had asked for records of those payments
Speaker 1: ten different times and we were told no such payments exist. Right,
Speaker 1: Kim Garner gets elected, We go and present this case
Speaker 1: to her. She they go and they look in the
Speaker 1: file and there is a blue folder says did not
Speaker 1: disclose and inside his record of all the payments and
Speaker 1: all of our requests asking for proof of the payments.
Speaker 1: They also find proof that police invented witness statements, fabricae,
Speaker 1: did a false confession from Lamar Johnson, and prosecutors hit
Speaker 1: all of this and more from defense attorneys. So you know,
Speaker 1: at that time, Kim Gardner says, it isn't we need
Speaker 1: let him out, and so she filed the emotion for
Speaker 1: new trial. And the Statute of Missouri says a defendant
Speaker 1: has fifteen days after this convictions finlet to file emotion
Speaker 1: for new trial. And it doesn't make clear what the
Speaker 1: timeline is for prosecutors. So we were going to say,
Speaker 1: prosecutor can do it anytime. She has an ethical duty
Speaker 1: right as a minister of justice. So she filed it.
Speaker 1: It filed it in the St. Louis Um Circuit Court.
Speaker 1: The judge appointed the a g to appear for reasons
Speaker 1: I cannot explain. The ag said, you have no power
Speaker 1: to do that. We were denied. It went up to
Speaker 1: the Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals said, we
Speaker 1: don't really know and we think the miss Ray Supreme
Speaker 1: Court should should hear this. They transferred it to the
Speaker 1: Misra Supreme Court for them to decide that no, a
Speaker 1: prosecutor cannot do that. So to sum it up, the
Speaker 1: witness re cants, the killers confess there's proof of police
Speaker 1: and prosecutorial misconduct. And when Kim Gardner takes all of
Speaker 1: this to the courts requesting a new trial, the judge
Speaker 1: appoints Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmidt to take over the case,
Speaker 1: who then fights her authority, saying she should have none,
Speaker 1: and he wins. Imagine you take this job and you're
Speaker 1: told that you don't have the right to correct wrathful convictions. Again,
Speaker 1: Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner. I think that Lamar Johnson represents
Speaker 1: a issue that I believe when a prosecutor, as in
Speaker 1: other jurisdictions, they have told me, when they are made
Speaker 1: aware that something was not right, everyone including the courts,
Speaker 1: trying to find a way to correct what prosecutor discovers
Speaker 1: maybe a rawful uh conviction. And I believe that in
Speaker 1: this case it was very strange that a judge automatically
Speaker 1: called in the attorney general, who I represent the state,
Speaker 1: and when the Attorney general um re appealed. It was
Speaker 1: not about Lamar Johnson. It was not about whether he
Speaker 1: was innocent or guilty. It was more about me, as
Speaker 1: the elected prosecutor not having the ability to correct wrongful convictions.
Speaker 1: And the Missouri Supreme Court ruled in the Attorney General's favor,
Speaker 1: but it was more disturbing that we are ministers of
Speaker 1: justice and regardless of whether we secure of conviction or not,
Speaker 1: justice does not stop after that conviction. Do you feel
Speaker 1: like the Attorney General, Eric Schmidt, was that personal? Do
Speaker 1: you think because you're reform based, because you're a woman. Well,
Speaker 1: I think it was, you know, personal to to the
Speaker 1: circuit attorney because I am the first African American female
Speaker 1: reformat a prosecutor to ever lead this office. So I
Speaker 1: believe that because our philosophies and somehow are different, but
Speaker 1: our philosophy should be sent the same in terms of justice.
Speaker 1: Justice is not a Republican idea or a democratic idea,
Speaker 1: or a progressive idea or a conservative idea. Justice is
Speaker 1: what it is justice and we seek justice. And I
Speaker 1: believe that the Attorney General made it more about attacking me,
Speaker 1: the elected prosecutor, and he's never denied that Lamar Johnson
Speaker 1: is is is innocent. It was just about me and
Speaker 1: do I have the right to correct month for convictions?
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think it's personal here, Sawn O'Brien again,
Speaker 1: to say that Kim Gardner is meeting a lot of
Speaker 1: opposition from the Attorney General's office would be the understatement
Speaker 1: of the century. It is shameful how much the Attorney
Speaker 1: General has politicized the criminal justice process, and frankly, I
Speaker 1: think it's because of race. Not only is she a
Speaker 1: reform minded prosecutor, but she is a black reform minded prosecutor,
Speaker 1: the first black prosecutor that St. Louis City has ever
Speaker 1: seen in its history. And the pushback is incredible. Presumably
Speaker 1: Attorney General Eric Schmidt would deny this. I've reached out
Speaker 1: multiple times to ask him about it, but I haven't
Speaker 1: heard back. What Kim Gardner was trying to do should
Speaker 1: have worked. Maybe it would have worked in other states,
Speaker 1: not Missouri. That's former m IP investigator Dan growth House.
Speaker 1: You met him in earlier episodes. He's worked tirelessly on
Speaker 1: both Rodney Lincoln and Lamar Johnson's cases. I mean Lamar.
Speaker 1: I've known Lamar Sin's two thousand and eight. I know
Speaker 1: everything about his case, the amount of evidence that I
Speaker 1: collected from the people that committed the crime. Very seldom
Speaker 1: do I get affidavit signed by the real shooters, And
Speaker 1: very seldom do I get affidavits signed by the witness
Speaker 1: that lied to the police who tells me why they
Speaker 1: lied to the police. Seldom do I get affidavits from
Speaker 1: witnesses that looked at the police reports and said, I
Speaker 1: never told the cops that I'll sign an affidavit that
Speaker 1: said that that that police report is fraudulent, that I
Speaker 1: never said that. It's just, you know, nine yards of craziness.
Speaker 1: Lamar keeps me up at night. Son of a bitch.
Speaker 1: I could. I could talk like a sailor for five
Speaker 1: minutes talking about how mother fucking pisted I am. That
Speaker 1: Lamar is still sitting in prison makes me puke. According
Speaker 1: to Injustice Watch, a not for profit, nonpartisan organization that
Speaker 1: does in depth research on institutions, justice and equality, it's
Speaker 1: not just the current Attorney General, Eric Schmidt, who has
Speaker 1: been opposing relief for the wrongfully convicted. The Missouri AG's
Speaker 1: office has been opposing nearly every wrongful conviction case since
Speaker 1: the year two thousand. A perfect example of this is
Speaker 1: Shawn O'Brien's Joe am Ran case, which we talked about
Speaker 1: in a previous episode. When The Assistant Attorney General was
Speaker 1: asked by one of the justices, quote, are you suggesting
Speaker 1: even if we find that Mr Amran is actually innocent,
Speaker 1: he should be executed? He answered, that is correct, your honor.
Speaker 1: Absolutely unbelievable, right mean stomach turning. Although Joe am Rin
Speaker 1: was not executed and was eventually released from prison, that
Speaker 1: Assistant a G sentiment for me kind of sums up
Speaker 1: one of the biggest problems with the post conviction justice
Speaker 1: system in Missouri. While it's completely legal for the a
Speaker 1: G to oppose relief, why would they do it based
Speaker 1: on their duty to do so instead of basing it
Speaker 1: on a person's guilt or innocence? And it is in
Speaker 1: fact happening all over Missouri, like in Jackson County. Kevin
Speaker 1: Strickland is another man most believe is innocent. He's been
Speaker 1: serving time for a triple homicide that happened back in
Speaker 1: nine similar to the Lamar Johnson case. Jackson County Prosecutor
Speaker 1: Jean Peters Baker has been stripped of any power to
Speaker 1: release Kevin Strickland. Here she is in a May press conference.
Speaker 1: I'm here advocating from Mr strict It's freedom and that
Speaker 1: his conviction should be vacated. Most importantly, though I'm advocating
Speaker 1: that this man must be freed immediately. My job is
Speaker 1: to protect the innocent. It is important to recognize when
Speaker 1: the system has made wrongs, and what we did in
Speaker 1: this case was wrong. So to Mr Strickland, I am
Speaker 1: profoundly sorry. I am profoundly sorry for the harm um
Speaker 1: that has come to you. And to that end, Um,
Speaker 1: I want to tell this community that I represent um,
Speaker 1: that I find this mistake in this system to be profound,
Speaker 1: to be one that I should take every ounce of
Speaker 1: energy I have to correct. I am sorry for this
Speaker 1: mistake made by this system. An uphill battle for Jean Peters, Baker,
Speaker 1: Kim Gardner, and many of the other prosecutors in Missouri,
Speaker 1: but they may have just gotten a break. On July,
Speaker 1: Missouri Governor Mike Parson signs Senate Bill fifty three into law, which,
Speaker 1: among other things, creates quote a judicial procedure that provides
Speaker 1: a pathway for a prosecuting attorney to correct a miscarriage
Speaker 1: of justice resulting from a wrongful conviction. And there's some
Speaker 1: more good news. I'm beyond ecstatic to report that on
Speaker 1: November with the help of Tricia and the Midwest Innocence Project.
Speaker 1: A judge set aside the conviction of the now sixty
Speaker 1: two year old wheelchair dependent Kevin Strickland after serving forty
Speaker 1: three years in prison. He's finally free. Two victories, for sure,
Speaker 1: but the fight is far from over. I mean, forgive
Speaker 1: me for like being so pedestrian about it. But if
Speaker 1: Eric Schmidt's family member it's been wrongfully convicted, they're sitting
Speaker 1: in prison and it's just bureaucracy and it being politicized,
Speaker 1: and that's the stuff that's keeping their innocent loved one
Speaker 1: in prison, would they be reacting the same way. Well,
Speaker 1: I think that's a very good question to ask, because
Speaker 1: in the end of the day, it's about justice. In
Speaker 1: the end of the day, it should not be about
Speaker 1: a political pissing contest against the elected Stircuit attorney because
Speaker 1: you don't like her stance on reforming a system that
Speaker 1: we all know is beyond broken. Yeah, if I can
Speaker 1: get the Attorney General to call me back, I'll let
Speaker 1: you know what he says. Do you think that it's ego?
Speaker 1: Do you think they're afraid of payouts? And obviously you
Speaker 1: can't speak for them, but what isn't. I mean, why
Speaker 1: do they think it's I think it's the false premise
Speaker 1: of this law and auto rhetoric that some people run
Speaker 1: on a platform that that law and art are tough
Speaker 1: on crime. And we know that that was been allied,
Speaker 1: the war on drugs was aligned. We need to talk
Speaker 1: about the war on um, poor people, people of color.
Speaker 1: We need to you know, actually show and look at
Speaker 1: the data that have we made our city safe with
Speaker 1: the lawn auto rhetoric and we have not again, And
Speaker 1: like I told Kim, I've reached out to Attorney General
Speaker 1: Eric Schmidt multiple times for comment but have not heard back. He,
Speaker 1: like the ex Governor Eric Grayten's, is also running for
Speaker 1: the U. S. Senate. When we talk about Lamar Johnson,
Speaker 1: Rodney Lincoln, and many others, everyone should be doing their
Speaker 1: best under the rule of law to find a way,
Speaker 1: and even the courts, the courts have discretion to actually
Speaker 1: make away when there's no way, and I think that
Speaker 1: that's where we have to to really look at what
Speaker 1: is at stake. Mr Lincoln has served thirty six years
Speaker 1: of his life, I mean thirty six years and he's
Speaker 1: now seventy plus. You know, when you have lived most
Speaker 1: of your life can find for a crime you did
Speaker 1: not commit, just the mental angers, the mental torment, the
Speaker 1: toll it takes on a person's family. Ronney Lincoln's family
Speaker 1: and friends have served those thirty plus years with them,
Speaker 1: and the end of the day, we have to do
Speaker 1: better if we truly want people to believe in the
Speaker 1: criminal justice system. And I think that that's what says
Speaker 1: Steak is we have to make the system fair for everybody.
Speaker 1: It's about fairness and justice, and I believe that you know,
Speaker 1: either you gotta get on board or you need to
Speaker 1: get out the way. Well, it seems this is where
Speaker 1: our journey comes to an end. But the most most
Speaker 1: important question still remains. Who killed joe An Tate and
Speaker 1: savagely attacked Melissa and Renee. Circuit attorney Kim Gardner says
Speaker 1: the case is still open. Melissa, uncle Nat and aunt
Speaker 1: Lourie have since reached out to her office requesting whatever
Speaker 1: viable evidence there is be entered into the national databases.
Speaker 1: Maybe the DNA is too degraded. I don't know, but
Speaker 1: in my conversations with people close to the case, it
Speaker 1: seems there may be some fingerprints that, even if they
Speaker 1: aren't good enough to be a match to someone. Maybe
Speaker 1: they're good enough at least to exclude some people. Melissa
Speaker 1: and her family deserve the chance to possibly finally get
Speaker 1: the answers which have alluded them since April. Also a
Speaker 1: quick follow up on the Steve Vancy episode. I wanted
Speaker 1: to try to verify his story that police considered him
Speaker 1: enough of a suspect that they had him take a
Speaker 1: polygraph and then cleared him after he passed it. But
Speaker 1: I haven't been able to find anything in any of
Speaker 1: the police reports to back that up. If I talked
Speaker 1: to Steve Nancy again and have new information that's worth sharing,
Speaker 1: I will. I want to thank everyone who participated in
Speaker 1: the making of this podcast. Your time and insight have
Speaker 1: been invaluable. I could not have done it without you all.
Speaker 1: I especially want to thank Melissa, who just finished writing
Speaker 1: her memoir entitled Not Quite Right. It's a love letter
Speaker 1: to society's outsiders, which she hopes will help and inspire
Speaker 1: survivors of all kinds. And Rodney, who is skydiving, fishing,
Speaker 1: and making up for lost time with his family. He
Speaker 1: is patiently waiting to learn if he'll receive a full
Speaker 1: pardon from the Governor of Missouri. Melissa and Rodney's honesty, openness,
Speaker 1: and bravery are why this podcast was possible. They are
Speaker 1: the epitome of strength, forgiveness, and love. If anyone has
Speaker 1: any information about this case, please go to www dot
Speaker 1: Circuit Attorney dot org. The Real Killer is a production
Speaker 1: of a y R Media and I Heart Radio, hosted
Speaker 1: by me Leah Rothman, Executive producers Leah Rothman and Eliza
Speaker 1: Rosen for a y R Media. Written by me Leah Rothman,
Speaker 1: Senior Associate producer Eric Newman, Editing and sound design by
Speaker 1: Cameron Taggy, mixed and mastered by Cameron Taggi. Audio engineering
Speaker 1: by Jesus c Mario Studio engineering by Tom Weir and
Speaker 1: Kelly McGrew. Legal counsel for a y R Media Gianni Douglas,
Speaker 1: Executive producer for I Heart Radio Chandler Maze. If you're
Speaker 1: enjoying The Real Killer, tell your friends about it and
Speaker 1: leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts.