WEBVTT - #497 Jason Flom with Jerry Mark 0:00:02.520 --> 0:00:06.960 On November one, nineteen seventy five, Leslie and Georgine Mark 0:00:07.440 --> 0:00:10.600 and their two young children were discovered fatally shot in 0:00:10.640 --> 0:00:15.800 their Iowa farmhouse. The extended family was notified immediately, except 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:19.040 for Leslie's older brother, Jerry, who was on a motorcycle 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:21.919 ride that took him from California to at least as 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:27.520 far as Nebraska, but a few inconsistencies about the first 0:00:27.520 --> 0:00:31.160 two days of his journey led authorities to doubt his alibi. 0:00:32.600 --> 0:00:35.800 They theorized that he'd set out for the family farmhouse 0:00:35.840 --> 0:00:39.040 in Cedar Falls, Iowa, to exact revenge for losing his 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:43.000 stake in the family farm to his younger brother, and 0:00:43.200 --> 0:00:47.480 despite evidence to the contrary, the state produced enough circumstantial 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:53.280 evidence and junk science to convince a Jerry this is 0:00:53.320 --> 0:01:03.600 wrongful conviction. You're listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen 0:01:03.600 --> 0:01:06.080 to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:09.319 week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:20.679 Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction, 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:23.800 where we have a case that pitted brother against brother 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:27.600 and a canaan able type of clash. When it turns 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:30.520 out that there were at least two other motivated parties, 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:33.600 none of whom were our guests today. And our guest 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:38.080 today is calling in from an Iowa correctional facility. Jerry Mark. 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:41.399 Welcome to Wrongful Conviction. I'm sorry you're here, but we're 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:42.440 very honored to have you. 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:44.280 Thank you now to. 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:47.640 Help explain what happened way back in nineteen seventy five 0:01:47.720 --> 0:01:50.880 and ever since. Erica Nichols Cook, who heads up the 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:54.600 Wrongful Conviction Unit for the Iowa Public Defender's Office, thanks 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:55.880 for doing this with us today. 0:01:56.040 --> 0:01:58.240 Of course, thank you for having me now. 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:01.480 Jerry's backstory is kind of epically. It's like a movie. 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:05.760 He's going to be eighty two in January twenty twenty five, 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:09.160 so when this happened back in nineteen seventy five, he 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:12.480 was thirty two, and by that age he'd already lived 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:13.680 the hell of a life. 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:16.880 I was the second born of four brothers. My older 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:20.600 brother was Richard. My name is Jerry Allen Mark. Next 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:24.280 younger is Thomas, and then the youngest of all is 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:28.040 Leslie Wayne Mark. Mom and dad on day two hundred 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:30.919 Digger farm in northeast Iowa. We lived in a huge 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:34.680 seventeen eighteen room farmhouse. It had been built for very 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:38.560 large families and previous generations of the Mark family. So 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:41.800 I grew up on a farm. And the person that 0:02:41.880 --> 0:02:45.360 I was accused of murdering and his family was my 0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:48.400 youngest brother, Less, who was seven years younger than me, 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:50.519 and I was his mentor, and I kind of taught 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:52.680 him out to do all the farm chores. Dad was 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:55.560 away a lot because Dad switched over from being a 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:57.679 farmer to being a real estate broker. 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:02.840 Today farming more corporate right, And Wayne was a pioneer 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:07.040 in that he was buying smaller farms and amassing thousands 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:11.519 of acres, and he wasn't always well liked. In fact, 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:15.000 he and an attorney in town, a friend. They had 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:18.919 a corporation called vy Vim, and they would use it 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:21.919 to make purchases of farmland for people who didn't want 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:23.480 to sell to Wayne. 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:26.480 These would be widows whose husbands had died and left 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:28.960 them a farm, and the farms were worth a lot 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:33.200 more than the old ladies realized, and the attorneys could 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:36.480 persuade the class to sell the farm a straw buyer 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:39.680 with either farm. One farm we found out they sold 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:42.760 for two hundred and fifty thousand bucks, and then a 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:46.880 few months later turned around the straw purchaser resold the 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:49.080 farm for seven hundred and fifty thousand, so they made 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:51.800 half a million dollars on just one farm transaction. 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:54.600 It appears that the rest of the Mark family was 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:58.200 unaware of these crooked dealings. In fact, Jerry had planned 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:02.600 to join his dad's partners after law school, but first 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:04.720 he joined the Peace Corps. 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:07.640 Which was a response to President John Kennedy. He brought 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:10.800 out these feelings of paid tritism and service in people 0:04:10.880 --> 0:04:13.480 like me, and so I went to Brazil for two 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:16.680 years in nineteen sixty two and sixty three. 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:19.600 He's the first class in the Peace Corps and so 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:23.159 with his farming background, he's placed in rural Brazil, where 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:26.960 he meets the Bleistra family and he becomes friends with 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:31.920 Renato Blestra. Renato's dad is like the mayor. Jerry ends 0:04:31.960 --> 0:04:35.720 up staying with Renato. They become very close. When Jerry's 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:38.119 time is up in the Peace Corps, he returns home 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:41.640 and then gets a visa for Renato to live in 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:44.560 Cedar Fall. It's with the Mark family. Jerry actually goes 0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:47.240 back to school to finish college and then gone to 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:50.640 law school and Renato stays with Wayne and Dorothy on 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:54.919 the farm. He gets his pilot license and goes to Vietnam. 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:58.400 So while Renato served in the US military, gaining a 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:01.400 path to the US citizenship, Jerry was able to go 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:05.120 a different path. Before the draft was reinstated, he joined 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:08.200 the Navy, but he refused an officer commission for another 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:09.000 role at home. 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:12.760 I strongly opposed that war. Two of my very dearest 0:05:12.760 --> 0:05:16.599 friends volunteered to go to Vietnam, so we were patriotic. 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:20.159 It was just kind of accidental that I learned enough 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:24.800 about the Vietnamese independence movement to understand that we were 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:27.160 on the wrong side of that, and I found myself 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:30.719 drawn into the civil rights movement here in the United States. 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:33.520 In the summer of sixty four, I volunteered to be 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:37.440 the fundraiser for James Jackson, and first African American elector 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:39.720 to the Arwood Legislature in modern times. 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:42.680 So through college and law school, Jerry was engaged in 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:45.560 politics and the anti war movement, and in nineteen sixty 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:48.000 eight he and his wife Rebecca were Iowa delegates for 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:52.359 Bobby Kennedy before his assassination, which in turn ushered in 0:05:52.480 --> 0:05:56.080 Richard Nixon and the war escalated, while Jerry joined the 0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:58.960 Legal Aid Society to protect the Indigenous as well as 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:01.720 those who were pro so rights and opposed to the war. 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:05.160 By this time, I have already had a reputation as 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:09.600 a radical attorney, and I was playing right into their images. 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:11.839 I guess I had long red hair and a red 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:15.159 beard living in Berkeley. I had become such an anti 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:19.560 war fanatic that my wife had basically given me an ultimatum. 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:22.400 I had to settle down and have a normal family 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:26.360 life somewhere, or she wanted a separation. We had two 0:06:26.360 --> 0:06:29.200 little girls, and I just didn't take it seriously enough. 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:32.160 Jerry and Rebecca divorced and shared custody of their girls, 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:35.320 and soon Jerry met somebody knew, a neighbor of his 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:38.720 at a Berkeley, California trailer park named Mimi, who was 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:42.320 also divorcing her husband, Alga Forrest, and in the spring 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:45.280 of seventy five, the new couple returned to Cedar Falls 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:48.479 with the girls to visit Jerry's ailing father and to 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:50.840 discuss the future of the farmhouse. 0:06:51.240 --> 0:06:53.719 I was very assertive toward Dad, and I finally got 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:56.159 Dad to promise me that in the early part of 0:06:56.200 --> 0:06:58.680 summer that he would make the move. That Mom already 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:01.839 had picked out a home nearby for them to move into, 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:04.840 so a Lesson Georgian could move into the farmhouse. 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:09.280 So, despite advocating for his brother, the state later used 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:12.400 Alga Forrest to argue that Jerry killed Less and his 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:16.320 family over Less inheriting the farm, all while ignoring both 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:19.360 the victims of Wayne Mark's crooked real estate dealings as 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:22.880 well as the powerful enemies that were Naobo Lestra had made. 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:26.320 In the early seventies, Renato had some problems with his 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:31.280 pilot license here and that's when he took a job 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:35.920 flying drugs from Paraguay to Miami. He is one of 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:40.360 the pilots with Caesar Bianki and he turned state evidence 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:44.440 and he testifies in New York and federal court against 0:07:44.480 --> 0:07:49.200 August Record and Caesar Bianki. Wayne posted Renato's bond. Renato 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:51.600 stayed with Wayne and Dorothy while he was on bond 0:07:51.720 --> 0:07:54.720 before he had to go back and testify. And there 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:58.640 was also several August Record and Caesar Bianki co defendants 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:01.800 who escaped from the Federal Detention Center in New York 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:04.640 and are never accounted for they were part of the 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:06.480 enforcers of that cartel. 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:11.160 So by Halloween nineteen seventy five, Wayne, Dorothy, and Renato 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:14.760 were all out of the farmhouse, inadvertently leaving Less and 0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:18.560 his family in harm's way. Meanwhile, Jerry was struggling with 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:21.360 the idea of jumping into a new marriage with Mimi. 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:24.120 So I had basically said to her, I need to 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:26.360 take off for a week or so and spend some 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:30.000 time by myself. I wanted to do some introspection. I 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:33.400 had recently bought a motorcycle, and my attention was to 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:37.360 go south in southern California rather than come east and 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:40.280 then being on the road, I had encountered people, and 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:43.480 I had actually picked up a girl, Aytoker along the way. 0:08:43.840 --> 0:08:46.360 Her name was Ginger, and she was heading east. So 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:49.720 they hopped on I eighty on Wednesday, October twenty ninth, 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:54.240 nineteen seventy five. Despite some mutual attraction, Jerry claims that 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:57.559 he remained faithful to Mimi, and Ginger took off in Cheyenne, 0:08:57.559 --> 0:09:01.320 Wyoming on Thursday evening, at which point Jerry intended to 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:03.439 head back to Berkeley and try. 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:06.280 To get back over the Continental Divide. A Thursday night, 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:09.600 it was so cold and it snowed a little bit 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:12.720 that I couldn't make it. I actually spent a lot 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:17.000 of early morning hours during Thursday night Friday morning at 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:22.480 restaurants and cafes. Anyway, I decided I would come down 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:27.040 to a lower altitude in western Nebraska, camp out, rest up, 0:09:27.120 --> 0:09:29.040 then get a hold of my body renowned till the 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:33.080 next day. He had a general aviation business in eastern Nebraska, 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:36.839 so he could have my motorcycle ship back to California 0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:40.720 and fly me back to California. So Friday night, that's 0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:44.240 when I camped at the first rest area at a 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:46.600 lower altitude down in Nebraska. 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:50.079 The rest area was in Chapel, Nebraska, about a nine 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:52.920 hour ride from Cedar Falls, Iowa, where Less and his 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:55.800 family were murdered at some time during that night. 0:09:56.240 --> 0:09:59.480 So October thirty first, nineteen seventy five, it is Halloween 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:03.000 and it is also harvest, so at the Mark family 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:05.679 farm there's a lot of people in and out. So 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:08.720 this night Less is seen pretty late at night. Victor 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:12.040 is there, the uncle who's helping with harvest, and he 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:15.480 goes home. Everything is fine. A trooper drives by, who 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:19.240 knows Less from the Army National Guard. He sees lights on, 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:22.320 he goes to a call. He comes back, gets like 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:24.319 one am. The lights are off. 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:27.600 According to the clocks in the house, someone had cut 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:31.160 the power around three am, and it's unclear if there 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:33.560 was any relevance to a blue sedan that was seen 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:36.920 in the area. Then in the morning, a neighboring farmer 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:39.480 named Clark Renner, who had been working in tandem with 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:42.760 Less on the corn harvest, got no response from Less 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:45.199 at the farmhouse, and he saw that a front door 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:48.360 window pane and a potted plant inside had been broken, 0:10:48.480 --> 0:10:50.760 so he went and got Dorothy and Wayne. 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:54.000 When Dorothy gets there, Wayne is sick. Dorothy pulls a 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:57.079 key down off a nail, lets yourself into the house. 0:10:57.120 --> 0:11:00.120 They're calling for Less and Georgine. They go through a 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:02.439 couple of rooms to the bedroom that they know Less 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:05.560 than Georgane. Use The door's closed, but they see blood 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:09.400 seeping out from under the door. Clark Renner pushes on 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:11.640 the door and it's there's something against it and he 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:14.320 can't get it opened very far. He gets it open 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:17.880 enough to look in and he sees Georgane's body on 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:21.000 the floor, and then he can see less against the door. 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:24.800 At that time, he and Dorothy believe that it must 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:27.199 have been a murder suicide. So then Dorothy and Clark 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:30.520 go upstairs to check on the children, and they find 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:35.640 Julie in her bed with gunshot wounds. They find Jeffrey 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:40.360 in his crib, also with gunshot wounds. So Clark first 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:42.679 goes to the basement to try to flip the power 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:46.040 back on, and they find a couple of cigarette butts 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:47.520 down there under the fuse box. 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:51.240 And in nineteen seventy five, all they had was roology, 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:54.120 not the DNA testing that would later clear Jerry from 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:57.760 these cigarettes. It tested positive for tybo blood, same as 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:00.640 forty percent of the population, by the way, and Jerry 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:03.520 and there were two more stamped out upstairs. 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:07.400 The only DNA and fingerprints we've been able to identify 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:10.559 to anyban have all came back to law enforcement. They 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:12.680 were not treating it like a crime scene at first. 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:15.599 The first responders worked off for theory that it was 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:18.600 a murder suicide. I don't fully understand that sense of 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:21.880 the broken window, you know, but they apparently thought it was, 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:24.320 and that's why they made coffee and everybody's sitting around 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:28.199 smoky cigarettes. Then you know, hours later they get permission 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:30.680 from the corner to move Less's body to look for 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:33.320 the gun, and there is no gun, so all of 0:12:33.320 --> 0:12:34.600 a sudden, now it's murder. 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:37.560 There's also evidence that Less and Georgine had been awake. 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:40.839 There's a theory that they were awake and are having 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:44.199 sex because there's some condoms, one on Georgine, one on 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:46.600 the floor. You know they'd either had sex before they 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:49.480 went to bed or were awake. There's a total of 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:53.160 fourteen shots one Gray's wound, so clearly they woke up 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:56.360 or were awake, and there's some bullets found on the 0:12:56.440 --> 0:12:59.800 floor by the bed where they either went through or missed. 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:06.160 But at autopsy both Les and Georgine, they are multiple 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:09.959 gunshots to the heart, a gunshot back of the head. 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:13.520 From what we've understand, to leave a crime scene so clean, 0:13:14.040 --> 0:13:20.199 without identifiable fingerprints, without being seen, a car being seen, 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:25.319 the gunshots on the victims execution style shots, so this 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:29.600 could have been a professional cartel, organized crime type hit. 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:31.679 I think Lets tried to put up a fight, and 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:33.360 I know him well ms to know that he would 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:37.040 have put up a fight even if he was caught unawares. 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:39.800 But the way the kids were killed that was so 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:40.680 cold blooded. 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:45.199 The children were clearly asleep. Julie just has two wounds, 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:48.440 one in her temple and one in her heart. Jeffrey 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:50.800 is the same, and the bullet that went through his 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:55.560 heart went through the crib mattress and lodged itself in 0:13:55.640 --> 0:13:57.240 a children's book under his bed. 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:11.840 This episode of wrongful conviction is proudly sponsored by Erase 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:16.760 PTSD Now. Every day, countless individuals face the invisible wounds 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:20.440 of trauma and PTSD. Your support empowers us to provide 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:24.720 life changing treatments like the Stelli Ganglion Block SGB, which 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:28.520 inhibits nerve impulses and helps to restore hope, reclaim lives, 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:32.960 and save lives after incarceration. Together, we can ensure that 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:36.400 those wrongfully convicted receive the care they need to heal 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:39.720 and reintegrate into society. Join us in this mission to 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:44.640 erase PTSD and uplift our communities. Visit erase PTSD noow 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:49.240 dot org. That's erase PTSD now dot org for more 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:51.360 information and ways to get involved. 0:14:56.960 --> 0:15:00.720 See a police investigators. These people knew me, even though 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:02.960 I had been a bit of a rebel, rouser or 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:06.480 a trouble maker. They knew that I was not an evil, 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:10.040 violent person. They knew that I was an idealistic kid. 0:15:10.400 --> 0:15:14.600 They knew there's no evidence connecting meet at the crime. 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:17.080 I can never quite get past the fact that he 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:20.680 is a Peace Corps volunteer. He refused a commission in 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:23.240 the Navy and cleaned toilets instead of going to Vietnam. 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:26.680 He didn't hunt, and he's supposed to be able to 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:29.320 kill an eighteen month old in her crib with two 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:33.680 clean kill shots. It doesn't even seem possible. 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:38.560 Saturday morning, I got up and went to the restroom 0:15:38.720 --> 0:15:42.040 where I had camped off in western Nebraska, and that's 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:45.760 where I met Leslie Warren, a maintenance man who took 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:49.880 care of an interstate restroom. The murders had happened in 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:53.560 Cedar Falls earlier that morning. This is six hundred miles 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:54.960 away from the sea of the murders. 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:58.800 The rest area was in Chapel, Nebraska, a nine hour 0:15:58.960 --> 0:16:02.680 drive from Cedar Fall, where the murders happened only five 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:06.200 hours earlier, and Jerry was spotted twice more that morning 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:10.440 driving from Chapel toward Renato's aviation business in eastern Nebraska, 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:12.920 once by a waitress, and then by another woman named 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:13.880 Jean Doyle. 0:16:13.800 --> 0:16:16.960 A lady cashier at a gas station where I guessed 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:21.120 up my motorcycle had idead me. She saw me about 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:25.520 ten am on Saturday morning, about an hour's drive eastward 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:30.280 toward my buddy Renato's location, but also toward Iowa. 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:34.080 Jean Doyle noted that he was traveling west to east, importantly, 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:37.440 not fleeing Iowa east to west, but both of these 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:41.880 witnesses were hidden from the defense. Now it appears that 0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:45.040 Jerry had learned that Renata was unavailable, so he turned 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:47.600 back west and eventually hitched a ride with a trucker 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:50.280 who was heading to Seattle with an empty horse trailer 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:50.800 for the bike. 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:55.280 So I rode with him to Provo, Utah, and somewhere 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:59.360 after Salt Lake City. Sometime on November two, I was 0:16:59.400 --> 0:17:01.920 calling and I didn't get hold of my girlfriend, And 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:04.320 when I couldn't get an answer from her at home, 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:08.440 I called her mom and dad. They lived in South Lake, Tahoe, 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:10.960 and her mom told me on the phone that I 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:12.960 should call home, and I said I had been trying 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:17.399 to call home. Maybe he doesn't answer and then she said, no, Jerry, 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:19.960 something terrible has happened. Your brother's been killed. 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:23.000 Jerry went to Mimi's parents' house in Lake Tahoe, where 0:17:23.040 --> 0:17:25.920 he accurately represented to the police where he had been 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:28.760 on Friday and to Saturday. But he was also trying 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:31.920 to shield be me and her parents from knowing about 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:33.879 Wednesday and Thursday with Ginger. 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:36.480 I think that was the biggest issue for them that 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:37.879 made them suspicious of me. 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:41.600 And he's always questioned in front of them. Law enforcement 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:44.600 never took him aside by himself so that he had 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:50.879 an opportunity to provide information without that pressure, So he 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:54.600 doesn't give an accurate history of where he drove, where 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:56.679 he stopped, and where he called from. 0:17:56.880 --> 0:17:58.840 I think I told the cops that I made a 0:17:58.840 --> 0:18:03.119 loop through Southern Caliph, came up, got back on Interstate eighty, 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:06.240 and went eastward on eighty and ended up as far 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:09.359 as Western Nebraska. I told the cops, go find the 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:11.560 maintenance man, you'll verify that I was there. 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:14.359 At this point, the police sought out the maintenance ban, 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:17.720 Leslie Warren, as well as Mimi's phone records. 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:20.639 Mimi had insisted that I check in every night and 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:23.679 so I did that, and MEMI said I won't be 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:26.320 home Friday night. I'm going over to one of my girlfriends. 0:18:26.560 --> 0:18:28.840 And Friday night was the night I needed to have 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:31.679 called because I would have established my alibi. 0:18:31.840 --> 0:18:35.040 The phone records clearly showed that Jerry had called from 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:38.560 payphones a long I eighty on Wednesday and Thursday, and 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:41.680 not from southern California as he had initially said, which 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:45.960 raised suspicions. And on November three, they found the maintenance 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:48.919 band Leslie Warren and asked about Jerry's story for the 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:52.679 more important dates of October thirty first and November first. 0:18:52.720 --> 0:18:55.639 When they founded the maintenance man. He initially did verify it, 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:58.200 and then later on they persuaded him to saying he'd 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:01.919 see me the day earlier. Then they could create a 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:06.800 false rout of travel for me traveling into Iowa and 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:10.120 committing the murders the following day, which is when they 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:11.120 needed to have be there. 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:14.760 Eventually, Leslie Warren, he testifies he saw Jerry on Friday. 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:17.520 He's like, oh, well, I had a doctor's appointment, you know, 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:21.359 it couldn't have been Saturday. So what we learn eventually, though, 0:19:21.480 --> 0:19:24.159 is that as medical records showed that he had a 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:27.280 doctor appointment Friday and he was working Saturday, and so 0:19:27.920 --> 0:19:30.480 it corroborated Jerry's story, And. 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:34.080 It appears that the state hid those records from the defense, 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:38.560 knowing full well that they corroborated Jerry's innocence while also 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:42.000 contradicting their witness. Meanwhile, Jerry and Mimi were in Cedar 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:45.119 Falls for the funeral when they were confronted about Jerry's 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:48.480 whereabouts on the far less important dates of October twenty, 0:19:48.520 --> 0:19:49.360 nineteen thirtieth. 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:52.320 We went in together saying we'd be interviewed together. So 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:54.760 they told me to come back in a couple of 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:57.480 hours and that they were going to interview her first 0:19:57.520 --> 0:19:59.560 and then verify what she had said. 0:19:59.560 --> 0:20:01.760 By inter me, they put her in front of a 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:06.200 judge to be questioned about Jerry, lying about whether Jerry 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:09.800 bought the motorcycle specifically for this purpose, whether she knew 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:11.800 he was going to go kill less when he left 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:12.960 California that day. 0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:15.920 When I came back from my interview after an hour 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:17.399 or of it, started accusing me. 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:20.240 Now, he explains, well, you know, I met a girl. 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:22.760 I was smoking some weed. I didn't want Mimi and 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:23.879 her parents to know. 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:27.360 After being accused for a while, I just said, am 0:20:27.400 --> 0:20:29.399 I under arrested and they said no. I said, okay, 0:20:29.400 --> 0:20:31.000 well I don't want to talk to you anymore. I 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:34.000 left and that's when I found out this Mimi is 0:20:34.200 --> 0:20:36.560 under arrest. As soon as they arrested me, they let 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:40.119 her brother take her back to California. And I didn't 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:43.040 get arrested until the tenth when the cops were discovered 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:46.560 that I had bought a box of ammunition in California. 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:49.360 Even in seventy five, when you bought a box of bullets, 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:51.520 you had to sign for them, and Jerry had bought 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:54.040 a box to try to get someone to talk to 0:20:54.119 --> 0:20:58.600 him about political stuff. Back then, they were very sure 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:01.080 that the bullets from the car I'm seeing where these 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:05.240 very rare special thirty eight long colt bullets. In seventy 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:08.040 five and seventy six, the FBI was still doing comparative 0:21:08.080 --> 0:21:12.080 lead analysis, and so they took the bullets from the 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:16.040 bodies and they went back to that same gun shop 0:21:16.160 --> 0:21:20.600 in California and bought more bullets. They compared them and 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:23.920 they said that they had the same lead composition. 0:21:24.320 --> 0:21:29.560 The FBI has since officially ceased peddling CBLA or comparative 0:21:29.560 --> 0:21:33.480 bullet lead analysis, as they'd like to maintain their own credibility. 0:21:33.560 --> 0:21:35.440 It's not even clear if the bullets from the scene 0:21:35.440 --> 0:21:37.679 were the same kind that Jerry had purchased, and the 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:41.880 States machinations didn't stop at just junk science. 0:21:42.280 --> 0:21:46.560 The police have actually found those bullets matching the ones 0:21:46.640 --> 0:21:50.280 that I had bought for sale at local sports stores 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:53.560 six miles from the murders, paid the owner for them, 0:21:53.600 --> 0:21:56.040 and got them off the shelf, And then the prosecution 0:21:56.560 --> 0:22:00.439 presented evidence to my jury that that make a model 0:22:00.480 --> 0:22:04.560 of bullets weren't even available for sale in northeast Iowa, 0:22:04.720 --> 0:22:07.240 in that whole region, so that it could not have 0:22:07.320 --> 0:22:10.000 been some local person who bought the bullets. 0:22:10.280 --> 0:22:14.040 It appears that this deliberate misrepresentation was only discovered years 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:16.639 after his conviction, and then this date went on and 0:22:16.720 --> 0:22:19.040 employed still more junk science. 0:22:19.400 --> 0:22:21.800