Speaker 1: Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura and I
Speaker 1: writer and I'm Steve Drisen. Today will tell you the
Speaker 1: story of Emerson Stevens, a fisherman from Virginia's Chesapeake Bay.
Speaker 1: When a young mother was found murdered. It seemed all
Speaker 1: the evidence pointed to Emerson until the case fell apart.
Speaker 1: Emerson survived thirty one years in prison with the help
Speaker 1: of an ally from across the bay. Now you can
Speaker 1: help him finally clear his name. Today's episode is based
Speaker 1: on interviews with Emerson Stevens and his lawyers, along with
Speaker 1: legal filings and court opinions. So, Steve, today, we're going
Speaker 1: to break the mold. We're going to break them all.
Speaker 1: This is not a case that involves a false confession.
Speaker 1: This is a case that involves a false inculpatory statement.
Speaker 1: Sometimes detectives can't get a confession, but they'll settle for
Speaker 1: a fall us in culpritory statement. Right, that's lawyer talk
Speaker 1: for something you say that makes you look really bad.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right, and it's false. So it's a lie.
Speaker 1: And the same tactics that are used to get false
Speaker 1: confessions are often used to get these false and culpatory statements,
Speaker 1: and they can have the same devastating consequences. So when
Speaker 1: I think about this case, I think about it in
Speaker 1: terms of a puzzle. You know, when my family goes
Speaker 1: on vacation, we often buy a puzzle and we spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time putting that puzzle together. And anyone
Speaker 1: who puts puzzles together knows that there are a lot
Speaker 1: of times where the piece that you think will finish
Speaker 1: a part of the puzzle doesn't quite fit. It looks
Speaker 1: like it should fit, but just a little bit off.
Speaker 1: And that's what happened with a lot of the evidence
Speaker 1: in Emerson Stevens case. They manipulated the evidence to make
Speaker 1: it seem like it fit the police theory. That's happens
Speaker 1: in wrongful conviction cases. Right tunnel vision makes police officers
Speaker 1: forced these puzzle pieces together when in reality they might
Speaker 1: not fit at all. It was only after the fact
Speaker 1: that you could see that the pieces never really fit
Speaker 1: in the first place. Today's story takes place in Lancaster County, Virginia,
Speaker 1: a rural community nestled between the Chesapeake Bay and the
Speaker 1: Rappahannock River. It's a place that smells like ocean salt
Speaker 1: an honest sweat generations there have made a living with
Speaker 1: their hands, hauling fish out of the bay and crabs
Speaker 1: and oysters out of the river. In this county was
Speaker 1: home to Mary Harding, who was Lancaster through and through.
Speaker 1: Petite and blue eyed, Mary was homecoming queen at Lancaster
Speaker 1: High before she and her high school sweetheart tied the knot.
Speaker 1: By age twenty four, Mary was working as a bookkeeper
Speaker 1: at the local bank while her husband was a fisherman.
Speaker 1: They had two young kids and a modest ranch home
Speaker 1: located just across the street from the cemetery. On Friday, August,
Speaker 1: that modest home became the scene of a terrible discovery.
Speaker 1: On week days, Mary had a routine before work, she'd
Speaker 1: drop off her one year old at the home of
Speaker 1: her husband's grandmother, Virginia Walker, But that Friday morning, Mary
Speaker 1: didn't show up. Virginia was worried, so she drove over
Speaker 1: to Mary's house. Virginia was greeted at the door by
Speaker 1: Mary's four year old son, who told her that he
Speaker 1: couldn't find his mom. The TV and lights were on
Speaker 1: throughout the house. Some unrinsed comet was left in the
Speaker 1: bathroom sink, and the little boy's chicken dinner from the
Speaker 1: night before was still sitting on the table. Don't worry,
Speaker 1: the four year old assured his great grandma. In his
Speaker 1: mother's absence, he was taking care of the baby. Virginia
Speaker 1: knew there's no way Mary would abandon her children. There's
Speaker 1: only one explanation for her disappearance. Mary must have been taken.
Speaker 1: Virginia calls the police, and soon a state police detective
Speaker 1: by the name of David Riley arrives at the house.
Speaker 1: He finds cat litter scattered on the ground outside the
Speaker 1: back door, along with one of Mary's white sandals, but
Speaker 1: there's no sign of Mary. Pretty soon, word spreads and
Speaker 1: the whole community starts searching through the woods and along
Speaker 1: the shore. But they find nothing. Nothing that is until
Speaker 1: four days later. That's when a woman's body is found
Speaker 1: in the shallows of the Rappahannock River. The body is unclothed,
Speaker 1: badly decomposed, and hard to identify, but it's clear something
Speaker 1: horrific has happened. The woman's back is covered with deep,
Speaker 1: evenly spaced slashes. There's a rope tied around her neck
Speaker 1: with a huge cinder block attached to the other end,
Speaker 1: A heavy chain is wrapped around the woman's right leg.
Speaker 1: Soon enough, the medical examiner confirms this is Mary Harding.
Speaker 1: She's been strangled to death. Now here's the thing. The
Speaker 1: rope and chain were the same kind that you can
Speaker 1: find on most fisherman's boats in Lancaster. So suddenly this
Speaker 1: close knit community was being torn apart by suspicion. Everyone
Speaker 1: was wondering who would have done this to the homecoming queen.
Speaker 1: Before long, the authorities settled on a suspect, thirty two
Speaker 1: year old Emerson Stevens. Like so many other Lancaster men,
Speaker 1: Emerson had worked on the water since he was a teenager.
Speaker 1: Emerson was a crabber and an oysterman who hauled his
Speaker 1: catch in on a boat named after his wife. He
Speaker 1: had spent his life by the shore, the kind of
Speaker 1: guy who has salt water in his veins. It was
Speaker 1: Mary's husband who pointed police to Emerson Steven's. Emerson had
Speaker 1: gone to Mary's funeral, and Mary's husband thought Emerson seemed
Speaker 1: nervous there. Mary's husband also remembered that he had once
Speaker 1: heard Emerson make a crude joke about female anatomy. This
Speaker 1: wasn't much to go on, but days later, a couple
Speaker 1: of people told police they had seen a light colored
Speaker 1: pickup truck outside Mary's home on the night she disappeared. Now,
Speaker 1: Emerson Stevens happened to drive a white Dodge pickup, so
Speaker 1: he quickly became the police's number one suspect. Detective Riley
Speaker 1: asks Emerson to meet him at Mary Harding's house and
Speaker 1: the two men sit down on the front porch. According
Speaker 1: to Emerson, Riley gestures to the street and asks, why
Speaker 1: were you parked in front of this house the night
Speaker 1: Mary vanished. If you question somebody on the porch, you're
Speaker 1: creating a context that is different from your standard police interrogation.
Speaker 1: You can tap into all of the emotions of this
Speaker 1: is where this woman lived, this is where she had
Speaker 1: her children, this is where she was last seen. This
Speaker 1: is not a police interrogation room. It feels like the
Speaker 1: kind of place where you'd have a heart to heart conversation.
Speaker 1: And there's another thing that makes this porch interrogation even
Speaker 1: more emotional. Yeah, not only was this the front porch
Speaker 1: at Mary's house, it was right across the street from
Speaker 1: the burial ground where her headstone was As the two
Speaker 1: men look out at the cemetery, Riley presses Emerson for information,
Speaker 1: but Emerson is stunned he hadn't been at Mary's house.
Speaker 1: He says he'd been at home, then he'd taken his
Speaker 1: kids over to the neighbors to watch TV and eat crab.
Speaker 1: They'd returned home together at about nine thirty PM, and
Speaker 1: Emerson's wife had gotten home from work shortly after. He
Speaker 1: tells Riley to talk to his neighbor and confirm the alibi,
Speaker 1: but Riley doesn't buy Emerson's story. Instead, he orders a
Speaker 1: search of Emerson's pickup truck. After digging through the truck
Speaker 1: for hours, police discover a single strand of hair. They
Speaker 1: send the hair off to the state crime lab for
Speaker 1: forensic analysis. The next week, Riley asks Emerson to come
Speaker 1: to a nearby Virginia police station for a polygraph. As
Speaker 1: soon as the polygraphs completed, Riley tells Emerson he failed.
Speaker 1: According to Emerson, Riley says he must either have killed
Speaker 1: Mary Harding or done something else related to her murder.
Speaker 1: Those are two pretty bad options, and Emerson is terrified.
Speaker 1: But then Riley offers Emerson a third choice that seems
Speaker 1: a lot better. Maybe you were at Mary's house that
Speaker 1: night doing something innocent. Maybe you were driving by and
Speaker 1: you stopped on the side of the road to take
Speaker 1: a leak. The fisherman takes the bait. He's desperate to
Speaker 1: please Riley and changes his story to exactly what Riley suggested.
Speaker 1: If detectives can't get a full confession, they'll settle for
Speaker 1: a false inculpatory statement. All the detective can get from
Speaker 1: Emerson is a statement that he pulled over on the
Speaker 1: side of the road a short distance away from Mary's
Speaker 1: house to relieve himself at the approximate time of death.
Speaker 1: That's the admission I was in the vicinity of her
Speaker 1: home near the time where the medical examiner believes she
Speaker 1: was killed. That was all Emerson said. He did not confess,
Speaker 1: but he'd said enough to get himself in real trouble.
Speaker 1: He just placed himself at the crime scene. Detective Riley
Speaker 1: was on high alert, but the case against Emerson was
Speaker 1: pretty damn thin until test results came back from the
Speaker 1: State crime lab on that hair from Emerson's truck. The
Speaker 1: lab had put the hair under a microscope and compared
Speaker 1: it to Mary Harding's hair, and the lab said it
Speaker 1: was an exact match. The police's thin case suddenly seemed
Speaker 1: rock solid, and in late October, Emerson Stevens was arrested
Speaker 1: for the abduction and murder of Mary Harding. The trial
Speaker 1: of Emerson Stevens was one of the most dramatic events
Speaker 1: Lancaster County had ever seen. To a packed courtroom, prosecutors
Speaker 1: described how they thought the crime unfolded. Emerson kidnapped Mary,
Speaker 1: they said, then strangled her and threw her body into
Speaker 1: the river. They even suggested that Emerson slashed Mary's back
Speaker 1: with his fishing knife in order to attract cry abbs,
Speaker 1: so there wouldn't be anything left of her body, the
Speaker 1: worst imaginable kind of cry. It's like throwing chum over
Speaker 1: the side of a boat to entice sharks. But there
Speaker 1: were problems with the prosecution's theory. They claimed that Emerson
Speaker 1: had thrown Mary's body into the river off the end
Speaker 1: of his own dock, but her body was actually found
Speaker 1: a full ten miles upstream. How does a body that
Speaker 1: is way down with a cinder block travel ten miles upstream?
Speaker 1: Upstream means against the current, that's the thing I mean
Speaker 1: to swim those ten miles upstream would have been crazy,
Speaker 1: let alone somehow to float a weighted down body that distance.
Speaker 1: It makes no sense at all, It's absurd, But prosecutors
Speaker 1: found a witness to bolster this theory in saying though
Speaker 1: it seemed a marine scientist testified that it was possible
Speaker 1: for Mary's body to float against the current cinder block
Speaker 1: and all for ten miles from Emerson's dock to where
Speaker 1: it was found, and there were other witnesses to Detective
Speaker 1: Riley told the jury that Emerson claimed to have been
Speaker 1: near Mary's house on the night she disappeared, and the
Speaker 1: prosecution called two people to corroborate Emerson's statement, Clyde Dunaway
Speaker 1: and and Dick. They both claimed they had seen a
Speaker 1: pickup truck resembling Emerson's near the victim's house that night,
Speaker 1: and finally, the prosecution called a witness from the crime
Speaker 1: lab to testify that the hair and Emerson's truck seemed
Speaker 1: to match Mary's. So it seemed at this point as
Speaker 1: though all the puzzle pieces fit together, and they painted
Speaker 1: a compelling portrait of Emerson's guilt. But this is not
Speaker 1: the end of the story, not by a long shot.
Speaker 1: When the defense's turned came Emerson's lawyers put on a
Speaker 1: strong case of their own, no fewer than four alibi witnesses.
Speaker 1: In the end, the jury hung unable to reach a verdict.
Speaker 1: The prosecution was quick to retry Emerson, and on July
Speaker 1: the second trial be gan. This time, the prosecution's case seemed,
Speaker 1: if anything, weaker. The marine scientist was a no show,
Speaker 1: so the prosecutor read the jury his testimony from the
Speaker 1: previous trial. Only one witness, Clyde Dunaway, testified about seeing
Speaker 1: Emerson's pickup near Mary's house, but the crime lab technician
Speaker 1: repeated his previous testimony about the hair in the truck,
Speaker 1: and Detective Riley testified again about Emerson's statements. During the
Speaker 1: second trial, Emerson's lawyer put on his alibi witnesses again,
Speaker 1: and Emerson himself took the stand. He tried to explain
Speaker 1: that he was innocent, that he hadn't actually pulled over
Speaker 1: near Mary's house that night. He'd only said that to
Speaker 1: satisfy his interrogator. Prosecutors pounced, you admit to us you lied,
Speaker 1: They asked, yes, I told that, Emerson answered. Later, he
Speaker 1: quietly added, I'm not a smart person. The case wasn't
Speaker 1: any stronger than at the first trial, But this time
Speaker 1: the jury reached a verdict silty, and Emerson Stevens was
Speaker 1: sentenced to a prison term of one hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: four years. Fast forward to two thousand two. During those
Speaker 1: sixteen years behind bars, Emerson earned his g e d.
Speaker 1: He worked in the dusty prison wood shop, building furniture
Speaker 1: for state institutions. He wrote letters constantly to his family
Speaker 1: and to lawyers, begging for help with his case. When
Speaker 1: he wasn't working or writing, Emerson would dream about the
Speaker 1: smell of the shore. He wondered if he'd ever be
Speaker 1: on the water again. In April two thousand two, Emerson's
Speaker 1: attention was caught by a news story about a genteel
Speaker 1: Virginia lady named Beverly Monroe. Beverly was a professional chemist
Speaker 1: whose upper middle class background seemed worlds away from Emerson,
Speaker 1: at least at first. You see. Ten years earlier, fifty
Speaker 1: five year old Beverly had been dating a wealthy real
Speaker 1: estate mogul named Roger de la Byrd. Roger lived on
Speaker 1: a massive estate in Virginia Horse Country. He claimed to
Speaker 1: be an art dealer who was descended from European nobility,
Speaker 1: but when Roger turned up dead one morning from a
Speaker 1: gunshot wound, police suspected Beverly of murder, even though she'd
Speaker 1: never had so much as a traffic ticket. The case
Speaker 1: against Beverly was absurd from day one. Beverly had a
Speaker 1: grocery store received proving she hadn't been at Roger's estate
Speaker 1: at the time he died, and Roger's death had been
Speaker 1: ruled a suicide. Turns out his life was falling apart.
Speaker 1: The FBI was investigating him for art fraud, and his
Speaker 1: claims of nobility were also being exposed as phony. But
Speaker 1: Beverly ended up being wrongly convicted of Roger's murder anyway.
Speaker 1: Why because in part of Detective David Riley, the same
Speaker 1: officer who had built the case against Emerson Stevens. When
Speaker 1: Detective Riley interrogated Beverly, she refused to admit to something
Speaker 1: she didn't do, but Riley administered a polygraph and told
Speaker 1: Beverly she failed it, and then he suggested that she
Speaker 1: must have been present when Roger shot himself. Detective Riley
Speaker 1: seems to have manipulated Beverly into placing herself at the
Speaker 1: scene of the crime, just like he seems to have
Speaker 1: done with Emerson. The similarities are unmistakable. Beverly Monroe was
Speaker 1: wrongfully convicted based on inculpatory statements that placed her at
Speaker 1: the crime scene, and Riley then built his case around
Speaker 1: that statement to make it look like this wasn't a
Speaker 1: suicide at all, that this was a murder. It's amazing,
Speaker 1: just like Emerson, Beverly never confessed to anything, same detective
Speaker 1: using the same modus operandi in order to get not
Speaker 1: a false confession, but a false inculpatory statement that was
Speaker 1: used to convict them and send them away for crimes
Speaker 1: they did not commit. A federal judge later called Riley's
Speaker 1: interrogation of Beverly Monroe deceitful and manipulative. Even so, Beverly
Speaker 1: ended up having ten years in prison before her conviction
Speaker 1: was thrown out and she was released in April two
Speaker 1: thousand two. That news story Emerson saw on TV from
Speaker 1: behind bars was about Beverly's first moments of freedom. Emerson
Speaker 1: didn't waste a minute. He immediately wrote to Beverly's lawyer,
Speaker 1: who agreed to take his case, and when Beverly herself
Speaker 1: heard about Emerson, she got involved too. She went to
Speaker 1: the lawyers that had just exonerated her and said, now
Speaker 1: you need to do it again for this other guy,
Speaker 1: which you know, to their credit, they did. They tried
Speaker 1: to reinvestigate as much as they could, and then when
Speaker 1: it became clear that they were sort of losing steam,
Speaker 1: Beverly turned her sights to me. That's dear dre end Right,
Speaker 1: the director of the University of Virginia's Innocence Project Clinic.
Speaker 1: She's one of the lawyers Beverly enlisted to join Emerson's
Speaker 1: legal team. Emerson, you know, he had been trying for years,
Speaker 1: writing to people about his case and begging for help.
Speaker 1: And if you ever meet or speak to Beverly, you
Speaker 1: will learn that you will do anything that Beverly says
Speaker 1: to do, because she's absolutely charming but also absolutely compelling.
Speaker 1: Beverly made it something of a mission to help other
Speaker 1: people who were convicted by the evidence collected by the
Speaker 1: same detective. With Beverly's help, Emerson now had a top
Speaker 1: notch legal team, and while the lawyers got to work,
Speaker 1: Beverly and Emerson began corresponding. Beverly is not only college educated,
Speaker 1: but she's a chemist, and she lived a very extravagant
Speaker 1: life with her partner before this all happened. And Emerson
Speaker 1: is this waterman who grew up, you know, with his
Speaker 1: nine siblings in Lancaster. I mean, this is the classic
Speaker 1: thing that happens in these wrongful conviction cases, is that
Speaker 1: people who would never in a lifetime be near each
Speaker 1: other or connect do. Beverly and Emerson became friends. Beverly
Speaker 1: sensed how much this fisherman longed for the water, and
Speaker 1: started sending him photographs of the place he missed most,
Speaker 1: the Chesapeake Bay. She was hyper aware of taking care
Speaker 1: of him while he was incarcerated so he didn't feel abandoned,
Speaker 1: writing and calling and making sure he had money in
Speaker 1: his commissary and holidays and birthdays. And I remember thinking,
Speaker 1: she knows what he's feeling better than any of us.
Speaker 1: I think that Emerson, once he had Beverly, he knew
Speaker 1: that there was another person out there who was advocating
Speaker 1: for him ferociously. I mean, most people who are incarcerated
Speaker 1: don't have that person. And because she was so smart
Speaker 1: and because she had been through it, she wasn't going
Speaker 1: to hear that it couldn't be done. While Beverly was
Speaker 1: keeping Emerson's Hope alive. His legal team was systematically unwinding
Speaker 1: the case against him, and, as it turned out, one
Speaker 1: piece of faulty evidence after another seemed to lead back
Speaker 1: to Detective Riley. First up was the claim that witnesses
Speaker 1: had seen a white pickup truck like Emerson's near Mary's house.
Speaker 1: A woman named and Dick had testified to that effect
Speaker 1: at the first trial, but her story had changed by
Speaker 1: the time of the second trial. There she swore that
Speaker 1: the person she saw driving the truck was not Emerson
Speaker 1: Stevens when asked why she didn't say that to the
Speaker 1: first jury, and answered because Detective Riley told me not to.
Speaker 1: The other pickup truck witness, Clyde Dunaway Well, turns out
Speaker 1: he came forward only after police offered a twenty thousand
Speaker 1: dollar reward for information. He asked Detective Riley about the
Speaker 1: money during their very first conversation, but at Emerson's second trial,
Speaker 1: Dunaway swore he never asked anyone about the reward. Now,
Speaker 1: Detective Riley was sitting in the courtroom listening to this,
Speaker 1: he must have known Dunaway was lying, but the detective
Speaker 1: never said a word. Eventually, Dunaway paid a price for
Speaker 1: his false testimony in Emerson Steven's case, he ended up
Speaker 1: pleading guilty to obstruction of justice. Once you dangle reward money,
Speaker 1: especially in a place like Lancaster where there's a lot
Speaker 1: of people living very much on a margin, the fact
Speaker 1: that Clyde Dunaway bit on that is hardly surprising. He
Speaker 1: repeatedly inquired about when am I going to get that money,
Speaker 1: and the detective would say, only after you testify. The
Speaker 1: upshot of the investigation is that kid Dunaway got in
Speaker 1: trouble and our dirty detective who sat on that information
Speaker 1: during both trials, walked away unscathed. The little guy got
Speaker 1: it as usual. Next up was the bizarre claim that
Speaker 1: Mary's body cinder block and all floated upstream ten miles
Speaker 1: that marine scientists who testified at the first trial, remember
Speaker 1: he was m i A. At the second trial, prosecutors
Speaker 1: had to read the jury a transcript of his previous testimony.
Speaker 1: Why didn't he show up the second time? Well, Emerson's
Speaker 1: lawyers found a letter from the scientist to the prosecutor
Speaker 1: that provided a pretty clear explanation. After the first trial,
Speaker 1: the scientist wrote, Lieutenant Riley applied what maybe the correct
Speaker 1: term to my testimony in this case. He called it
Speaker 1: eye wash. Eye wash is Virginia slang for bullshit. God
Speaker 1: the marine scientists, it's clear that the science that he
Speaker 1: put forth at this trial wasn't real. Even Detective Riley
Speaker 1: called this theory eye wash. Why a marine biologist went
Speaker 1: along with that the first time I have no idea,
Speaker 1: But by the second time he clearly did not want
Speaker 1: to do it and thought it was dirty. Right. That's
Speaker 1: what his letters suggested, is you're asking me to do
Speaker 1: something that's nonsensical. Suddenly there was reason to believe that
Speaker 1: Detective Riley had jinned up some of the evidence against Emerson,
Speaker 1: and it seems that Riley tried to take it even further.
Speaker 1: The owner of a Lancaster convenience store gave Emerson's lawyers
Speaker 1: a sworn statement that reads as follows. Detective Riley tried
Speaker 1: to get me to say that Emerson Stevens woke me
Speaker 1: up in the middle of the night that Mary Harding
Speaker 1: disappeared so that he could buy five gallons of gas.
Speaker 1: Detective Riley was extremely aggressive and pushy, insisting that I
Speaker 1: agree with his story even though it was not true.
Speaker 1: I was never woken up in the middle of the
Speaker 1: night by Emerson Stevens. Ever, for any reason, none of
Speaker 1: these pieces of the puzzle actually fit together. They were
Speaker 1: all manipulated by this detective so that they fit his
Speaker 1: theory that Emerson was guilty of this crime. Now that's
Speaker 1: the eye wash. The rest of the case crumbled to
Speaker 1: remember the theory that Emerson used his knife to slash
Speaker 1: Mary's back. A new assessment by the medical examiner showed
Speaker 1: that those evenly spaced gashes were probably made by a
Speaker 1: boat propeller, not by a human with a knife. And finally,
Speaker 1: what about the hair from Emerson's truck. Back in the
Speaker 1: crime lab had put that hair under a microscope and
Speaker 1: claimed that it was an exact match to marry. This technique,
Speaker 1: known as hair microscopy, has since been debunked. There's no
Speaker 1: way you can match hairs with that level of certainty
Speaker 1: just by looking through a microscope. In fact, more than
Speaker 1: seventy people have been exonerated after Boga's hair evidence was
Speaker 1: used to convict them. There's just nothing to the science
Speaker 1: that you can microscopically compare hairs and identify anybody. We've
Speaker 1: had cases where people say that this is a human
Speaker 1: hair belonging to this victim, and it belongs to a dog.
Speaker 1: Even according to the FBI, hair microscopy is junk science.
Speaker 1: Decades later, Emerson's lawyers sought DNA testing, but it turned
Speaker 1: out the hair was too old to test. In other words,
Speaker 1: there's no way to know who it belonged to. It
Speaker 1: could have been Mary's or Emerson's, or Emerson's wife's, it
Speaker 1: could have been anybody's. Armed with this new information, Emerson's
Speaker 1: lawyers filed a post conviction petition in asking for his
Speaker 1: conviction to be thrown out, but it hasn't been yet.
Speaker 1: This is where Emerson's legal case has stalled. Despite skilled
Speaker 1: lawyers and compelling evidence of innocence, the courts have denied
Speaker 1: his petition at every turn. But there has been one
Speaker 1: important victory. On May nineteenth, two thousand seventeen, Emerson Stevens
Speaker 1: was paroled from prison. He'd spent thirty one years behind bars.
Speaker 1: His family filled the lobby of the correctional center, which
Speaker 1: is almost always absolutely empty, and then we came with
Speaker 1: students and people who have been working on this case
Speaker 1: for years. We all hopped into cars and we asked
Speaker 1: Emerson where he would like to have his first free meal.
Speaker 1: So what was the fisherman craving after more than three
Speaker 1: decades of prison food. Emerson very quickly told us that
Speaker 1: he wanted to go to Cracker Barrel and he wanted
Speaker 1: the seafood platter at Cracker Barrel. And I don't argue
Speaker 1: with anyone who wants that. Like a tide that might
Speaker 1: never come back in Emerson. Stephen's life ebbed for thirty
Speaker 1: one years as he sat behind bars. Now his life
Speaker 1: is flowing again. You know, he's done such a great
Speaker 1: job of getting out and just sort of sliding back
Speaker 1: to his life, moving back in, seeing family, going back
Speaker 1: to work immediately being a great worker. So in that
Speaker 1: part of his life, he's done a really wonderful job.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, he's still a convicted murderer,
Speaker 1: and that burden weighs on him every day. I think
Speaker 1: he feels that until he is cleared and other people
Speaker 1: are exposed, his life is on hold until that happens.
Speaker 1: At least Emerson gets to see his kids and his grandkids.
Speaker 1: He's back out on the water and his small aluminum boat,
Speaker 1: feeling the breeze on his face. I just said to him,
Speaker 1: the only thing you owe me is a trip to
Speaker 1: go oystering, and he will be good for that. I
Speaker 1: know it. I've been to a Steven's cookout, and you
Speaker 1: know what they do is go crab and fish and
Speaker 1: come back and cook it all up in the yard
Speaker 1: and have huge tables of food and it's delicious. The
Speaker 1: case against Emerson Stevens has taken years to unwind. Sometimes
Speaker 1: fighting cases this thin can be angely hard, almost like
Speaker 1: your shadow boxing a ghost. Emerson should be pardoned, and
Speaker 1: Emerson's innocence needs to be recognized by the governor of
Speaker 1: the state of Virginia. In cases like this, it's just
Speaker 1: never the slam dunk that it should be. We immediately
Speaker 1: applied for an absolute pardon, which would exonerate him totally,
Speaker 1: and he pretty quickly got a letter that said, thanks
Speaker 1: for your petition. We probably won't be able to get
Speaker 1: to this for two years, and don't bother us. In
Speaker 1: the meantime. For Emerson to be pardoned would mean that
Speaker 1: he gets an absolute clean slate, and it's a gateway
Speaker 1: to maybe proving what people did to get him convicted.
Speaker 1: For people like him, you need that, you need the
Speaker 1: real story to be told. For her part, Beverly Monroe,
Speaker 1: now in her eighties, still supports Emerson, still talks to
Speaker 1: him regularly by phone, still is waiting for the day
Speaker 1: he'll be exonerated. We're waiting to Emerson, and we stand
Speaker 1: with you all the way. Hey is this Emerson? Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: Hey Emerson, It's Laura night Rider and Steve Drison. How
Speaker 1: are you. I'm doing good? So tell me Emerson, what
Speaker 1: have you been doing these days? How have you been
Speaker 1: keeping yourself busy? Uh? Well, my oldest brother, he asked
Speaker 1: me if I would take his boat and get all
Speaker 1: his craft pipes up. So I did that, you know how.
Speaker 1: Oh it felt great. It felt great being a backward
Speaker 1: on the water again. And then he wants me to
Speaker 1: build orsting with him. You know, so I'm thinking about it.
Speaker 1: I want to buy purchase a boat of my own,
Speaker 1: you know, like my brother's got, and be able to
Speaker 1: work on the water again. You know, what would you
Speaker 1: name your about, Emerson? Well, these type of boats, you
Speaker 1: don't really put names on them. But I don't know,
Speaker 1: misfit or something. I don't know. There's times that are
Speaker 1: enjoyable and wonderful. You're with your family, you're back out
Speaker 1: on the water, and there's times that are heard too.
Speaker 1: I'm sure, Oh yeah, yeah. I lost my oldest daughter
Speaker 1: when I was in prison. She died at the age
Speaker 1: of forty and that broke my heart. And it's not
Speaker 1: a day that don't go by that I don't think
Speaker 1: a burda, you know, I'm really sorry, Emerson. Well, she's
Speaker 1: looking down from somewhere, I hope, and rooting for you,
Speaker 1: just like the rest of us. Are Are you still
Speaker 1: in touch with Beverly? Oh, Beverly, She's been not my
Speaker 1: number one fan, you know, She's always believed in me,
Speaker 1: and she's great. She's a great person. Every now and
Speaker 1: then I catch saw call and talk to him, but
Speaker 1: she loves to talk. Now, he loves to talk to
Speaker 1: support Emerson Stevens. You can write the Governor of Virginia
Speaker 1: and ask him grant Emerson an absolute pardon. You can
Speaker 1: find the address on my Instagram page at Laura ni Writer.
Speaker 1: And that's the story of Emerson Stevens. Join us next
Speaker 1: week when we tell you about a Philadelphia man named
Speaker 1: Walter oh Grad. Walter spent decades on death row until
Speaker 1: a new generation of prosecutors came to Philadelphia. They brought
Speaker 1: Reform to the City, and Hope to Walter. Wrongful Conviction
Speaker 1: False Confessions is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
Speaker 1: in association with Signal Company Number one Special thanks to
Speaker 1: our executive producers Jason Flom and Kevin Wardis. Our production
Speaker 1: team is headed by Senior producer and Pope, along with
Speaker 1: producers Josh Hammer and Jess Shane. Our show is mixed
Speaker 1: by Jeanie Montalvo. John Colbert is our intrepid intern. Our
Speaker 1: music was composed by j Ralph. You can follow me
Speaker 1: on Instagram or Twitter at Laura ni Writer and you
Speaker 1: can follow me on Twitter at s driven. For more
Speaker 1: information on the show, visit Wrongful Conviction podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow the show on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
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Speaker 1: wrong Conviction