WEBVTT - #169 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Emerson Stevens 0:00:02.440 --> 0:00:04.559 Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. 0:00:04.720 --> 0:00:07.080 I'm Laura and I writer and I'm Steve Drisen. 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:10.560 Today we'll tell you the story of Emerson Stevens, a 0:00:10.600 --> 0:00:14.200 fisherman from Virginia's Chesapeake Bay. When a young mother was 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:17.440 found murdered. It seemed all the evidence pointed to Emerson 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:22.080 until the case fell apart. Emerson survived thirty one years 0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:24.799 in prison with the help of an ally from across 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:28.160 the bay. Now you can help him finally clear his name. 0:00:29.160 --> 0:00:32.000 Today's episode is based on interviews with Emerson Stevens and 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:44.560 his lawyers, along with legal filings and court opinions. So, Steve, 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:46.040 today we're going to break the mold. 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:48.279 We're going to break them mold. This is not a 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:51.840 case that involves a false confession. This is a case 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:57.400 that involves a false inculpatory statement. Sometimes detectives can't get 0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:02.320 a confession, but they'll settle for a fall and culpatory statement. Right. 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:04.560 That's lawyer talk for something you say that makes you 0:01:04.600 --> 0:01:05.319 look really bad. 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:08.920 That's exactly right, and it's false. So it's a lie. 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:12.279 And the same tactics that are used to get false 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:17.320 confessions are often used to get these false inculplatory statements, 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:17.720 and they. 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:19.640 Can have the same devastating consequences. 0:01:20.959 --> 0:01:23.760 So when I think about this case, I think about 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:26.160 it in terms of a puzzle. You know, when my 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:29.440 family goes on vacation, we often buy a puzzle and 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:31.959 we spend a lot of time putting that puzzle together. 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:36.160 And anyone who puts puzzles together knows that there are 0:01:36.160 --> 0:01:38.600 a lot of times where the piece that you think 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:42.160 will finish a part of the puzzle doesn't quite fit. 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:46.600 It looks like it should fit, but just a little 0:01:46.640 --> 0:01:50.280 bit off. And that's what happened with a lot of 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:56.360 the evidence in Emerson Stephen's case. They manipulated the evidence 0:01:56.400 --> 0:02:00.080 to make it seem like it fit. The police theory what. 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:03.280 Happens in runfuel conviction cases right tunnel vision makes police 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:07.000 officers force these puzzle pieces together when in reality they 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:08.000 might not fit at all. 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:11.080 It was only after the fact that you could see 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:14.360 that the pieces never really fit in the first place. 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:21.440 Today's story takes place in Lancaster County, Virginia, a rural 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:24.679 community nestled between the Chesapeake Bay and the Rappahannock River. 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:28.120 It's a place that smells like ocean salt an honest 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:31.639 sweat generations there have made a living with their hands, 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:34.320 hauling fish out of the bay and crabs and oysters 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:37.280 out of the river. In nineteen eighty five, this county 0:02:37.320 --> 0:02:40.640 was home to Mary Harding, who was Lancaster through and through. 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:44.640 Petite and blue eyed, Mary was homecoming queen at Lancaster 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:47.720 High before she and her high school sweetheart tied the knot. 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:51.240 By age twenty four, Mary was working as a bookkeeper 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:53.600 at the local bank while her husband was a fisherman. 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:56.760 They had two young kids and a modest ranch home 0:02:57.120 --> 0:03:03.200 located just across the street from the cemetery. On Friday, 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:06.640 August twenty third, nineteen eighty five, that modest home became 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:09.840 the scene of a terrible discovery. On weekdays, Mary had 0:03:09.880 --> 0:03:12.440 a routine before work, she'd drop off her one year 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:15.239 old at the home of her husband's grandmother, Virginia Walker, 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:19.440 But that Friday morning, Mary didn't show up. Virginia was worried, 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:22.680 so she drove over to Mary's house. Virginia was greeted 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:25.679 at the door by Mary's four year old son, who 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:28.680 told her that he couldn't find his mom. The TV 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:32.400 and lights were on throughout the house, Some unrensed comet 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:35.160 was left in the bathroom sink, and the little boy's 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:37.840 chicken dinner from the night before was still sitting on 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:40.800 the table. Don't worry, the four year old assured his 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:44.160 great grandma. In his mother's absence, he was taking care 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:47.480 of the baby. Virginia knew there was no way Mary 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:51.360 would abandon her children. There's only one explanation for her disappearance. 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:55.480 Mary must have been taken. Virginia calls the police, and 0:03:55.560 --> 0:03:58.120 soon a state police detective by the name of David 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:01.560 Riley arrives at the house. He finds cat litter scattered 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:03.920 on the ground outside the back door, along with one 0:04:03.960 --> 0:04:07.280 of Mary's white sandals, but there's no sign of Mary. 0:04:08.040 --> 0:04:11.840 Pretty soon, word spreads and the whole community starts surging 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:15.280 through the woods and along the shore. But they find nothing. 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:19.160 Nothing that is until four days later. That's when a 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:22.240 woman's body is found in the shallows of the Rappahannock River. 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:26.520 The body is unclothed, badly decomposed, and hard to identify, 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:30.599 but it's clear something horrific has happened. The woman's back 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:34.480 is covered with deep, evenly spaced slashes. There's a rope 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:37.640 tied around her neck with a huge cinder block attached 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:40.320 to the other end. A heavy chain is wrapped around 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:43.960 the woman's right leg. Soon enough, the medical examiner confirms 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:48.520 this is Mary Harding. She's been strangled to death. Now 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:51.479 here's the thing. The rope and chain were the same 0:04:51.560 --> 0:04:54.600 kind that you can find on most fishermen's boats in Lancaster. 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:58.919 So suddenly this close knit community was being torn apart 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:02.720 by suspicion. Everyone was wondering who would have done this 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:06.120 to the homecoming queen. Before long, the authorities settled on 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:11.120 a suspect, thirty two year old Emerson Stevens. Like so 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:13.960 many other Lancaster men, Emerson had worked on the water 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:16.919 since he was a teenager. Emerson was a crabber and 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:19.920 an oysterman who hauled his catch in on a boat 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:22.919 named after his wife. He'd spent his life by the shore, 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:25.560 the kind of guy who has salt water in his veins. 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:29.480 It was Mary's husband who pointed police to Emerson Stephens. 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:33.080 Emerson had gone to Mary's funeral, and Mary's husband thought 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:37.000 Emerson seemed nervous there. Mary's husband also remembered that he'd 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:40.520 once heard Emerson make a crude joke about female anatomy. 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:44.080 This wasn't much to go on, but days later, a 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:46.680 couple of people told police they had seen a light 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:51.560 colored pickup truck outside Mary's home on the night she disappeared. Now, 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:55.360 Emerson Stevens happened to drive a white Dodge pickup, so 0:05:55.400 --> 0:06:01.520 he quickly became the police's number one suspect. Detective Riley 0:06:01.560 --> 0:06:04.760 asks Emerson to meet him at Mary Harding's house and 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:07.679 the two men sit down on the front porch. According 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:11.440 to Emerson, Riley gestures to the street and asks, why 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:14.280 were you parked in front of this house the night 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:15.080 Mary vanished. 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:19.120 If you question somebody on the porch, you're creating a 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:23.400 context that is different from your standard police interrogation. You 0:06:23.440 --> 0:06:28.200 can tap into all of the emotions of This is 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:31.360 where this woman lived, this is where she had her children, 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:35.480 this is where she was last seen. This is not 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:37.240 a police interrogation room. 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:38.919 It feels like the kind of place where you'd have 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:41.800 a heart to heart conversation. And there's another thing that 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:44.120 makes this porch interrogation even more emotional. 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:49.159 Yeah, not only was this the front porch of Mary's house, 0:06:49.760 --> 0:06:53.279 it was right across the street from the burial ground 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:55.080 where her headstone was. 0:06:57.440 --> 0:07:00.040 As the two men look out at the cemetery, he 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:04.400 presses Emerson for information, but Emerson is stunned he hadn't 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:07.120 been at Mary's house. He says he'd been at home, 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:09.400 then he'd taken his kids over to the neighbors to 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:12.880 watch TV and eat crab. They'd returned home together at 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:15.920 about nine thirty PM, and Emerson's wife had gotten home 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:19.000 from work shortly after. He tells Riley to talk to 0:07:19.040 --> 0:07:22.560 his neighbor and confirm the alibi, but Riley doesn't buy 0:07:22.560 --> 0:07:26.960 Emerson's story. Instead, he orders a search of Emerson's pickup truck. 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:30.360 After digging through the truck for hours, police discover a 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:33.520 single strand of hair. They send the hair off to 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:37.400 the state crime lab for forensic analysis. The next week, 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:40.280 Riley asks Emerson to come to a nearby Virginia police 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:43.760 station for a polygraph. As soon as the polygraph's completed, 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:48.720 Riley tells Emerson he failed. According to Emerson, Riley says 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:52.000 he must either have killed Mary Harding or done something 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:55.720 else related to her murder. Those are two pretty bad options, 0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:59.800 and Emerson is terrified. But then Riley offers Emerson a 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:04.000 fat third choice that seems a lot better. Maybe you 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:07.400 were at Mary's house that night doing something innocent. Maybe 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:09.920 you were driving by and you stopped on the side 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:13.240 of the road to take a leak. The fisherman takes 0:08:13.280 --> 0:08:16.280 the bait. He's desperate to please Riley and changes his 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:18.640 story to exactly what Riley suggested. 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:23.160 If detectives can't get a full confession, they'll settle for 0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:27.800 a false inculpatory statement. All the detective can get from 0:08:27.840 --> 0:08:31.320 Emerson is a statement that he pulled over on the 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:34.960 side of the road a short distance away from Mary's 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:39.480 house to relieve himself at the approximate time of death. 0:08:40.040 --> 0:08:43.640 That's the admission. I was in the vicinity of her 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:47.720 home near the time where the medical examiner believes she 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:48.440 was killed. 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:51.960 That was all Emerson said. He did not confess, but 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:54.800 he'd said enough to get himself in real trouble. He 0:08:55.080 --> 0:09:00.400 just placed himself at the crime scene. Detective was on 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:03.640 high alert, but the case against Emerson was pretty damn 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:07.280 thin until test results came back from the state crime 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:10.880 lab on that hair from Emerson's truck. The lab had 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:13.480 put the hair under a microscope and compared it to 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:16.719 Mary Harding's hair, and the lab said it was an 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:21.760 exact match. The police's thin case suddenly seemed rock solid, 0:09:22.320 --> 0:09:25.760 and in late October nineteen eighty five, Emerson Stephens was 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:39.080 arrested for the abduction and murder of Mary Harding. The 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:41.640 trial of Emerson Stephens was one of the most dramatic 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:45.400 events Lancaster County had ever seen. To a packed courtroom, 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:50.160 prosecutors described how they thought the crime unfolded. Emerson kidnapped Mary, 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:53.360 they said, then strangled her and threw her body into 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:57.200 the river. They even suggested that Emerson slashed Mary's back 0:09:57.320 --> 0:10:01.000 with his fishing knife in order to attract so there 0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:02.800 wouldn't be anything left of her body. 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:07.560 The worst imaginable kind of crime. It's like throwing chum 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:10.400 over the side of a boat to entice sharks. 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:14.400 But there were problems with the prosecution's theory. They claimed 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:17.480 that Emerson had thrown Mary's body into the river off 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:19.880 the end of his own dock, but her body was 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:23.280 actually found a full ten miles upstream. 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:28.280 How does a body that is weighed down with a 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:35.720 cinder block travel ten miles upstream? Upstream means against the current. 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:37.480 That's the thing I mean to swim those ten miles 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:40.559 upstream would have been crazy, let alone somehow to float 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:43.440 a weighted down body that distance. It makes no sense 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:47.280 at all. It's absurd, But prosecutors found a witness to 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:51.440 bolster this theory insane, though it seemed. A marine scientist 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:54.760 testified that it was possible for Mary's body to float 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:58.760 against the current cinderblock and all for ten miles from 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:01.719 Emerson's dock to where it was found, and there were 0:11:01.720 --> 0:11:05.600 other witnesses too. Detective Riley told the jury that Emerson 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:07.760 claimed to have been near Mary's house on the night 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:11.800 she disappeared, and the prosecution called two people to corroborate 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:16.439 Emerson's statement, Clyde Dunaway and Anne Dick. They both claimed 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:19.640 they'd seen a pickup truck resembling Emerson's near the victim's 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:22.960 house that night, and finally, the prosecution called a witness 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:25.599 from the crime lab to testify that the hare and 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:28.000 Emerson's truck seemed to match Mary's. 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:31.199 So it seemed at this point as though all the 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:35.880 puzzle pieces fit together, and they painted a compelling portrait 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:40.360 of Emerson's guilt. But this is not the end of 0:11:40.400 --> 0:11:42.800 the story, not by a long shot. 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:45.720 When the defense's turn came, Emerson's lawyers put on a 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:50.040 strong case of their own, no fewer than four alibi witnesses. 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:53.680 In the end, the jury hung unable to reach a verdict. 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:58.000 The prosecution was quick to retry Emerson, and on July eighth, 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:01.760 nineteen eighty six, the second trial began. This time, the 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:06.560 prosecution's case seemed, if anything, weaker. The marine scientist was 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:09.400 a no show, so the prosecutor read the jury his 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:13.520 testimony from the previous trial. Only one witness, Clyde Dunaway, 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:17.240 testified about seeing Emerson's pickup near Mary's house, but the 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:20.920 crime lab technician repeated his previous testimony about the hair 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:25.120 in the truck, and Detective Riley testified again about Emerson's statements. 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:28.640 During the second trial, Emerson's lawyer put on his alibi 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:33.520 witnesses again, and Emerson himself took the stand. He tried 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:36.559 to explain that he was innocent, that he hadn't actually 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:39.400 pulled over near Mary's house that night. He'd only said 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:44.440 that to satisfy his interrogator. Prosecutors pounced, you admit to 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:48.640 us you lied, They asked, yes, I told that, Emerson 0:12:48.679 --> 0:12:52.720 answered Later he quietly added, I'm not a smart person. 0:12:54.720 --> 0:12:57.040 The case wasn't any stronger than at the first trial, 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:01.439 But this time the jury reached a verdict and Emerson 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:04.360 Stevens was sentenced to a prison term of one hundred 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:12.679 and sixty four years. Fast forward to two thousand and two. 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:16.679 During those sixteen years behind bars, Emerson earned his ged. 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:20.880 He worked in the dusty prison wood shop, building furniture 0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:24.840 for state institutions. He wrote letters constantly to his family 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:28.160 and to lawyers, begging for help with his case. When 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:31.200 he wasn't working or writing, Emerson would dream about the 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:34.160 smell of the shore. He wondered if he'd ever be 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:37.120 on the water again. In April two thousand and two, 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:40.720 Emerson's attention was caught by a news story about a 0:13:40.800 --> 0:13:45.440 genteel Virginia lady named Beverly Monroe. Beverly was a professional 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:49.520 chemist whose upper middle class background seemed worlds away from Emerson, 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:53.720 at least at first you see. Ten years earlier, fifty 0:13:53.800 --> 0:13:56.560 five year old Beverly had been dating a wealthy real 0:13:56.640 --> 0:14:00.160 estate mogul named Roger de la Bird. Roger lived on 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:04.160 a massive estate in Virginia Horse Country. He claimed to 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:07.199 be an art dealer who was descended from European nobility. 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:10.280 But when Roger turned up dead one morning from a 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:15.080 gunshot wound, police suspected Beverly of murder, even though she'd 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:18.040 never had so much as a traffic ticket. The case 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:21.560 against Beverly was absurd from day one. Beverly had a 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:24.800 grocery store receipt proving she hadn't been at Roger's estate 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:27.400 at the time he died, and Roger's death had been 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:31.080 ruled a suicide. Turns out his life was falling apart. 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:34.600 The FBI was investigating him for art fraud, and his 0:14:34.680 --> 0:14:38.040 claims of nobility were also being exposed as phony. But 0:14:38.120 --> 0:14:41.440 Beverly ended up being wrongly convicted of Roger's murder anyway. 0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:46.120 Why because in part of Detective David Riley, the same 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:50.120 officer who'd built the case against Emerson Stevens. When Detective 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:53.280 Riley interrogated Beverly, she refused to admit to something she 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:57.360 didn't do, but Riley administered a polygraph and told Beverly 0:14:57.440 --> 0:15:00.240 she failed it, and then he suggested that she must 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:04.080 have been present when Roger shot himself. Detective Riley seems 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:07.520 to have manipulated Beverly into placing herself at the scene 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:09.760 of the crime, just like he seems to have done 0:15:09.800 --> 0:15:12.760 with Emerson. The similarities are unmistakable. 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:20.280 Beverly Monroe was wrongfully convicted based on inculpatory statements that 0:15:20.520 --> 0:15:25.160 placed her at the crime scene, and Riley then built 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:30.520 his case around that statement to make it look like 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:34.120 this wasn't a suicide at all, that this was a murder. 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:37.680 It's amazing, just like Emerson, Beverly never confessed to anything. 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:42.800 Same detective using the same modus operandi in order to 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:47.080 get not a false confession, but a false inculpatory statement 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:50.160 that was used to convict them and send them away 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:52.200 for crimes they did not commit. 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:56.200 A federal judge later called Riley's interrogation of Beverly Monroe 0:15:56.360 --> 0:16:00.640 deceitful and manipulative. Even so, Beverly ended up serving ten 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:03.840 years in prison before her conviction was thrown out and 0:16:03.880 --> 0:16:06.800 she was released in April two thousand and two. That 0:16:06.960 --> 0:16:10.360 news story Emerson saw on TV from behind bars was 0:16:10.400 --> 0:16:14.960 about Beverly's first moments of freedom. Emerson didn't waste a minute. 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:17.880 He immediately wrote to Beverly's lawyer, who agreed to take 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:21.640 his case and When Beverly herself heard about Emerson, she 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:22.720 got involved too. 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:26.200 She went to the lawyers that had just exonerated her 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:29.880 and said, now you need to do it again for 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:33.520 this other guy, which, you know, to their credit, they did. 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:36.680 They tried to reinvestigate as much as they could, and 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:39.600 then when it became clear that they were sort of 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:42.080 losing steam, Beverly turned her sights to me. 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:45.520 That's Deirdre Enwright, the director of the University of Virginia's 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:49.080 Innocence Project Clinic. She's one of the lawyers Beverly enlisted 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:50.440 to join Emerson's legal team. 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:54.040 Emerson, you know, he had been trying for years, writing 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:57.360 to people about his case and begging for help. And 0:16:57.480 --> 0:16:59.480 if you ever meet or speak to Beverly, you will 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:02.040 learn that you will do anything that Beverly says to do, 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:07.040 because she's absolutely charming but also absolutely compelling. 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:09.240 Beverly made it something of. 0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:13.280 A mission to help other people who were convicted by 0:17:13.280 --> 0:17:15.200 the evidence collected by the same detective. 0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:18.480 With Beverly's help, Emerson now had a top notch legal team. 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:21.880 And while the lawyers got to work, Beverly and Emerson 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:23.040 began corresponding. 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:27.280 Beverly is not only college educated, but she's a chemist 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:30.680 and she lived a very extravagant life with her partner 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:35.840 before this all happened. And Emerson is this waterman who 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:39.800 grew up with his nine siblings in Lancaster. I mean, 0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:42.480 this is the classic thing that happens in these wrongful 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:45.560 conviction cases, is that people who would never in a 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:49.280 lifetime be near each other or connect do. 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:53.679 Beverly and Emerson became friends. Beverly sendsed how much this 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:57.240 fisherman longed for the water, and started sending him photographs 0:17:57.280 --> 0:18:00.159 of the place he missed most, the Chesapeake Bay. 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:03.359 She was hyper aware of taking care of him while 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:06.959 he was incarcerated so he didn't feel abandoned, writing and 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:09.920 calling and making sure he had money in his commissary 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:14.800 and holidays and birthdays. And I remember thinking, she knows 0:18:14.880 --> 0:18:17.920 what he's feeling better than any of us. I think 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:22.000 that Emerson, once he had Beverly, he knew that there 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:26.000 was another person out there who was advocating for him ferociously. 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:27.919 I mean, most people who. 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:30.960 Are incarcerated don't have that person. And because she was 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:33.360 so smart and because she had been through it, she 0:18:33.440 --> 0:18:35.520 wasn't going to hear that it couldn't be done. 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:39.160 While Beverly was keeping Emerson's hope alive, his legal team 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:42.840 was systematically unwinding the case against him, and, as it 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:46.160 turned out, one piece of faulty evidence after another seemed 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:49.560 to lead back to Detective Riley. First up was the 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:52.199 claim that witnesses had seen a white pickup truck like 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:55.879 Emerson's near Mary's house. A woman named Anne Dick had 0:18:55.920 --> 0:18:58.560 testified to that effect at the first trial, but her 0:18:58.600 --> 0:19:01.240 story had changed by the time of the second trial. 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:04.119 There she swore that the person she saw driving the 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:07.520 truck was not Emerson. Stevens when asked why she didn't 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:10.639 say that to the first jury, and answered because Detective 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:14.200 Riley told me not to. The other pickup truck witness, 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:17.879 Clyde Dunaway Well, turns out he came forward only after 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:22.080 police offered a twenty thousand dollars reward for information. He 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:25.760 asked Detective Riley about the money during their very first conversation, 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:29.800 but at Emerson's second trial, Dunaway swore he never asked 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:33.560 anyone about the reward. Now Detective Riley was sitting in 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:36.760 the courtroom listening to this, he must have known Dunaway 0:19:36.880 --> 0:19:40.440 was lying, but the detective never said a word. Eventually, 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:43.600 Dunaway paid a price for his false testimony in Emerson 0:19:43.640 --> 0:19:47.520 Stephens case. He ended up pleading guilty to obstruction of justice. 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:52.239 Once you dangle reward money, especially in a place like 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:56.120 Lancaster where there's a lot of people living very much 0:19:56.240 --> 0:20:00.400 on a margin, the fact that Clyde Dunaway bit on that. 0:20:00.320 --> 0:20:01.800 Is hardly surprising. 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:04.840 He repeatedly inquired about when am I going to get 0:20:04.880 --> 0:20:07.920 that money, and the detective would say, only after you testify. 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:11.480 The upshot of the investigation is that Clyde Dunaway got 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:15.119 in trouble and our dirty detective, who sat on that 0:20:15.160 --> 0:20:18.320 information during both trials, walked away unscathed. 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:20.760 The little guy got it as usual. 0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:24.399 Next up was the bizarre claim that Mary's bodies cinder 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:29.440 block and all floated upstream ten miles. That marine scientist 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:32.840 who testified at the first trial, remember he was mia 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:36.000 at the second trial. Prosecutors had to read the jury 0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:39.320 a transcript of his previous testimony. Why didn't he show 0:20:39.359 --> 0:20:42.440 up the second time? Well, Emerson's lawyers found a letter 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:45.399 from the scientist to the prosecutor that provided a pretty 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:49.680 clear explanation. After the first trial, the scientist wrote, Lieutenant 0:20:49.800 --> 0:20:53.199 Riley applied what maybe the correct term to my testimony 0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:57.760 in this case. He called it eyewash. Eyewash is Virginia 0:20:57.840 --> 0:20:58.960 slang for bullshit. 0:20:59.680 --> 0:21:04.720 Ugh God, the marine scientist, it's clear that the science 0:21:05.080 --> 0:21:08.480 that he put forth at this trial wasn't real. Even 0:21:08.560 --> 0:21:13.280 Detective Riley called this theory eyewash. 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:16.440 Why a marine biologist went along with that the first time, 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:19.240 I have no idea, But by the second time he 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:21.120 clearly did not want. 0:21:20.960 --> 0:21:22.400 To do it and thought it was dirty. 0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:22.920 Right. 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:25.639 That's what his letter suggested, is you're asking me to 0:21:25.680 --> 0:21:27.240 do something that's nonsensical. 0:21:27.720 --> 0:21:30.919 Suddenly there was reason to believe that Detective Riley had 0:21:31.000 --> 0:21:33.679 jinned up some of the evidence against Emerson, and it 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:37.119 seems that Riley tried to take it even further. The 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:40.679 owner of a Lancaster convenience store gave Emerson's lawyers a 0:21:40.760 --> 0:21:44.919 sworn statement that reads as follows. Detective Riley tried to 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:47.400 get me to say that Emerson Stevens woke me up 0:21:47.440 --> 0:21:49.639 in the middle of the night that Mary Harding disappeared 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:53.360 so that he could buy five gallons of gas. Detective 0:21:53.400 --> 0:21:57.520 Riley was extremely aggressive and pushy insisting that I agree 0:21:57.520 --> 0:22:00.280 with his story even though it was not true. Was 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:02.080 never woken up in the middle of the night by 0:22:02.080 --> 0:22:04.600 Emerson Stevens. Ever, for any. 0:22:04.400 --> 0:22:08.680 Reason, none of these pieces are the puzzle actually fit together. 0:22:08.880 --> 0:22:12.160 They were all manipulated by this detective so that they 0:22:12.240 --> 0:22:16.160 fit his theory that Emerson was guilty of this crime. 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:18.600 Now that's the eyewash. 0:22:18.680 --> 0:22:21.760 The rest of the case crumbled too. Remember the theory 0:22:21.800 --> 0:22:25.439 that Emerson used his knife to slash Mary's back. A 0:22:25.480 --> 0:22:28.760 new assessment by the medical examiner showed that those evenly 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:32.480 spaced gashes were probably made by a boat propeller, not 0:22:32.600 --> 0:22:35.800 by a human with a knife. And finally, what about 0:22:35.840 --> 0:22:38.640 the hair from Emerson's truck. Back in nineteen eighty five, 0:22:38.720 --> 0:22:41.400 the crime lab had put that hair under a microscope 0:22:41.680 --> 0:22:44.240 and claimed that it was an exact match to Mary. 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:48.679 This technique, known as hair microscopy, has since been debunked. 0:22:49.160 --> 0:22:51.400 There's no way you can match hairs with that level 0:22:51.400 --> 0:22:54.240 of certainty just by looking through a microscope. In fact, 0:22:54.320 --> 0:22:57.719 more than seventy people have been exonerated after Bogus's hair 0:22:57.760 --> 0:23:00.520 evidence was used to convict them. 0:23:00.680 --> 0:23:04.840 There's just nothing to the science that you can microscopically 0:23:04.840 --> 0:23:09.040 compare hairs and identify anybody. We've had cases where people 0:23:09.080 --> 0:23:11.200 say that this is a human hair belonging to this victim, 0:23:11.240 --> 0:23:14.720 and it belongs to a dog. Even according to the FBI, 0:23:14.880 --> 0:23:17.520 hair microscopy is junk science. 0:23:18.280 --> 0:23:22.119 Decades later, Emerson's lawyers sought DNA testing, but it turned 0:23:22.119 --> 0:23:24.879 out the hair was too old to test. In other words, 0:23:25.000 --> 0:23:27.720