Speaker 1: Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions.
Speaker 2: I'm Laura and I writer and I'm Steve Drisen.
Speaker 1: Today we'll tell you the story of Emerson Stevens, a
Speaker 1: fisherman from Virginia's Chesapeake Bay. When a young mother was
Speaker 1: found murdered. It seemed all the evidence pointed to Emerson
Speaker 1: until the case fell apart. Emerson survived thirty one years
Speaker 1: in prison with the help of an ally from across
Speaker 1: the bay. Now you can help him finally clear his name.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on interviews with Emerson Stevens and
Speaker 1: his lawyers, along with legal filings and court opinions. So, Steve,
Speaker 1: today we're going to break the mold.
Speaker 2: We're going to break them mold. This is not a
Speaker 2: case that involves a false confession. This is a case
Speaker 2: that involves a false inculpatory statement. Sometimes detectives can't get
Speaker 2: a confession, but they'll settle for a fall and culpatory statement. Right.
Speaker 1: That's lawyer talk for something you say that makes you
Speaker 1: look really bad.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right, and it's false. So it's a lie.
Speaker 2: And the same tactics that are used to get false
Speaker 2: confessions are often used to get these false inculplatory statements,
Speaker 2: and they.
Speaker 1: Can have the same devastating consequences.
Speaker 2: So when I think about this case, I think about
Speaker 2: it in terms of a puzzle. You know, when my
Speaker 2: family goes on vacation, we often buy a puzzle and
Speaker 2: we spend a lot of time putting that puzzle together.
Speaker 2: And anyone who puts puzzles together knows that there are
Speaker 2: a lot of times where the piece that you think
Speaker 2: will finish a part of the puzzle doesn't quite fit.
Speaker 2: It looks like it should fit, but just a little
Speaker 2: bit off. And that's what happened with a lot of
Speaker 2: the evidence in Emerson Stephen's case. They manipulated the evidence
Speaker 2: to make it seem like it fit. The police theory what.
Speaker 1: Happens in runfuel conviction cases right tunnel vision makes police
Speaker 1: officers force these puzzle pieces together when in reality they
Speaker 1: might not fit at all.
Speaker 2: It was only after the fact that you could see
Speaker 2: that the pieces never really fit in the first place.
Speaker 1: Today's story takes place in Lancaster County, Virginia, a rural
Speaker 1: community nestled between the Chesapeake Bay and the Rappahannock River.
Speaker 1: It's a place that smells like ocean salt an honest
Speaker 1: sweat generations there have made a living with their hands,
Speaker 1: hauling fish out of the bay and crabs and oysters
Speaker 1: out of the river. In nineteen eighty five, this county
Speaker 1: was 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,
Speaker 1: August twenty third, nineteen eighty five, that modest home became
Speaker 1: the scene of a terrible discovery. On weekdays, Mary had
Speaker 1: a routine before work, she'd drop off her one year
Speaker 1: old at the home of her husband's grandmother, Virginia Walker,
Speaker 1: But that Friday morning, Mary didn't show up. Virginia was worried,
Speaker 1: so she drove over to Mary's house. Virginia was greeted
Speaker 1: at the door by Mary's four year old son, who
Speaker 1: told her that he couldn't find his mom. The TV
Speaker 1: and lights were on throughout the house, Some unrensed comet
Speaker 1: was left in the bathroom sink, and the little boy's
Speaker 1: chicken dinner from the night before was still sitting on
Speaker 1: the table. Don't worry, the four year old assured his
Speaker 1: great grandma. In his mother's absence, he was taking care
Speaker 1: of the baby. Virginia knew there was no way Mary
Speaker 1: would abandon her children. There's only one explanation for her disappearance.
Speaker 1: Mary must have been taken. Virginia calls the police, and
Speaker 1: soon a state police detective by the name of David
Speaker 1: Riley arrives at the house. He finds cat litter scattered
Speaker 1: on the ground outside the back door, along with one
Speaker 1: of Mary's white sandals, but there's no sign of Mary.
Speaker 1: Pretty soon, word spreads and the whole community starts surging
Speaker 1: through the woods and along the shore. But they find nothing.
Speaker 1: Nothing that is until four days later. That's when a
Speaker 1: woman's body is found in the shallows of the Rappahannock River.
Speaker 1: The body is unclothed, badly decomposed, and hard to identify,
Speaker 1: but it's clear something horrific has happened. The woman's back
Speaker 1: is covered with deep, evenly spaced slashes. There's a rope
Speaker 1: tied around her neck with a huge cinder block attached
Speaker 1: to the other end. A heavy chain is wrapped around
Speaker 1: the woman's right leg. Soon enough, the medical examiner confirms
Speaker 1: this is Mary Harding. She's been strangled to death. Now
Speaker 1: here's the thing. The rope and chain were the same
Speaker 1: kind that you can find on most fishermen's boats in Lancaster.
Speaker 1: So suddenly this close knit community was being torn apart
Speaker 1: by suspicion. Everyone was wondering who would have done this
Speaker 1: to the homecoming queen. Before long, the authorities settled on
Speaker 1: a suspect, thirty two year old Emerson Stevens. Like so
Speaker 1: many other Lancaster men, Emerson had worked on the water
Speaker 1: since he was a teenager. Emerson was a crabber and
Speaker 1: an oysterman who hauled his catch in on a boat
Speaker 1: named after his wife. He'd spent his life by the shore,
Speaker 1: the kind of guy who has salt water in his veins.
Speaker 1: It was Mary's husband who pointed police to Emerson Stephens.
Speaker 1: Emerson had gone to Mary's funeral, and Mary's husband thought
Speaker 1: Emerson seemed nervous there. Mary's husband also remembered that he'd
Speaker 1: once heard Emerson make a crude joke about female anatomy.
Speaker 1: This wasn't much to go on, but days later, a
Speaker 1: couple of people told police they had seen a light
Speaker 1: colored 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.
Speaker 2: If you question somebody on the porch, you're creating a
Speaker 2: context that is different from your standard police interrogation. You
Speaker 2: can tap into all of the emotions of This is
Speaker 2: where this woman lived, this is where she had her children,
Speaker 2: this is where she was last seen. This is not
Speaker 2: a police interrogation room.
Speaker 1: It feels like the kind of place where you'd have
Speaker 1: a heart to heart conversation. And there's another thing that
Speaker 1: makes this porch interrogation even more emotional.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not only was this the front porch of Mary's house,
Speaker 2: it was right across the street from the burial ground
Speaker 2: where her headstone was.
Speaker 1: As the two men look out at the cemetery, he
Speaker 1: presses Emerson for information, but Emerson is stunned he hadn't
Speaker 1: been at Mary's house. He says he'd been at home,
Speaker 1: then he'd taken his kids over to the neighbors to
Speaker 1: watch TV and eat crab. They'd returned home together at
Speaker 1: about nine thirty PM, and Emerson's wife had gotten home
Speaker 1: from work shortly after. He tells Riley to talk to
Speaker 1: his neighbor and confirm the alibi, but Riley doesn't buy
Speaker 1: Emerson's story. Instead, he orders a search of Emerson's pickup truck.
Speaker 1: After digging through the truck for hours, police discover a
Speaker 1: single strand of hair. They send the hair off to
Speaker 1: the state crime lab for forensic analysis. The next week,
Speaker 1: Riley asks Emerson to come to a nearby Virginia police
Speaker 1: station for a polygraph. As soon as the polygraph's completed,
Speaker 1: Riley tells Emerson he failed. According to Emerson, Riley says
Speaker 1: he must either have killed Mary Harding or done something
Speaker 1: else related to her murder. Those are two pretty bad options,
Speaker 1: and Emerson is terrified. But then Riley offers Emerson a
Speaker 1: fat third choice that seems a lot better. Maybe you
Speaker 1: were at Mary's house that night doing something innocent. Maybe
Speaker 1: you were driving by and you stopped on the side
Speaker 1: of the road to take a leak. The fisherman takes
Speaker 1: the bait. He's desperate to please Riley and changes his
Speaker 1: story to exactly what Riley suggested.
Speaker 2: If detectives can't get a full confession, they'll settle for
Speaker 2: a false inculpatory statement. All the detective can get from
Speaker 2: Emerson is a statement that he pulled over on the
Speaker 2: side of the road a short distance away from Mary's
Speaker 2: house to relieve himself at the approximate time of death.
Speaker 2: That's the admission. I was in the vicinity of her
Speaker 2: home near the time where the medical examiner believes she
Speaker 2: was killed.
Speaker 1: That was all Emerson said. He did not confess, but
Speaker 1: he'd said enough to get himself in real trouble. He
Speaker 1: just placed himself at the crime scene. Detective was on
Speaker 1: high alert, but the case against Emerson was pretty damn
Speaker 1: thin until test results came back from the state crime
Speaker 1: lab on that hair from Emerson's truck. The lab had
Speaker 1: put the hair under a microscope and compared it to
Speaker 1: Mary Harding's hair, and the lab said it was an
Speaker 1: exact match. The police's thin case suddenly seemed rock solid,
Speaker 1: and in late October nineteen eighty five, Emerson Stephens was
Speaker 1: arrested for the abduction and murder of Mary Harding. The
Speaker 1: trial of Emerson Stephens was one of the most dramatic
Speaker 1: events Lancaster County had ever seen. To a packed courtroom,
Speaker 1: prosecutors 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 so there
Speaker 1: wouldn't be anything left of her body.
Speaker 2: The worst imaginable kind of crime. It's like throwing chum
Speaker 2: over the side of a boat to entice sharks.
Speaker 1: But there were problems with the prosecution's theory. They claimed
Speaker 1: that Emerson had thrown Mary's body into the river off
Speaker 1: the end of his own dock, but her body was
Speaker 1: actually found a full ten miles upstream.
Speaker 2: How does a body that is weighed down with a
Speaker 2: cinder block travel ten miles upstream? Upstream means against the current.
Speaker 1: That's the thing I mean to swim those ten miles
Speaker 1: upstream would have been crazy, let alone somehow to float
Speaker 1: a weighted down body that distance. It makes no sense
Speaker 1: at all. It's absurd, But prosecutors found a witness to
Speaker 1: bolster this theory insane, though it seemed. A marine scientist
Speaker 1: testified that it was possible for Mary's body to float
Speaker 1: against the current cinderblock and all for ten miles from
Speaker 1: Emerson's dock to where it was found, and there were
Speaker 1: other witnesses too. Detective Riley told the jury that Emerson
Speaker 1: claimed to have been near Mary's house on the night
Speaker 1: she disappeared, and the prosecution called two people to corroborate
Speaker 1: Emerson's statement, Clyde Dunaway and Anne Dick. They both claimed
Speaker 1: they'd seen a pickup truck resembling Emerson's near the victim's
Speaker 1: house that night, and finally, the prosecution called a witness
Speaker 1: from the crime lab to testify that the hare and
Speaker 1: Emerson's truck seemed to match Mary's.
Speaker 2: So it seemed at this point as though all the
Speaker 2: puzzle pieces fit together, and they painted a compelling portrait
Speaker 2: of Emerson's guilt. But this is not the end of
Speaker 2: the story, not by a long shot.
Speaker 1: When the defense's turn 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 eighth,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six, the second trial began. This time, the
Speaker 1: prosecution's case seemed, if anything, weaker. The marine scientist was
Speaker 1: a no show, so the prosecutor read the jury his
Speaker 1: testimony from the previous trial. Only one witness, Clyde Dunaway,
Speaker 1: testified about seeing Emerson's pickup near Mary's house, but the
Speaker 1: crime lab technician repeated his previous testimony about the hair
Speaker 1: in the truck, and Detective Riley testified again about Emerson's statements.
Speaker 1: During the second trial, Emerson's lawyer put on his alibi
Speaker 1: witnesses again, and Emerson himself took the stand. He tried
Speaker 1: to explain that he was innocent, that he hadn't actually
Speaker 1: pulled over near Mary's house that night. He'd only said
Speaker 1: that to satisfy his interrogator. Prosecutors pounced, you admit to
Speaker 1: us you lied, They asked, yes, I told that, Emerson
Speaker 1: answered Later he quietly added, I'm not a smart person.
Speaker 1: The case wasn't any stronger than at the first trial,
Speaker 1: But this time the jury reached a verdict and Emerson
Speaker 1: Stevens was sentenced to a prison term of one hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty four years. Fast forward to two thousand and two.
Speaker 1: During those sixteen years behind bars, Emerson earned his ged.
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 and two,
Speaker 1: Emerson's attention was caught by a news story about a
Speaker 1: genteel Virginia lady named Beverly Monroe. Beverly was a professional
Speaker 1: chemist 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 Bird. 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 receipt 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'd built the case against Emerson Stevens. When Detective
Speaker 1: Riley interrogated Beverly, she refused to admit to something she
Speaker 1: didn't do, but Riley administered a polygraph and told Beverly
Speaker 1: she failed it, and then he suggested that she must
Speaker 1: have been present when Roger shot himself. Detective Riley seems
Speaker 1: to have manipulated Beverly into placing herself at the scene
Speaker 1: of the crime, just like he seems to have done
Speaker 1: with Emerson. The similarities are unmistakable.
Speaker 2: Beverly Monroe was wrongfully convicted based on inculpatory statements that
Speaker 2: placed her at the crime scene, and Riley then built
Speaker 2: his case around that statement to make it look like
Speaker 2: this wasn't a suicide at all, that this was a murder.
Speaker 1: It's amazing, just like Emerson, Beverly never confessed to anything.
Speaker 2: Same detective using the same modus operandi in order to
Speaker 2: get not a false confession, but a false inculpatory statement
Speaker 2: that was used to convict them and send them away
Speaker 2: for crimes they did not commit.
Speaker 1: A federal judge later called Riley's interrogation of Beverly Monroe
Speaker 1: deceitful and manipulative. Even so, Beverly ended up serving ten
Speaker 1: years in prison before her conviction was thrown out and
Speaker 1: she was released in April two thousand and two. That
Speaker 1: news story Emerson saw on TV from behind bars was
Speaker 1: about Beverly's first moments of freedom. Emerson didn't waste a minute.
Speaker 1: He immediately wrote to Beverly's lawyer, who agreed to take
Speaker 1: his case and When Beverly herself heard about Emerson, she
Speaker 1: got involved too.
Speaker 3: She went to the lawyers that had just exonerated her
Speaker 3: and said, now you need to do it again for
Speaker 3: this other guy, which, you know, to their credit, they did.
Speaker 3: They tried to reinvestigate as much as they could, and
Speaker 3: then when it became clear that they were sort of
Speaker 3: losing steam, Beverly turned her sights to me.
Speaker 1: That's Deirdre Enwright, the director of the University of Virginia's
Speaker 1: Innocence Project Clinic. She's one of the lawyers Beverly enlisted
Speaker 1: to join Emerson's legal team.
Speaker 3: Emerson, you know, he had been trying for years, writing
Speaker 3: to people about his case and begging for help. And
Speaker 3: if you ever meet or speak to Beverly, you will
Speaker 3: learn that you will do anything that Beverly says to do,
Speaker 3: because she's absolutely charming but also absolutely compelling.
Speaker 4: Beverly made it something of.
Speaker 3: A mission to help other people who were convicted by
Speaker 3: the evidence collected by the same detective.
Speaker 1: With Beverly's help, Emerson now had a top notch legal team.
Speaker 1: And while the lawyers got to work, Beverly and Emerson
Speaker 1: began corresponding.
Speaker 3: Beverly is not only college educated, but she's a chemist
Speaker 3: and she lived a very extravagant life with her partner
Speaker 3: before this all happened. And Emerson is this waterman who
Speaker 3: grew up with his nine siblings in Lancaster. I mean,
Speaker 3: this is the classic thing that happens in these wrongful
Speaker 3: conviction cases, is that people who would never in a
Speaker 3: lifetime be near each other or connect do.
Speaker 1: Beverly and Emerson became friends. Beverly sendsed how much this
Speaker 1: fisherman longed for the water, and started sending him photographs
Speaker 1: of the place he missed most, the Chesapeake Bay.
Speaker 3: She was hyper aware of taking care of him while
Speaker 3: he was incarcerated so he didn't feel abandoned, writing and
Speaker 3: calling and making sure he had money in his commissary
Speaker 3: and holidays and birthdays. And I remember thinking, she knows
Speaker 3: what he's feeling better than any of us. I think
Speaker 3: that Emerson, once he had Beverly, he knew that there
Speaker 3: was another person out there who was advocating for him ferociously.
Speaker 4: I mean, most people who.
Speaker 3: Are incarcerated don't have that person. And because she was
Speaker 3: so smart and because she had been through it, she
Speaker 3: wasn't going to hear that it couldn't be done.
Speaker 1: While Beverly was keeping Emerson's hope alive, his legal team
Speaker 1: was systematically unwinding the case against him, and, as it
Speaker 1: turned out, one piece of faulty evidence after another seemed
Speaker 1: to lead back to Detective Riley. First up was the
Speaker 1: claim that witnesses had seen a white pickup truck like
Speaker 1: Emerson's near Mary's house. A woman named Anne Dick had
Speaker 1: testified to that effect at the first trial, but her
Speaker 1: story had changed by the time of the second trial.
Speaker 1: There she swore that the person she saw driving the
Speaker 1: truck was not Emerson. Stevens when asked why she didn't
Speaker 1: say that to the first jury, and answered because Detective
Speaker 1: Riley told me not to. The other pickup truck witness,
Speaker 1: Clyde Dunaway Well, turns out he came forward only after
Speaker 1: police offered a twenty thousand dollars reward for information. He
Speaker 1: asked Detective Riley about the money during their very first conversation,
Speaker 1: but at Emerson's second trial, Dunaway swore he never asked
Speaker 1: anyone about the reward. Now Detective Riley was sitting in
Speaker 1: the courtroom listening to this, he must have known Dunaway
Speaker 1: was lying, but the detective never said a word. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Dunaway paid a price for his false testimony in Emerson
Speaker 1: Stephens case. He ended up pleading guilty to obstruction of justice.
Speaker 3: Once you dangle reward money, especially in a place like
Speaker 3: Lancaster where there's a lot of people living very much
Speaker 3: on a margin, the fact that Clyde Dunaway bit on that.
Speaker 4: Is hardly surprising.
Speaker 3: He repeatedly inquired about when am I going to get
Speaker 3: that money, and the detective would say, only after you testify.
Speaker 3: The upshot of the investigation is that Clyde Dunaway got
Speaker 3: in trouble and our dirty detective, who sat on that
Speaker 3: information during both trials, walked away unscathed.
Speaker 4: The little guy got it as usual.
Speaker 1: Next up was the bizarre claim that Mary's bodies cinder
Speaker 1: block and all floated upstream ten miles. That marine scientist
Speaker 1: who testified at the first trial, remember he was mia
Speaker 1: at the second trial. Prosecutors had to read the jury
Speaker 1: a transcript of his previous testimony. Why didn't he show
Speaker 1: up the second time? Well, Emerson's lawyers found a letter
Speaker 1: from the scientist to the prosecutor that provided a pretty
Speaker 1: clear explanation. After the first trial, the scientist wrote, Lieutenant
Speaker 1: Riley applied what maybe the correct term to my testimony
Speaker 1: in this case. He called it eyewash. Eyewash is Virginia
Speaker 1: slang for bullshit.
Speaker 2: Ugh God, the marine scientist, it's clear that the science
Speaker 2: that he put forth at this trial wasn't real. Even
Speaker 2: Detective Riley called this theory eyewash.
Speaker 3: Why a marine biologist went along with that the first time,
Speaker 3: I have no idea, But by the second time he
Speaker 3: clearly did not want.
Speaker 4: To do it and thought it was dirty.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 3: That's what his letter suggested, is you're asking me to
Speaker 3: do something that's nonsensical.
Speaker 1: Suddenly there was reason to believe that Detective Riley had
Speaker 1: jinned up some of the evidence against Emerson, and it
Speaker 1: seems that Riley tried to take it even further. The
Speaker 1: owner of a Lancaster convenience store gave Emerson's lawyers a
Speaker 1: sworn statement that reads as follows. Detective Riley tried to
Speaker 1: get me to say that Emerson Stevens woke me up
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night that Mary Harding disappeared
Speaker 1: so that he could buy five gallons of gas. Detective
Speaker 1: Riley was extremely aggressive and pushy insisting that I agree
Speaker 1: with his story even though it was not true. Was
Speaker 1: never woken up in the middle of the night by
Speaker 1: Emerson Stevens. Ever, for any.
Speaker 2: Reason, none of these pieces are the puzzle actually fit together.
Speaker 2: They were all manipulated by this detective so that they
Speaker 2: fit his theory that Emerson was guilty of this crime.
Speaker 2: Now that's the eyewash.
Speaker 1: The rest of the case crumbled too. Remember the theory
Speaker 1: that Emerson used his knife to slash Mary's back. A
Speaker 1: new assessment by the medical examiner showed that those evenly
Speaker 1: spaced gashes were probably made by a boat propeller, not
Speaker 1: by a human with a knife. And finally, what about
Speaker 1: the hair from Emerson's truck. Back in nineteen eighty five,
Speaker 1: the crime lab had put that hair under a microscope
Speaker 1: and claimed that it was an exact match to Mary.
Speaker 1: This technique, known as hair microscopy, has since been debunked.
Speaker 1: There's no way you can match hairs with that level
Speaker 1: of certainty just by looking through a microscope. In fact,
Speaker 1: more than seventy people have been exonerated after Bogus's hair
Speaker 1: evidence was used to convict them.
Speaker 3: There's just nothing to the science that you can microscopically
Speaker 3: compare hairs and identify anybody. We've had cases where people
Speaker 3: say that this is a human hair belonging to this victim,
Speaker 3: and it belongs to a dog. Even according to the FBI,
Speaker 3: 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 twenty sixteen asking
Speaker 1: for his conviction to be thrown out, but it hasn't
Speaker 1: been yet. This is where Emerson's legal case has stalled.
Speaker 1: Despite skilled lawyers and compelling evidence of innocence, The courts
Speaker 1: have denied histition at every turn. But there has been
Speaker 1: one important victory. On May nineteenth, twenty seventeen, Emerson Stevens
Speaker 1: was paroled from prison. He'd spent thirty one years behind bars.
Speaker 3: His family filled the lobby of the correctional center, which
Speaker 3: is almost always absolutely empty, and then we came with students.
Speaker 3: And people who had been working on this case for years.
Speaker 3: We all hopped into cars and we asked Emerson where
Speaker 3: 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.
Speaker 3: Emerson very quickly told us that he wanted to go
Speaker 3: to Cracker Barrel and he wanted the.
Speaker 6: Seafood platter at Cracker Barrel. And I don't argue with
Speaker 6: anyone who wants that.
Speaker 1: Like a tide that might never come back in Emerson.
Speaker 1: Stephen's life ebbed for thirty one years as he sat
Speaker 1: behind bars. Now his life is flowing again.
Speaker 6: You know, he's done such a great job of getting
Speaker 6: out and just sort of sliding back in to his life,
Speaker 6: moving back in, seeing family, going back to work immediately
Speaker 6: being a great worker. So in that part of his life,
Speaker 6: 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.
Speaker 6: I think he feels that until he is cleared and
Speaker 6: other people are exposed, his life is.
Speaker 1: On hold until that happens. At least Emerson gets to
Speaker 1: see his kids and his grandkids he's back out on
Speaker 1: the water and his small aluminum boat, feeling the breeze
Speaker 1: on his face.
Speaker 3: I just said to him, the only thing you owe
Speaker 3: me is a trip to go oystering, and he will
Speaker 3: be good for that.
Speaker 4: I know it.
Speaker 3: I've been to a Stephen's cookout, and you know what
Speaker 3: they do is go crab and fish and come back
Speaker 3: and cook it all up in the yard and have
Speaker 3: huge tables of food and it's delicious.
Speaker 1: The case against Emerson Stephens has taken years to unwind.
Speaker 1: Sometimes fighting cases this thin can be rangely hard, almost
Speaker 1: like you're shadow boxing a ghost.
Speaker 2: Emerson should be pardoned, and Emerson's innocence needs to be
Speaker 2: recognized by the governor of the state of Virginia.
Speaker 6: In cases like this, it's just never the slam dunk
Speaker 6: that it should be. We immediately applied for an absolute pardon,
Speaker 6: which would exonerate him totally, and he pretty quickly got
Speaker 6: a letter that said, thanks for your petition, we probably
Speaker 6: won't be able to get to this for two years,
Speaker 6: and don't bother us. In the meantime. For Emerson to
Speaker 6: be pardoned would mean that he gets an absolute clean slate,
Speaker 6: and it's a gateway to maybe proving what people did
Speaker 6: to get him convicted. For people like him, you need that,
Speaker 6: you need the real story to be told.
Speaker 1: For her part, Beverly Monroe, now in her eighties, still
Speaker 1: supports Emerson, still talks to him regularly by phone, still
Speaker 1: is waiting for the day he'll be exonerated. We're waiting
Speaker 1: to Emerson, and we stand with you all the way.
Speaker 1: Hey is this Emerson? Yes, yes, Hey Emerson, It's Laura
Speaker 1: Ny writer and Steve Drisson.
Speaker 4: How are you?
Speaker 5: I'm doing good?
Speaker 1: So tell me Emerson, what have you been doing these days?
Speaker 1: How have you been keeping yourself busy?
Speaker 5: Uh? Well, my oldest brother he asked me if I
Speaker 5: would take his boat and get all this craft pops up.
Speaker 5: So I did that.
Speaker 1: You know, how was it?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 2: It felt great.
Speaker 5: It felt great being abaccoat on the water again. And
Speaker 5: then he wants me to go yestring with him.
Speaker 2: You know, so I'm.
Speaker 5: Thinking about it. I want to buy purchase a boat
Speaker 5: of my own, you know, like my brothers got, and
Speaker 5: be able to work on the water again.
Speaker 1: You know, what would you name your boat, Emerson?
Speaker 5: Well, these type of boats you don't really put names
Speaker 5: on them. But I don't know, misfit or something.
Speaker 1: I don't know. There's times that are enjoyable and wonderful,
Speaker 1: you're with your family, you're back out on the water.
Speaker 1: And there's times that are hard too, I'm sure.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, yeah. I lost my oldest daughter when I
Speaker 5: was in prison. She died at the age of forty,
Speaker 5: and that broke my heart. It's not a day that
Speaker 5: don't go by that I don't think about her.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I'm really sorry, Emerson. Yeah, yeah, Well, she's looking down
Speaker 1: from somewhere, I hope, and rooting for you, just like
Speaker 1: the rest of us.
Speaker 5: Are.
Speaker 1: Are you still in touch with Beverly?
Speaker 5: Oh? Beverly, She's been my number one fan. You know,
Speaker 5: She's always believed in me, and she's great. She's a
Speaker 5: great person. Every now and then I tetch her or
Speaker 5: call and talk to them, but she loves to talk now.
Speaker 5: She loves to.
Speaker 1: Talk to support Emerson Stevens. You can write the Governor
Speaker 1: of Virginia and ask him to grant Emerson in absolute pardon.
Speaker 1: You can find the address on my Instagram page at
Speaker 1: Laura Nywriter. And that's the story of Emerson Stevens. Join
Speaker 1: us next week when we tell you about a Philadelphia
Speaker 1: man named Walter Ogrod. Walter spent decades on death row
Speaker 1: until a new generation of prosecutors came to Philadelphia. They
Speaker 1: brought 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 Flamm and Kevin Wardis. Our production
Speaker 1: team is headed by senior producer Ann Pope, along with
Speaker 1: producers Joshi Hammer and Jess Shane. Our show is mixed
Speaker 1: by Genie Montalvo. John Colbert is our intrepid intern. Our
Speaker 1: music was composed by Jay Ralph. You can follow me
Speaker 1: on Instagram or Twitter at Laura and Nywriter, and you
Speaker 1: can follow.
Speaker 2: Me on Twitter at Sdrizzen.
Speaker 1: For more information on the show, visit wrongfulconvictionpodcast dot com.
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow the show on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at
Speaker 1: wrong Conviction