Speaker 1: Jennifer Blag was riding high on her discovery that the
Speaker 1: snitch in Lee's case was not just a one time thing,
Speaker 1: but a serial informant for the Chicago Police Department who
Speaker 1: had received benefits for his services. She gets thinking, if
Speaker 1: the detective in Lee's case, Richard Zuli, had a habit
Speaker 1: of setting up informants to help a case go his way,
Speaker 1: what other habits might he have.
Speaker 2: I've got to get my shit together on this and
Speaker 2: argue it properly.
Speaker 3: Is it a pattern of dishonesty? What is the.
Speaker 1: Pattern coercive interview techniques for example, intimidation, maybe withholding exculpatory evidence.
Speaker 1: Perhaps Jennifer was searching for proof that Zuli's way of
Speaker 1: doing police work was habitual, unlawful, and traceable across cases,
Speaker 1: so she could show a judge that what happened to
Speaker 1: Lee was part of a pattern, not an accident. Jennifer
Speaker 1: knows it's time to dig in, and not just on
Speaker 1: Lee's case, but all of Zuli's cases across his entire career.
Speaker 2: You have to lay out every case and then you
Speaker 2: have to look again and again and again. It is very,
Speaker 2: very time consuming, tedious work.
Speaker 1: But there was no way, Jennifer was going to be
Speaker 1: put off. See, a special kind of fire was brewing
Speaker 1: in her belly when it came to Dick Richard Zuli,
Speaker 1: a man she'd never met, but who case by case,
Speaker 1: she felt she was starting to develop a pretty clear
Speaker 1: picture of To be sure, Zuli had never been charged
Speaker 1: with the crime, but it was safe to say he
Speaker 1: had touched a nerve.
Speaker 2: He epitomizes the type of personality I cannot stand. Someone
Speaker 2: who thinks they're smarter than everyone else, someone who's gotten
Speaker 2: away with it their entire life and has been rewarded
Speaker 2: for that behavior, which only compounds their ego and drive
Speaker 2: to keep doing the bad things.
Speaker 1: Her journey into Zuli's career was going to take her
Speaker 1: from the urban epicenter of the American Midwest all the
Speaker 1: way to a remote US outpost etched into the edge
Speaker 1: of Cuba's southeastern coast.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure exactly what it is, but I'm very
Speaker 2: determined to take him down.
Speaker 1: I'm Dax Devlin Ross and from iHeartMedia. This is Crime
Speaker 1: Wolf episode eight, The Detective. So who is Detective Richard
Speaker 1: Patrick Zulie. Well, it really depends on who you ask.
Speaker 1: Here's what we know about his early life. He was
Speaker 1: born on October third, nineteen forty six. He had a
Speaker 1: route around age ten and was flipping burgers by thirteen.
Speaker 1: At twenty, he joined the Marine Corps and then went
Speaker 1: on to serve as an officer in the United States Navy.
Speaker 1: That's when things start to get a little more complicated,
Speaker 1: and depending on who you ask, you might get very
Speaker 1: different answers. Here's one version. In nineteen seventy he embarked
Speaker 1: on a distinguished thirty seven year career in the Chicago
Speaker 1: Police Department. As a detective, he would make a name
Speaker 1: for himself, closing case after case, cases like the Dane
Speaker 1: of Feitler murder. He even managed to study for a
Speaker 1: master's during this time in criminal social justice. His calling
Speaker 1: card as a detective a knack for getting confessions. In
Speaker 1: the early two thousands, he was sent on a special
Speaker 1: assignment to Guantanamo Bay soon after the nine eleven terror attacks.
Speaker 1: After two years, he returned to his role as a
Speaker 1: Chicago Police detective before finally retiring on a full police
Speaker 1: pension aged sixty one in two thousand and seven. There's
Speaker 1: another version of Zuli's story, a version that Lee and
Speaker 1: others like him swear by, and unfortunately for them, it's
Speaker 1: loaded with allegations of corruption, cunning and cruelty. Claims of
Speaker 1: brutal interrogation techniques that broke bodies and minds, allegations of
Speaker 1: prolonged shackling, threats veiled and not so veiled to loved ones,
Speaker 1: allegations of extreme pressure on suspects to implicate themselves and
Speaker 1: others guilty or not, And through it all, not surprisingly
Speaker 1: black Chicagoans claimed that they were his primary prey. Oh
Speaker 1: in that stint in Guantanamo, a devastating crescendo of the
Speaker 1: techniques he had honed in Chicago. We invited Richard Zuli
Speaker 1: onto the podcast to put all these points to him,
Speaker 1: but he declined. He is always publicly denied any wrongdoing.
Speaker 1: So to get a picture of the man, we thought
Speaker 1: we'd speak to some people who did meet him. Back
Speaker 1: in the early nineteen nineties, when the attorney Andrea Line,
Speaker 1: our Angel of death Row, was working on Lee's case.
Speaker 1: Zuli was over a decade into his career as a
Speaker 1: dick and already considered something of a star, but it
Speaker 1: was the first time Andrea had come across him. Others
Speaker 1: may have been charmed by his bravado or impressed by
Speaker 1: his intellect. She read him right off the bat.
Speaker 4: I was one of the first who ever caught and
Speaker 4: on to what he was doing. And people were like, Oh,
Speaker 4: he's such a smart guy. No, he is a fucking
Speaker 4: bad guy. I'm sorry about my language.
Speaker 1: For her, there was just some obvious power dynamics at
Speaker 1: play when it came to her client, Lee Harris.
Speaker 4: Part of it was that he was just a bully,
Speaker 4: and I could see how Lee would say or do
Speaker 4: what Zulie wanted him to. I could see it.
Speaker 1: Andrea alleges that this bullying extended to her as well.
Speaker 1: In the run up to Lee's trial, Andrea thought she'd
Speaker 1: subpoena the police records for the case, basically get a
Speaker 1: court order to make CPD hand over the files. It
Speaker 1: was a long shot, but you never know what might
Speaker 1: come to light anyway when she gets them back. There's
Speaker 1: a tantalizing detail. The hotel that Lee was being put
Speaker 1: up in back when he was the star witness and
Speaker 1: the Dana Fightler case was being paid for by Detective
Speaker 1: Richard Zuli on his personal credit card. No less, Okay,
Speaker 1: so maybe he was going to recoup his outlays on
Speaker 1: his expense report. But Andrea wonders, if he's paying for this,
Speaker 1: what else could he be paying for, So she issues
Speaker 1: another subpoena, this time for six months worth of Richard
Speaker 1: Zuli's personal records. This gets Zuli's attention, and well, he
Speaker 1: kind of just starts making cameos. And Andrea life, he.
Speaker 4: Was waiting by my car one time in the parking
Speaker 4: lot across the street in twenty sixth Street. There's a
Speaker 4: parking lot that the public defenders and everyone cops us,
Speaker 4: and you're a standing right by my car. He waited
Speaker 4: after court to tell me that he knew my address
Speaker 4: and where my mother lived and stuff like that. And
Speaker 4: I said, asked him if he was lost.
Speaker 1: I think. Another time, when Andrea is in the Illinois
Speaker 1: Supreme Court giving an oral argument in a different case,
Speaker 1: she looks up and there he is, Detective Richard Zuli,
Speaker 1: in the middle of the audience.
Speaker 4: I tried to act like it didn't bother me. I'm
Speaker 4: not telling you it didn't bother me. Okay, I'm not
Speaker 4: telling you that I didn't find him frightening.
Speaker 1: Andrea says this behavior went on for a period of months,
Speaker 1: made worse by the fact that she had a small
Speaker 1: baby at the time. He also made an official complaint
Speaker 1: against her to the Attorney Registration Commission. Never in that
Speaker 1: period did Zuli physically threatened her, but says Andrea, he
Speaker 1: didn't need to.
Speaker 4: He wasn't like physically intimidating particularly, He was just he
Speaker 4: had that look that I'm going to do whatever it takes.
Speaker 3: Look, that's all I can tell you.
Speaker 1: We put all these points to Richard Zuli, but he
Speaker 1: declined to comment. Those were Andrea's impressions of Zuli all
Speaker 1: the way back in the early nineties, but had time
Speaker 1: changed him. In twenty eighteen, Tory Marlin, the investigative reporter,
Speaker 1: is putting the final touches on her piece about Lee
Speaker 1: and Robert. She knows she wants to get some answers
Speaker 1: from Detective Richard Zuli. He's now seventy two, still living
Speaker 1: in Chicago. What was his take on the Lee Harris case?
Speaker 1: Now she takes another long flight across the country back
Speaker 1: to the Windy City.
Speaker 5: So it was December day in Chicago. I drove to
Speaker 5: his house on the northwest side of Chicago. It was
Speaker 5: a quiet residential street. I'd written a note in advance,
Speaker 5: introducing myself and requesting an interview. My plan was to
Speaker 5: put my note in his mailbox. I really didn't expect
Speaker 5: him to be there or to answer the door to.
Speaker 1: Talk to me, but lo and behold.
Speaker 5: I was surprised when he answered the door, and I
Speaker 5: was glad. I was really happy about that. I truly
Speaker 5: wanted to talk to him. So I stood on his
Speaker 5: stoop and I introduced myself. He stood in the doorframe
Speaker 5: and we talked for a bit, long enough for me
Speaker 5: to be really cold.
Speaker 3: He didn't invite me in.
Speaker 5: He just stood in the doorframe.
Speaker 1: Being the professional that she is. Tory can't deviled everything
Speaker 1: that was exchanged on that threshold.
Speaker 5: What I can say is that he remembered Lee, and
Speaker 5: he was aware of Robert, and he spoke of Lee
Speaker 5: in a way that I thought was demeaning. And he
Speaker 5: you peopled me as part of the media and railed
Speaker 5: against what he called a cottage industry that had sprung
Speaker 5: up to reinvestigate convictions. He was riled up. He was
Speaker 5: not happy to see me, and his demeanor was, you know,
Speaker 5: he was looming over me.
Speaker 4: And.
Speaker 5: If he didn't quite point his finger in my face.
Speaker 5: It certainly felt like that kind of interaction. It was
Speaker 5: very clear to me that I wouldn't want to be
Speaker 5: interrogated by him, and I could understand why it would
Speaker 5: be intimidating to be interrogated by him, and why you'd
Speaker 5: want to end the interrogation as quickly as possible.
Speaker 3: Like that was.
Speaker 5: That was something.
Speaker 6: All fume.
Speaker 1: Over the years, the friends mused about the things they
Speaker 1: would do to Zuli, beat him up, give him a
Speaker 1: taste of his own medicine, But of late Lee had
Speaker 1: been getting way more philosophical cure.
Speaker 3: You may start the conversation.
Speaker 6: Now, what's happening, man? How are you? I'm not frillant?
Speaker 7: Are you feeling Yeah, I'm all right, I'm all right.
Speaker 6: Do you want me crazy? Sure? And what's that? You
Speaker 6: don't not really that bad at it?
Speaker 5: Go up?
Speaker 8: Okay? Because because you act? Because when I get bad
Speaker 8: at it? Then if it's little.
Speaker 1: Crazy working yourself into a frenzy, fantasizing about someone else's suffering,
Speaker 1: even if you feel justified, those can be dangerous pastimes
Speaker 1: when you're doing time. Strong chance you're the one who's
Speaker 1: gonna get hurt. Lee somehow had to find other distractions
Speaker 1: Alongside his regular phone calls with Robert and Jennifer, he
Speaker 1: would check in with other family and friends, his son Jermaine,
Speaker 1: who was by now an adult himself. Then there was
Speaker 1: the letter writing, keeping up with the paperwork on his case,
Speaker 1: but more leisurely pursuits as well, like checking in with
Speaker 1: one of his many female admirers from the Facebook group.
Speaker 1: You can be sure that a real ladies man was
Speaker 1: not gonna let prison stand in his way. Singing in
Speaker 1: the prison choir, going to church a lot, playing chess,
Speaker 1: chatting to other inmates, even prison guards. Lee found any
Speaker 1: way he could defend off the rage and the monotony.
Speaker 1: He worked too, at one point taking up a job
Speaker 1: in the prison canteen. But when your weakness is food,
Speaker 1: that can become its own unhealthy coping mechanism.
Speaker 6: I think I'm about eight now eight, yeah, keep going,
Speaker 6: then five eight, I'm five to eighty. Yeah, you get more.
Speaker 6: Actually I do get more action, You're right about that,
Speaker 6: But come on, man, to five eight, I'm making a cute.
Speaker 6: You know. That's another reason I need to leave here,
Speaker 6: because they have to say no. Well from brand and Cookies, Well,
Speaker 6: we'll get you out of there.
Speaker 7: You don't want to have to go on a certain diet.
Speaker 1: Then joking aside, it's something Lee knows he needs to
Speaker 1: take seriously. Over the years, he's had more and more
Speaker 1: incidences of poor health, headaches, blackouts, visits to the nurse
Speaker 1: with a weak heart, blood sugar spikes. Both Robert and
Speaker 1: Jennifer are on his case. But see, with Lee, you
Speaker 1: never know when he's just telling you what you want
Speaker 1: to hear my big problem.
Speaker 6: I thought you were going to say all the time. No,
Speaker 6: I'm just kidding now.
Speaker 7: That's cool though, man, I mean you were a you're
Speaker 7: a thin guy.
Speaker 9: Man.
Speaker 7: I see that picture of you in that police station.
Speaker 7: It's you know, it's amazing. It's amazing how different you are.
Speaker 7: I can tell you're like a young start.
Speaker 9: That's for sure.
Speaker 1: The truth is Lee is different in so many ways.
Speaker 1: Years of wrongful incarceration with the mental and physical string
Speaker 1: and that entails the numerous attempts at seeking justice, with
Speaker 1: rejections from seemingly every corner, growing ill health, the world
Speaker 1: outside changing at breakneck speed. Even the prisoners now coming
Speaker 1: into the prison were becoming increasingly alien to Lee.
Speaker 6: He's gonna be nuts, Yeah, I bet, I bet you know,
Speaker 6: they pick up the thick up a year, but they
Speaker 6: don't care about nothing.
Speaker 7: Well, yeah, I can imagine.
Speaker 6: They complaint, complaint, they complaint, they complain about everything.
Speaker 1: But as Jennifer is getting closer to putting her case together,
Speaker 1: there's a bigger question looming over Lee, perhaps the biggest
Speaker 1: one of them all. One day, Robert decides to broach it.
Speaker 7: Hey, So, so you ever think about like if you
Speaker 7: get out, like, uh, what what that's gonna be like
Speaker 7: for you psychologically and mentally and stuff?
Speaker 6: Have you?
Speaker 7: Have you even thought about that stuff?
Speaker 6: No? Well, I know it's gotta be I know it's
Speaker 6: gotta be different, you know. I know it's gonna I
Speaker 6: know it's gonna be an Jeff.
Speaker 7: I mean, it's gonna be some like Vietnam type shit,
Speaker 7: you know, even worse. I mean we're talking a thirty
Speaker 7: year stint here, you know. But I mean, like, really
Speaker 7: start thinking about certain things.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 7: It's like, what's it gonna be like to go up
Speaker 7: and prepare your own food, to wake up in the
Speaker 7: middle of the night and decide that you want to
Speaker 7: warm something up, And the fact that you go walk
Speaker 7: into a restaurant and order some off a menu, and
Speaker 7: it's just it's just a totally different life.
Speaker 6: Mean, that's gonna be that's.
Speaker 8: Gonna be different.
Speaker 6: You know, just to wake up in the middle of
Speaker 6: the ninety fact, pick.
Speaker 7: A walk right, to be able to move around, to
Speaker 7: be able to just leave your environment, the things that
Speaker 7: we take for granted every day. You know, the noises
Speaker 7: are different. All of a sudden, you wake up and
Speaker 7: you can leave. You haven't made a decision for yourself
Speaker 7: or any of that stuff. And it's like, Lee, I was.
Speaker 7: I was in for less than thirty six months. I
Speaker 7: think thirty two is what I did. And and even
Speaker 7: for me, I was shell shot coming out. Just walking
Speaker 7: up to the freaking fast food counter and going to
Speaker 7: a double cheeseburger was weird, especially when you have to
Speaker 7: go in your pocket and pay for it. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 6: Before up used to just go up to the tower
Speaker 6: all get for being.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, I mean that's some real stuff. Man.
Speaker 1: These thoughts about a life beyond the institution, where you're
Speaker 1: free to be the master of your own destiny begin
Speaker 1: to swirl and leaves mind. The next day, he's back
Speaker 1: on the phone to Robert.
Speaker 3: You may start the conversation now, right, Hey, what's up?
Speaker 7: Say?
Speaker 6: I thought about the question you ask me, What would
Speaker 6: I do well? If I walked up the door? Hey?
Speaker 6: Would you believe that?
Speaker 8: The more I thought about it, the more nervous I became,
Speaker 8: because I mean I would be walking out of here
Speaker 8: in a new world.
Speaker 6: Without stopping.
Speaker 7: Now you'd have me, man, you got everything.
Speaker 1: Jennifer Black was in her own world of anguish. It
Speaker 1: was now twenty twenty one. She'd been on Lee's case
Speaker 1: for six years, going deep on her research and detective
Speaker 1: Zuli's career, but still not quite ready to present all
Speaker 1: the evidence.
Speaker 2: At some point, I started feeling like, Okay, I'm the
Speaker 2: person who has to make a happy ending to this story.
Speaker 6: It is on me.
Speaker 3: And it was a little overwhelming, a lot overwhelming.
Speaker 2: I mean I did a deep dive trying to find
Speaker 2: anything I could from people who had worked with Zuli
Speaker 2: at that time.
Speaker 1: She wonders about Zuli's time in Guantanamo, a world away
Speaker 1: from Chicago on the surface, or was it. During his
Speaker 1: time in Guantanamo, Zuli had overseen an infamous interrogation of
Speaker 1: Mohammad ud Slahi, the Maritanian engineer who had been brought
Speaker 1: in for questioning, not long after the nine to eleven
Speaker 1: terror attacks. There was only one issue he wouldn't confess to.
Speaker 2: Well, anything, I mean, Guantanamo stuff is like really really
Speaker 2: mind blowing. And you look at what he did to Slahe,
Speaker 2: and it is just this is what's interesting. They call
Speaker 2: it an enhanced interrogation.
Speaker 1: Enhanced, according to Slahee, was code word for an array
Speaker 1: of demeaning and brutal torture tactics, and when those didn't
Speaker 1: yield a confession, a falsified letter saying Slahee's mother would
Speaker 1: be hauled into Guantanamo was the thing that finally made
Speaker 1: him crumble. He began to confess statement after statement implicating
Speaker 1: himself in acts of terror that he did not commit.
Speaker 2: It's his cheating and sadistic mind on steroids where he
Speaker 2: is able to live out like his darkest fantasies.
Speaker 1: We put this point specifically to Richard Zuli. He declined
Speaker 1: to comment. Back in twenty fifteen, when the Guardian article
Speaker 1: at first alerted Lee, Robert and Jennifer to Zuli's overseas excursion,
Speaker 1: Mohammadu was still behind bars in Guantanamo, but now in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, Jennifer wonders if he could give Lee's
Speaker 1: case a helping hand. Finally, after lots of phone calls
Speaker 1: with his lawyer, she finally convinces him to talk.
Speaker 2: When I was able to talk to Mohammadu, I remember
Speaker 2: I was sitting in my backyard. It was a nice day,
Speaker 2: and it was via Zoom, and I remember taking notes
Speaker 2: and talking to him, and it was so.
Speaker 3: Powerful.
Speaker 1: He tells Jennifer about some of the horrifying acts inflicted
Speaker 1: on him during his fourteen year detainment.
Speaker 3: It's such a powerful story and when you hear him
Speaker 3: say it, you feel it.
Speaker 1: Mohammadu tells Jennifer that even though the acts of brutality
Speaker 1: were never personally carried out by him, he felt that
Speaker 1: Zuli was the architect of his torture. After their Zoom call,
Speaker 1: Jennifer convinces Slahi to make an official contribution to Lee's petition.
Speaker 2: That was a huge accomplishment, having him agree to talk
Speaker 2: to us, be willing to sign an AFFI day, get
Speaker 2: a declaration for him.
Speaker 3: And I still remember that he called Zuli diabolical.
Speaker 1: Zuli is a diabolical man. I cannot imagine that I
Speaker 1: am the first person he sought to frame for a
Speaker 1: crime they did not commit. For that reason, I believe
Speaker 1: every case in which he was a lead detective should
Speaker 1: be reviewed by the Cook County State's Attorney's office. Zuli
Speaker 1: has never publicly admitted to framing anyone for crimes they
Speaker 1: did not commit. We reached out specifically about these points,
Speaker 1: but he declined to comment. As recently as twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: In a deposition in another case, when asked about his
Speaker 1: time in Guantanamo Bay, he said he was sent there
Speaker 1: as a liaison officer for the European Command. When asked
Speaker 1: if he was sent there to conduct interrogations, his answer
Speaker 1: was no, and his attorney allowed no further questions. Jennifer's
Speaker 1: claims against Detective Zuli were growing and growing, the unethical
Speaker 1: use of informants, the Brady violation, and now this damning
Speaker 1: statement from Slahe but she wanted more, and she was
Speaker 1: convinced there must be something in Zuli's own police reports.
Speaker 1: And by now Jennifer had gotten up close and personal
Speaker 1: with dig Zuli's police reports from across his career.
Speaker 3: He's like a bad detective novelist.
Speaker 2: When you read his police reports, you can tell this
Speaker 2: asshole wants to write books like he.
Speaker 3: Thinks he's hot shit and he thinks he's right. Like
Speaker 3: in the confession. Invariably, Zuli comes in and he's like,
Speaker 3: give it up, I know you did it, And then
Speaker 3: he writes they broke down.
Speaker 2: He webb, he said I did it, and then he
Speaker 2: explained everything that happened, like you got me, Dick Zulee.
Speaker 1: His sophomore pros aside, there was something else that was
Speaker 1: bugging her about the reports Zuli had written throughout Lee's case.
Speaker 1: She just didn't quite know what. So Jennifer decides she
Speaker 1: needs to go back through all of Zuli's paperwork during
Speaker 1: the daya Feitler case what they call the gprs, or
Speaker 1: general progress reports.
Speaker 2: There were two sets of general progress reports. One set
Speaker 2: a complete set that was unsigned and unapproved. There was
Speaker 2: another set that had been signed by Zuli and approved
Speaker 2: by a supervisor.
Speaker 1: In case you're wondering, it is common practice for police
Speaker 1: to write reports by hand first, then to type them
Speaker 1: up soon after.
Speaker 3: There were mirror copies of each other. In large part,
Speaker 3: if you were reading one and then later you read another,
Speaker 3: the gist of it was the same.
Speaker 1: But then Jennifer starts reading them all together, and that's
Speaker 1: when an all together different picture starts to emerge.
Speaker 2: In the signed copies, Zuli had added things or rewritten
Speaker 2: them and taken things out. But you wouldn't realize the
Speaker 2: subtleties of things he had added until you laid them
Speaker 2: side by side and started comparing the me I had
Speaker 2: to compare word for word.
Speaker 1: Jennifer rolls up her sleeves.
Speaker 9: I have quite a few folders here one, two, three, four, six, seven, eight, eighteen,
Speaker 9: twenty one.
Speaker 3: So twenty one folders, and these are just related.
Speaker 1: To Lee highlighter penned the ready. She starts to compare reports.
Speaker 3: So I ended up printing out every report that Zuli authored.
Speaker 1: We sit down together and she shows me the pattern
Speaker 1: she began to find. At first, it's just small differences.
Speaker 3: At the top of the second one, there's a phone
Speaker 3: number on the original that's not.
Speaker 1: Here, a number changed tier, a word changed there.
Speaker 2: There's little things that you see added that I've highlighted.
Speaker 2: A little word on the unsigned it says one guy
Speaker 2: got on a bus and Ford went west on Division
Speaker 2: to a south side street.
Speaker 1: Or was one of the people Lee had originally named
Speaker 1: as one of the perpetrators.
Speaker 2: Zulie added, in this one, one guy got on a
Speaker 2: bus and possibly Ford went west, because it ended up
Speaker 2: not being Ford that they were targeting.
Speaker 1: Now things were starting to get interesting. It looked like
Speaker 1: the reports were changing to mirror changes in the case.
Speaker 1: And the more Jennifer compared, the more she was seeing.
Speaker 2: Lee had so many statements and they all changed, And
Speaker 2: I wanted to be able if I could to point
Speaker 2: to something the police knew close in time to where
Speaker 2: a statement changed, and.
Speaker 1: She finds it does over and over. Perhaps the most
Speaker 1: clear example was a new piece of information that the
Speaker 1: Fighter family had supplied to the police. Only back when
Speaker 1: Lee was their star witness.
Speaker 2: Dana's family called and said that Dana's Cardier watch was missing,
Speaker 2: really classic timeless Cardier watch, very expensive, and immediately thereafter
Speaker 2: Lee's statement said that they had taken a Cardier watch
Speaker 2: from Dana.
Speaker 1: And what about how later down the line, when the
Speaker 1: police had switched on Lee and he had become the
Speaker 1: prime suspect.
Speaker 3: Here a witness told the police that Lee was not
Speaker 3: a shooter. And in the final typed up report that
Speaker 3: evidence is omitted.
Speaker 1: Because the final type of report should actually just comport yes,
Speaker 1: should be just like, actually just taking that and putting
Speaker 1: that there all.
Speaker 3: Relevant facts, and I think it's fairly relevant if somebody
Speaker 3: is telling the police Lee's not a shooter.
Speaker 1: And then something even more revealing.
Speaker 2: So this is the one where I was like, oh
Speaker 2: my god, Like I became very aware from this that
Speaker 2: he was adding things to comport with the witness's testimony
Speaker 2: at trial.
Speaker 1: A witness at Lee's trial had detailed the exact location
Speaker 1: of a car that he said had been used by
Speaker 1: the prime suspects. A diagram of the location was in
Speaker 1: one of the police reports.
Speaker 3: And under the diagram on the unsigned there's nothing, but.
Speaker 1: In the final report, the officially signed one, there was
Speaker 1: suddenly a whole bunch of information backing up the witness
Speaker 1: statement from Lee's trial.
Speaker 2: What this is basically doing is making Lee's statement comport
Speaker 2: with where the car was found that the man said
Speaker 2: where he saw the people by the car. So that's
Speaker 2: when I'm like, Okay, totally, he's totally doctoring this stuff up.
Speaker 1: And Jennifer was starting to understand exactly how Zuli was
Speaker 1: making reports written in nineteen eighty nine match things that
Speaker 1: witnesses would go on to say over two years later
Speaker 1: at Lee's trial.
Speaker 2: What I learned after I put all this together is
Speaker 2: all of these gprs were submitted and approved on the
Speaker 2: same date, October twenty fourth of ninety I think all
Speaker 2: of them.
Speaker 3: It's after the theory of the case is done that he.
Speaker 2: Submits all these and puts it together, So a year
Speaker 2: and four months something like that after the offense.
Speaker 3: There's nothing with editing a report. I edit every post
Speaker 3: conviction that I file.
Speaker 2: It's when things are edited to add facts that you
Speaker 2: didn't have, just so you can establish probable cause or
Speaker 2: ad facts so the testimony comports with what you thought
Speaker 2: witness was a trial that were never said before.
Speaker 1: It was finally time, after six years in the case,
Speaker 1: Jennifer felt she had enough material to put together her petition.
Speaker 2: I have a terrible reputation at the courthouse for having
Speaker 2: very long petitions, Like everybody rolls their eyes.
Speaker 3: I'm like, it's mostly exhibits. They're like, no, it's not,
Speaker 3: it's not.
Speaker 1: And this one was going to be no different.
Speaker 2: What I viewed Lee's case as is this is a
Speaker 2: seminal zu Lee case. So it was a really, really,
Speaker 2: really voluminous.
Speaker 3: Petition that had a lot of arguments, a lot of facts.
Speaker 2: I had to somehow hope that I could convey to
Speaker 2: the reader all the work I had done and the
Speaker 2: arguments that I thought the world supported in a way
Speaker 2: that was cogent and understandable.
Speaker 3: It was very difficult.
Speaker 1: But if Lee is to stand a chance, Jennifer knows
Speaker 1: she needs to throw everything She's gotted this.
Speaker 2: It's like the eminem you know you've got one shot, don't.
Speaker 3: Based on what I believed to be.
Speaker 1: True, this was going to be his only chance for
Speaker 1: Robert and Lee. This was the culmination of twenty years
Speaker 1: of fighting together.
Speaker 7: So my mantra to Lee Harris was, we need to
Speaker 7: get to sing into court. Everything is on the line.
Speaker 7: We need to get to court. Once we're in court,
Speaker 7: we can put our feet up, sit back and relax
Speaker 7: and let.
Speaker 6: The system work.
Speaker 7: And the moment she filed it, I went and bought
Speaker 7: a six pack of something, probably shine or box, went
Speaker 7: to my little quiet spot that I go to, and
Speaker 7: I sat there and drank them and celebrated.
Speaker 6: It was the biggest deal ever.
Speaker 7: I felt like, Okay, now we're going to find out.
Speaker 7: Now we're going somewhere.
Speaker 1: Crying Wolf is an iHeart and clockwork Films podcast in
Speaker 1: association with Chalk and Blade. I'm your host Dax Devlin Ross.
Speaker 1: The series producer is Sarah Stolart's. The senior producer is
Speaker 1: Laura Hyde. The series script is written by me and
Speaker 1: by Sarah Stolart's. Bonus episodes are written and produced by
Speaker 1: Me Dax Devlin Ross. Our executive producers are Christina Everett
Speaker 1: for iHeart Podcasts, Naomi Harvey and Jamie Cohen for Clockwork Films,
Speaker 1: and Ruth Barnes and Jason Phipps for Chalk and Blade.
Speaker 1: Sound design is by Kenny Koziak and George dre bing Hicks.
Speaker 1: Our theme music is by Kenny Koziak. Additional production support
Speaker 1: from Stephen Pate.