Speaker 1: Hello everybody. Once again, this is Connor Hall, the producer
Speaker 1: for Wrongful Conviction, filling in for Jason Vlahm. I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoy it. On February twenty fourth, nineteen ninety eight,
Speaker 1: eighty four year old Minnesotan Evelyn Mallin was discovered in
Speaker 1: her ransacked bedroom, strangled and beaten to death. Her small
Speaker 1: apartment was attached to her convenience store, but the store
Speaker 1: was undisturbed, including any signs of forced entry. There was
Speaker 1: a broken basement window, but it appeared to have been
Speaker 1: broken from the inside out. Yet, instead of focusing on
Speaker 1: personal or business relations with access to keys, the investigation
Speaker 1: targeted an Indigenous man named Brian Pippott and four of
Speaker 1: his male relatives, despite no evidence connecting them to the scene,
Speaker 1: credible alibis, and an equally incredible theory of guilt. One
Speaker 1: of them made a statement. Two more pled. One was acquitted,
Speaker 1: but Brian wasn't so lucky. This is wrongful conviction.
Speaker 2: Wrongful conviction has always given voice to innocent people in prison,
Speaker 2: and now we're expanding that voice to you. Call us
Speaker 2: at eight three, three, two oh seven, four six sixty
Speaker 2: six and tell us how these stories make you feel
Speaker 2: and what you've done to help the cause, even if
Speaker 2: it's something as simple as telling a friend or sharing
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Speaker 2: a future episode call us eight three three, two oh
Speaker 2: seven four six sixty six.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction, where we have a story
Speaker 1: about a group of indigenous men about an hour's drive
Speaker 1: north of Minneapolis, Saint Paul, the Malax Band of Vojaboy
Speaker 1: to be exact, but the theory of their involvement and
Speaker 1: the murder was so lazy and full of holes that
Speaker 1: authorities must have known it was also full of something else.
Speaker 1: And joining us to tell his story, still in Minnesota
Speaker 1: prison is Brian Pippott. Welcome Brian, and to help tell
Speaker 1: this story an attorney and investigator from probably the original
Speaker 1: innocence organization in this country, Centurion Ministries. Jim Cousins Welcome well,
Speaker 1: thank you, and before we even begin with Brian's personal history,
Speaker 1: I'd like to recognize the history of the Malax Band
Speaker 1: of Ojibweh as well as their relations throughout the area,
Speaker 1: whose roots are on the East coast, but as Europeans
Speaker 1: began their continental conquest about five hundred years ago, the
Speaker 1: Ojibwe were forced into a nomadic lifestyle. They eventually allied
Speaker 1: themselves with the French in the Seven Years War, a
Speaker 1: relationship evidenced even by the name Lacks. It's French for
Speaker 1: a Thousand Lakes, a reference to the Great Lakes area
Speaker 1: in which the Jojubwe eventually settled a little over two
Speaker 1: hundred years ago, and where they were later recognized by
Speaker 1: the US government as a sovereign nation. Spread among various reservations,
Speaker 1: some of which were in Aitkin County, Minnesota.
Speaker 3: Well, Aikin County includes the town or city of Aiken itself,
Speaker 3: and about twenty miles from there is a town called McGregor.
Speaker 3: That's where there's a small Native American reservation called the
Speaker 3: Sandy Lake Reservation. I understand that there's a fair degree
Speaker 3: of tension between the white community, law enforcement authorities from
Speaker 3: the Aiken County Sheriff's office, and the Native American community.
Speaker 1: That tension has made headlines in recent years as the
Speaker 1: current sheriff, Daniel Gaida, it appears, has accepted financial support
Speaker 1: from an oil conglomerate called Enbridge, and then it just
Speaker 1: so happens that protesters were treated pretty roughly for seeking
Speaker 1: to protect clean drinking water in the area where Brian
Speaker 1: was raised.
Speaker 4: List McGregor, mister two of malaccs the Sandy Lake Indian Reservation.
Speaker 4: We moved up in the late eighties to Sandy Lake
Speaker 4: and a mother. She rented a parcel land up there
Speaker 4: for a dollar for fifty years and had a house built.
Speaker 4: She kept adding on to the house. She wanted a
Speaker 4: place for everyone, and we all lived in alsos around
Speaker 4: the Sandy Lake area. Had some brothers and they have
Speaker 4: all passed, and we had some good times going swimming
Speaker 4: in the lakes, going fishing, going hunt trapping with my
Speaker 4: uncles in the wintertime, harvesting deer, using everything of the
Speaker 4: tier and giving thanks for the deer, and offering tobacco.
Speaker 1: Despite ugly efforts to the contrary, the Ojuboy and other
Speaker 1: Indigenous nations have been able to maintain their culture and
Speaker 1: self governance well. Folks like Ojiboy Elder Marge Anderson were
Speaker 1: able to make strides for their nations with the US government,
Speaker 1: like the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 1: which brought much needed economic opportunities to their nation. In fact,
Speaker 1: on February twenty third, nineteen ninety eight, Brian had accompanied
Speaker 1: his nephew, Michael mus Squattis to an interview at one
Speaker 1: of those casinos.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Mike Squads my sister Anita's son. He had a
Speaker 4: job interview that day and upon the radio for I
Speaker 4: don't know, thirty dollars or something for some extra money
Speaker 4: to go to a casino. I didn't drive at that
Speaker 4: time that I had a ride with him and my
Speaker 4: other nephew, Brandon.
Speaker 1: By all accounts, the trio returned to the area around
Speaker 1: eight thirty PM, and Brian was home for the night
Speaker 1: by ten. Then the following morning, February twenty fourth, nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety eight, eighty four year old Evelyn Mallin's body was
Speaker 1: to discovered in her bedroom in nearby tiny Shamrock Township.
Speaker 3: The building is very small and houses not only her bedroom,
Speaker 3: but also a little convenience store that has some three
Speaker 3: point two beer and cigarettes and other sundry items. And
Speaker 3: piecing together some of the witness testimony, she's probably murdered
Speaker 3: the night before, sometime between ten and ten thirty in
Speaker 3: the morning, her daughter, Norma Horner went to the store
Speaker 3: with her boyfriend Gerald Horsemen, and they knocked on the door.
Speaker 3: They knocked on the windows, they didn't get a response.
Speaker 3: They went around to the back door. There was a
Speaker 3: skeleton key broken off from the inside of the back door,
Speaker 3: so they couldn't open it, so they called nine to
Speaker 3: one one Aiken County Sheriff's Department. Kicking the back door,
Speaker 3: they find Evelyn Male and the victim in her bedroom.
Speaker 3: That she was strangled and beaten rather savagely, and there
Speaker 3: was fecal matter on her too. Now that may have
Speaker 3: been that she evacuated as a result of being strangled
Speaker 3: and beaten, but there's some other theories that who the
Speaker 3: ever of the assailant was took some vehicle matter from
Speaker 3: a little there's a bowl, I mean, there's no indoor
Speaker 3: plumbing in the store and through that on her. I
Speaker 3: don't know whether that's true or not. But they didn't
Speaker 3: see her immediately because her bedroom was ransacked. Things are
Speaker 3: thrown all over the place, and she was tossed off
Speaker 3: her ben There was a mattress on top of her.
Speaker 3: And then they went around throughout the building. They noted
Speaker 3: that the front and door locks were locked. They noted
Speaker 3: that a basement window was broken, and the store portion
Speaker 3: is utterly untouched.
Speaker 4: The back room was ripped apart, like whoever did that
Speaker 4: was looking for something particular.
Speaker 3: Thereafter, they interviewed Gerald Horseman and Norma Horner. Gerald Horseman
Speaker 3: was responsible for some of the inventory in the little store,
Speaker 3: and he told them at the time that there was
Speaker 3: no beer, no cigarettes missing. Subsequently, Merle Maylon, the victim's son,
Speaker 3: came up from his home in New Mexico several days
Speaker 3: after the murder. Theoretically there was some cash in a
Speaker 3: white envelope that she used to keep that he thought
Speaker 3: was missing.
Speaker 1: Initially, Gerald Horseman thought so too, as well as a checkbook,
Speaker 1: but both turned up. Yet Merle Mallin continued to allege
Speaker 1: that other items were missing.
Speaker 4: There was a mention of guns missing, biers, televisions, all
Speaker 4: kinds of stuff, and they were flying over the reservation
Speaker 4: looking in swamps for the stuff. And then oh no,
Speaker 4: this wasn't missing. Miss was a missing. Messing was missing.
Speaker 4: At trial he said, oh, we found them money.
Speaker 1: But Merle Malan has always maintained that beer, cigarettes, and
Speaker 1: a gun were stolen, which propped up the state's theory
Speaker 1: a robbery turned homicide. Despite what Horsemen, who actually kept
Speaker 1: the store's inventory has maintained all along that the store
Speaker 1: was undisturbed and no store items were missing. Interestingly, one
Speaker 1: of the alternative suspects was Merle's son, Mark Mallan.
Speaker 3: The mourning of the murder, relatives actually pointed toward her grandson,
Speaker 3: Mark Maelon and he would help her at the store too,
Speaker 3: so he had access to the store and said that
Speaker 3: he could be violent, particularly was on something, and that
Speaker 3: Evelyn Malan used to give him money, and a couple
Speaker 3: of weeks before this incident, Mark Maelan asked her for
Speaker 3: four or five hundred dollars and it was one of
Speaker 3: the first times when she had refused him money. Others
Speaker 3: subsequently had said, we know that he's been rough with
Speaker 3: his grandmother before and he knows where she hides money
Speaker 3: in the store, but law enforcement didn't really follow up
Speaker 3: on that thread. Another alternative suspect was a man by
Speaker 3: the name of Terry Peat. He evidently was somebody that
Speaker 3: Evelyn Maylen was afraid of, and she expressed that fear
Speaker 3: to some others that bad news is back in town.
Speaker 3: He had been released from being incarcerated, and he had
Speaker 3: asked her to buy some pro pain on credit. And
Speaker 3: she had refused. He subsequently perished when his trailer caught fire.
Speaker 3: Several months later.
Speaker 1: But before the death of Terry Pete, as well as
Speaker 1: the specter of missing cash and dissipated, the rumor mill
Speaker 1: in Aiken County was quite active.
Speaker 3: There were rampant rumors, some of which are clearly untrue,
Speaker 3: that the assailants cut off her finger to take her
Speaker 3: ring off her, the assailants sexually assaulted her. I heard
Speaker 3: it was the Miss Squades. I heard it was this person.
Speaker 3: I heard it was that person. And so mister Bijurga
Speaker 3: from the BCA, which is the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension
Speaker 3: the equivalent of an FBI for the state, and Bruce
Speaker 3: Beck from the Aiken County Sheriff's Office went over to
Speaker 3: interview Michael MSS Squaddes, Keith MS. Squades, and Brandon Miss
Speaker 3: Squades as well. They are all the nephews of Brian Pippott.
Speaker 3: This is within I think a week of the murder.
Speaker 4: And they looked at Keith and checked his body for
Speaker 4: scrapes from Mars. He didn't have any, and they asked
Speaker 4: him where he was he was at home and Mike
Speaker 4: where he was.
Speaker 3: Michael Musquad says, what day is this now, Oh, that
Speaker 3: was the day I had my interview down at the
Speaker 3: Grand Casino. Brandon and my uncle Brian Piptt went with
Speaker 3: me as well. The authorities knew this now. They later
Speaker 3: interrogated Brandon Misquattis, who was fifteen at the time, in
Speaker 3: a very coercive interview where they kept saying to him,
Speaker 3: we know you were there. Your relatives have said you
Speaker 3: were there. Come clean, and he said, no, I wasn't there.
Speaker 3: I wasn't there. I was at the casino. They later
Speaker 3: acknowledged that his alibi was correct. So that's the same
Speaker 3: alibi that Brian Pippott has. So the alibi was established
Speaker 3: quite early on.
Speaker 1: Nevertheless, after a year had gone by, Terry Pete had passed,
Speaker 1: while Merle Mallin kept the specter of a robbery alive
Speaker 1: and the rumor mill led investigators to Brian Pippott, his
Speaker 1: nephews Raymond and Keith Musquattis, as well as his cousins
Speaker 1: Neil King and Don Hill.
Speaker 3: Right after an award had been offered, Don Hill started
Speaker 3: a rumor that Brian Pippott said something along the lines
Speaker 3: of oh, she was already dead when I went in there,
Speaker 3: And then eventually Don Hill starts naming a few of
Speaker 3: these people that ultimately are selected as the assailants. And
Speaker 3: as they started to narrow down some of these rumors,
Speaker 3: they used tactics of saying to one so and so
Speaker 3: said you were there. Now you need to help yourself
Speaker 3: by saying you were there and admitting to things, and
Speaker 3: the first person to the trough gets the best meal
Speaker 3: or something.
Speaker 4: That was the line they used, yes live, threatening all
Speaker 4: your younger kids with long term prison ten and.
Speaker 3: So there was a carousel of interrogations of various people
Speaker 3: until they got somebody to say, okay, I was there,
Speaker 3: and that was Raymond Musquaddes. He had a couple of
Speaker 3: felonies pending, and there had been some rumors about him
Speaker 3: being there and not being there, and he is recanted
Speaker 3: completely and fully, genuinely, in detail and with specificity, and
Speaker 3: if you look at his various statements, I actually have
Speaker 3: a chart as to how they changed over time, you
Speaker 3: can tell he wasn't there.
Speaker 1: Raymond first said that around seven pm they arrived at
Speaker 1: the Dollar Lake store and Brian had kicked in the
Speaker 1: front door, both elements not true. So his story had
Speaker 1: to change alongside the state's narrative until they were the same.
Speaker 3: The state's theory is that these five men were driving
Speaker 3: around drunk and decided that they were going to go
Speaker 3: to the Dollar Lake store. The store was closed with
Speaker 3: the allegation is that Keith Musquades was able to get
Speaker 3: through a basement window, which by the way, would have
Speaker 3: entailed removing panes of glass with the little pieces of
Speaker 3: wood that separate the panes, reaching in and removing two
Speaker 3: wooden slats that were nailed across the window, squeeze down
Speaker 3: through the window, walk across a sandy basement floor, come
Speaker 3: up through a trapdoor, which, as far as we know,
Speaker 3: he would have no idea existed.
Speaker 4: Everybody forgets to mention that there was a chair on
Speaker 4: top of that trap door and it was wedged up
Speaker 4: against the window sill. It was in the police report
Speaker 4: that the police removed the chair from a trap door
Speaker 4: to get down.
Speaker 1: To the basement, so the back door was inoperable, the
Speaker 1: front door was dead bolted shut, and their suspects didn't
Speaker 1: have access to keys. Yet, this basement entry theory was
Speaker 1: still chosen despite its impossibility, and I guess since the
Speaker 1: front door was definitely not kicked in. Raymond changed his
Speaker 1: story from Brian kicking in the front door to an
Speaker 1: intoxicated Keith musquattis wiggling through a jagged basement window. And
Speaker 1: remember they examined him just days after the crime, and
Speaker 1: he didn't have a scratch.
Speaker 3: He said that Keith Musquades cut himself going through the window,
Speaker 3: but Keith Msquades had no cuts on him. There's no
Speaker 3: evidence anywhere that anyone went through that window, no fabric,
Speaker 3: no blood, no skin. There is some cat blood, so
Speaker 3: I guess a cat couldn't get through there without cutting itself.
Speaker 3: So he theoretically comes up opens up the trap door.
Speaker 3: Raymond says that they all came in and out through
Speaker 3: the front door, But we now know that the front
Speaker 3: door was locked with a dead bolt, that you needed
Speaker 3: a key to operate.
Speaker 1: Even with the alleged gymnastics, the theory still doesn't work
Speaker 1: without a front door key. But not according to BCA
Speaker 1: investigator David Bjurga.
Speaker 3: Mister Bjurga was questioned about that locked at the grand jury.
Speaker 3: He was asked, you can't get in and out of
Speaker 3: that door without locking the dead bold? Is that right?
Speaker 3: He said, well, that's right. We don't believe it was locked.
Speaker 3: Why do you think that, Well, because Raymond squads and
Speaker 3: Don Hill said they went through the door, so it
Speaker 3: couldn't have been locked. Well, that's completely circular logic. That's
Speaker 3: not saying anything about the forensics or the physics of
Speaker 3: the scene.
Speaker 4: Again with the door, prosscutter on around and evaded the question, said, well,
Speaker 4: I can't go into that because it's from the whole investigation.
Speaker 3: The theory on the door was that the dead bolt
Speaker 3: lock wasn't really locked. That was just the lock on
Speaker 3: the door handle that you could lock by pulling it shut.
Speaker 3: There's no merit to that whatsoever. The first responders all
Speaker 3: reported that door locked. The crime scene photograph shows that
Speaker 3: the dead bolt door locked. I had a forensic locksmith
Speaker 3: examined that photograph. He said, that's clearly a dead bolt
Speaker 3: and it's clearly locked. And when they took photographs of
Speaker 3: the lock when they disassembled it, they didn't show the
Speaker 3: actual bolt portion of it because that would show you
Speaker 3: that what you see in that photograph a dead bolt
Speaker 3: clearly locked. There's no real getting around that. Now they've
Speaker 3: lost the lock.
Speaker 1: However, Raymond was not aware of those damning specifics in
Speaker 1: real life or in the statements he was making.
Speaker 3: He said that he stayed in the car but he
Speaker 3: heard a crash. They come out with beer and cigarettes,
Speaker 3: and Brian comes out with some kind of bag with
Speaker 3: what they thought was a weapon in it, and the
Speaker 3: theory is that they then went back to Raymond's father's
Speaker 3: house and Keith Musquades and Brian Pippott confessed that they
Speaker 3: had killed Evelyn malon Or when she came out of
Speaker 3: her bedroom, but she didn't come out of her.
Speaker 1: Bedroom, according to other interviewees. BCA investigator David Bijerga routinely
Speaker 1: inserted this unfounded element into his questioning that the victim
Speaker 1: had discovered the assailants in the store and so they
Speaker 1: had to put her down, but the store was undisturbed,
Speaker 1: no signs of a struggle, according to both police reports
Speaker 1: and Gerald Horseman, who also maintained that no store items
Speaker 1: were missing. But instead Raymond conformed his statement to include
Speaker 1: unsubstantiated claims from Merle Mallin, the father of the only
Speaker 1: alternative suspect, about a stolen gun, cigarettes and beer. Mallin
Speaker 1: also testified that his mother wasn't able to lock the door,
Speaker 1: something that it appears he forgot, he had said when
Speaker 1: interviewed years later by a post conviction investigator, and again
Speaker 1: at a two thousand and six PCR hearing when he
Speaker 1: said that she could in fact lock the door. And
Speaker 1: there's even more nonsense to unravel.
Speaker 3: Ramus Squade said they went to an abandoned house that
Speaker 3: used to be his father's on the Sandy Lake Reservation,
Speaker 3: which was probably abandoned the last time he had been
Speaker 3: there years ago, but has since been remodeled and had
Speaker 3: residents in it. He said that they were all driving
Speaker 3: a gold Toronado, but no such car existed, so almost nothing,
Speaker 3: he said, matched with reality.
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Speaker 4: That was a reference that was a year later or something,
Speaker 4: and it was a significant time for me to remember anything.
Speaker 4: So I told him, well, I don't know where I was.
Speaker 4: And it wasn't until I read the report and my
Speaker 4: mother came to visit me, and she said, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: that's that day that I had loaned a vent for
Speaker 4: the job interview and then you wrote along and I said,
Speaker 4: oh yeah, okay, well I would have a pond ticket
Speaker 4: for that data. And I called my investigator and he
Speaker 4: went over there and he's sure enough, there was that
Speaker 4: pon ticket. And it wasn't until later on that I
Speaker 4: was getting the discovery papers that I realized that the
Speaker 4: fat Mike and Brandon and my mother all confirmed my alibi.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in all likelihood this was you know, somebody that
Speaker 1: was related to her or had access to a key, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I remember sitting in the shell and reading a
Speaker 4: discovery and I said, huh, this is an inside job.
Speaker 4: And the police didn't pick up on that. They didn't
Speaker 4: pick up on the doors being locked, didn't pick up
Speaker 4: on the chair being on top of the trap door,
Speaker 4: even the tops he had report, Well, this person had
Speaker 4: a lot of anger towards.
Speaker 1: Her, But that, along with the gaping holes in Raymond's
Speaker 1: and the state's narrative, appear to have been ignored, as
Speaker 1: Raymond was offered five years and his other charges dropped
Speaker 1: to become the state star witness against his four relatives.
Speaker 3: Keith Msquades, Brian and Neil King denied having anything to
Speaker 3: do with it, and deny that to this day. They
Speaker 3: did get a sort of confession from Don Hill, except
Speaker 3: for it kept changing and changing and changing. He was
Speaker 3: going to testify and he would get five years and
Speaker 3: they would forgive some sexual assault pilonies. He never did
Speaker 3: testify because they recognized that nothing this guy said was true,
Speaker 3: even though he still got the deal, which was I
Speaker 3: think less than five years. Same with Raymond.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Brian, Neil and Keith awaited trial in jail, with
Speaker 1: proceedings take plays between nineteen ninety nine and two thousand
Speaker 1: and one.
Speaker 3: Keith msquades he had a first degree sexual assault case
Speaker 3: pending against him. They dismissed that in exchange for his
Speaker 3: Alfred plea on the murder. I think it was manslaughter.
Speaker 3: He had nothing to do with it. He has an
Speaker 3: alibi as well. But he takes this plea on the
Speaker 3: theory that you know, I might be able to survive
Speaker 3: prison better if I'm a murderer as opposed to sexual assault.
Speaker 3: So he takes an Alfred plea. But then he tries
Speaker 3: to withdraw his plea within I think two weeks, and
Speaker 3: that's denied. So he serves I think fifteen years.
Speaker 1: So only Neil and Brian couldn't be coerced into a
Speaker 1: plea deal.
Speaker 3: Neil King has tried first, and he is acquitted by
Speaker 3: the judge at the conclusion of the state's evidence on
Speaker 3: two grounds. One that the only incriminating testimony against him
Speaker 3: was Raymond Musquaddes, who was an accomplice and in Minnesota
Speaker 3: unied corroborating evidence in addition to accomplice evidence. And the
Speaker 3: other thing is that Raymond Squatt said Neil King he
Speaker 3: was drunk in the backseat of the car, So there
Speaker 3: was no clear evidence that, even under Raymond's story, that
Speaker 3: Neil King had gone in and participated in the actual
Speaker 3: homicide or burglary. But in any event, he was acquitted
Speaker 3: based on the principle that there was no corroborating evidence.
Speaker 4: So the state right away started interviewing all my cellmates
Speaker 4: and trying to threaten them and getting them to say
Speaker 4: something against.
Speaker 1: Me, and they found jail house snitch.
Speaker 3: The jail house snitch is a guy by the name
Speaker 3: of Peter Arnaldi. It's a longtime con man, fraudster, and
Speaker 3: so Brian been told this guy knows his way around
Speaker 3: the court system, and Brian said, I've been wrongfully charged here.
Speaker 3: I mean, I said, what should I do? And he
Speaker 3: showed him the criminal complaint.
Speaker 4: I asked him to look at it, and I tell
Speaker 4: him what I'm being charged with. And then he said, well,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna take this to the room, and I'm thinking, okay, well, no,
Speaker 4: I'm going to need that back side grab it back.
Speaker 4: And that's the last I'm not saying there until a
Speaker 4: couple of years later when he was strolls into the
Speaker 4: courtroom wearing the street clothes and I didn't know that
Speaker 4: he was in federal custody for bank robbers and they
Speaker 4: had a player's system and then work it to his advantage.
Speaker 3: Peter Arnaldi subsequently says that Brian confessed this crime to me.
Speaker 3: The majority of what he attests to was in the
Speaker 3: criminal complaint which Brian had showed him, but he completely
Speaker 3: misconstrued it. He said, they stuffed Kleenex in her mouth
Speaker 3: to stifle her screams, and he got that because the
Speaker 3: criminal complaint in the autopsy said that she had soft
Speaker 3: tissue injuries around her mouth.
Speaker 1: Wow. But the county Attorney, Bradley Rhodes felt comfortable presenting
Speaker 1: this vailure in reading comprehension as corroborating evidence. Rhodes has
Speaker 1: since been disbarred for unrelated reasons. In addition, Brian's original
Speaker 1: judge had become ill, resulting in a mistrial and a
Speaker 1: change of venue. Then his original attorney, Chris Davis, chose
Speaker 1: this moment to retire.
Speaker 4: So they appointed me another attorney, that attorney who had
Speaker 4: never tried a murder case. I had a new investigator.
Speaker 4: I think that was his first case. So I had
Speaker 4: two people that really didn't know much about how to
Speaker 4: present a case.
Speaker 3: Tom Murtha, he was the defense counsel in this case
Speaker 3: where he was a year and a half out of
Speaker 3: law school. This case was dumped on and there was
Speaker 3: a change of venue so it was up in International Falls,
Speaker 3: right on the Canadian border. So he had to drive
Speaker 3: up there in a station wagon with the files in
Speaker 3: the back without much support.
Speaker 4: And I think they knew what they were doing. Minnesota's
Speaker 4: prejudice against state of Americans, and the farther you go
Speaker 4: up north, the more prende there. They had me at
Speaker 4: the tip of the state.
Speaker 3: Here's an interesting thing too. Before where the trial started,
Speaker 3: the judge brought the prosecutor in and Tom Earth and
Speaker 3: Brian in and said, look, can we do a deal here.
Speaker 4: Prosecutor said, well, we'll take life off the table and
Speaker 4: we'll give you seventeen or eighteen years something like that.
Speaker 4: And then the judge because, well, i'll tell you this,
Speaker 4: I don't care what he's cofering you. I'll give you
Speaker 4: seven years. And I already had two years in. I thought, well,
Speaker 4: three years left, and I said, well, that's an excellent deal.
Speaker 4: And if I was guilty, I would take it. But
Speaker 4: I'm not guilty, and I can't see myself admitting to
Speaker 4: something that I didn't do.
Speaker 1: So they moved ahead with trial in January two thousand
Speaker 1: and one, presenting the now congealed but still erroneous narrative
Speaker 1: through Raymond Asquattis, and to impeach him. Brian urged Tom
Speaker 1: Murtha to ask about the condition of the house to
Speaker 1: which they'd allegedly fled in the aftermath.
Speaker 4: And he described it as a hold born out, born
Speaker 4: down party house. The windows broke, red, shag carpeting, brown experior,
Speaker 4: and the house was enhing like that, and it been remodeled.
Speaker 4: My brother was living in there with his girlfriend Mary
Speaker 4: Bleacan at the time, so that couldn't have been possible
Speaker 4: the police knew this, the sheriff say this, Yet.
Speaker 1: This false narrative was still presented. Unfortunately, Tommrtha had not
Speaker 1: yet uncovered all the internal inconsistencies and blatant falsehoods, including
Speaker 1: the basement entry theory.
Speaker 3: The forensic technician from the BCA who testified to that
Speaker 3: did so in an extremely superficial way. He just said
Speaker 3: the point of entry was this window. There was no
Speaker 3: analysis done. Two different experts have reviewed the forensics and
Speaker 3: the physical evidence surrounding that window independently. They came to
Speaker 3: the conclusion that the window entry was staged, that the
Speaker 3: wooden slats were pried off the inside with a tool.
Speaker 3: There's tool marks, that the muntains that separate the panes
Speaker 3: were removed and placed neatly in a spot where they
Speaker 3: wouldn't have fallen. Two panes of glass were removed and
Speaker 3: placed outside. The other pane was broken, but the glass
Speaker 3: from that was actually in the window well, which means
Speaker 3: it was broken from the inside. And then there was
Speaker 3: large pieces of that pane that were placed again not
Speaker 3: where they would have fallen, in fact where they could
Speaker 3: not have fallen.
Speaker 1: So it appears that someone broke this window out from
Speaker 1: the inside. It may have been staged or maybe had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with this crime at all. It's unclear.
Speaker 1: But what is clear is the implausibility of an unscathed
Speaker 1: entrance through this basement window.
Speaker 3: There was a screw protruding into the area of the
Speaker 3: window that you would have caught something on if you
Speaker 3: had gone through there. Where the muntains were broken, there
Speaker 3: were pointed pieces that would have caught somebody's fabric if
Speaker 3: they had gone through there. There was no footprints or
Speaker 3: any sign that anybody landed on the boxes below. Nothing
Speaker 3: from the window well, which had leaves and pine needles
Speaker 3: and so forth, was discovered beneath the window. There's no
Speaker 3: set of footprints that lead from the window over to
Speaker 3: the trap door. So there's no forensic evidence supporting the
Speaker 3: idea that somebody went through this window other than the
Speaker 3: window was open, and all of the forensic evidence is
Speaker 3: that nobody did in fact go through the window. No
Speaker 3: part of that case with Stan's scrutiny in any respect forensically, physically,
Speaker 3: the objective evidence.
Speaker 1: And let's not forget the chair blocking the trap door,
Speaker 1: or the currently misplaced dead bolt that was locked and
Speaker 1: required a key, which would have destroyed the state's theory,
Speaker 1: but none of it was discovered by his trial attorney
Speaker 1: and pointed out to the jury.
Speaker 3: And fairness to Tom Mirtha, he had not tried to
Speaker 3: fell any case before. I'm not even sure he tried
Speaker 3: any cases before, but he did put on a defense.
Speaker 3: He called Michael Musquade says to the alibi the pawnshop
Speaker 3: operator to authenticate the pawnshop ticket.
Speaker 4: I had a charge of talents to get gas at
Speaker 4: the local gas station in town. I had a bart tab.
Speaker 3: And then the prosecute tried to argue that he fabricated
Speaker 3: this alibi while he was awaiting trial with his relatives. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: his attorney at the time didn't make the point that
Speaker 3: they knew about this alibi back in March of nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety eight, so he didn't fabricate it. And they said, well,
Speaker 3: when we asked him about what he was doing that day,
Speaker 3: he didn't come up with the alibi. And Brian's answer
Speaker 3: to that is, I didn't know exactly what day this
Speaker 3: murder occurred. I had nothing to do with it, so
Speaker 3: I didn't necessarily put together that I was at the
Speaker 3: casino until my nephews told me that and my mother, Agnes,
Speaker 3: chief said hey, wait a minute, you don't you have
Speaker 3: a pawn receipt from that day.
Speaker 4: None of that came in, and they call the head
Speaker 4: of security for Malax Casino and he says, yeah, we
Speaker 4: don't have any record of at Aime at Picsino. And
Speaker 4: that was all just for show because they knew that
Speaker 4: no records exist because they were changing the security systems
Speaker 4: at that time. There was no evidence linking me to
Speaker 4: any of us to the crime. No motivation, they said,
Speaker 4: motivate didn't have a factor in Minnesota courts, and the
Speaker 4: only thing I had was my nephew testifying and that
Speaker 4: jail house.
Speaker 3: In foremant, Peter Arnaldi said that Brian felt a great
Speaker 3: deal of remorse about what had happened, that they had
Speaker 3: killed this lady as part of a burglary, and he
Speaker 3: was going to try and get his relatives to conjure
Speaker 3: an alibi for him, and that they arrived in his
Speaker 3: mother's van and they had gone in and robbed the
Speaker 3: place of beer and cigarettes and murdered Evelyn mail It.
Speaker 3: He did have to admit that Brian had showed him
Speaker 3: the criminal complaint, and that's of course where the soft
Speaker 3: tissue injuries were disclosed, which were not Kleenex, and.
Speaker 4: Alas seemed like he was a professional. Even I thought, Wow,
Speaker 4: this guy, he really sounds like what he's talking about.
Speaker 4: If I was a jurior, I believe. I think we
Speaker 4: impeached Arnuldy and it really didn't add to the jury.
Speaker 4: They you now, like Native Americans up there in northern
Speaker 4: Minnesota was at the tip of the state. They don't
Speaker 4: even like outfighters.
Speaker 1: I mean, did you have hope that when they came
Speaker 1: back from you know, deliberation, that things might go your way.
Speaker 4: No, my attorney did. And then he said, well, what
Speaker 4: are you going to do when you get out? I said, well,
Speaker 4: this thing is not over it. I looked at the
Speaker 4: jury and and micarea or micro expression. I'm not planning
Speaker 4: on anything. And I believe it was three days later
Speaker 4: that they came back to guilty verdict. And I think
Speaker 4: the judge was so mad at me that I didn't
Speaker 4: take his seven year offer that he gave me a
Speaker 4: double maximum of two light sentences without stility of paroles.
Speaker 4: I got sent to fill Water prison and I guars
Speaker 4: a treaty according to here crime and Mane was a
Speaker 4: heinous crime against an old lady, so didn't treat me
Speaker 4: very fearly. I ended up in the hole quite a bit.
Speaker 4: I felt tough, kind of targeted. You passed the time
Speaker 4: by working, doing anything you can, staying as busy as
Speaker 4: you can't. I do that right now. I developed a routine,
Speaker 4: a routine that I fall every day and really go
Speaker 4: off course. I just stayed as busy as I can
Speaker 4: and it helps pass the time.
Speaker 1: Of course, part of that time was passed by appealing
Speaker 1: his conviction, which was upheld, but his sentence was ruled
Speaker 1: to be improper and he was resenced to one life
Speaker 1: term with parole eligibility. Meanwhile, he filed for post conviction
Speaker 1: relief and was granted a hearing in two thousand and six.
Speaker 3: The evidence that was presented there was they said there
Speaker 3: was a false evidence about the door lock, that Merle
Speaker 3: Malin testified that she wasn't able to lock the door
Speaker 3: at the trial, but then he admitted that she could
Speaker 3: lock the door, so that was one element. They had
Speaker 3: an ineffective assistance of council claim. They had an outdated
Speaker 3: from Keith Musquade saying that he wasn't there and that
Speaker 3: he knew that Brian came back from the casino that
Speaker 3: night at like ten something. Then there was a victim's
Speaker 3: advocate who had talked to Ray on the phone at
Speaker 3: some time after the trial, and Ray had said, I
Speaker 3: just told him what they wanted to hear to get
Speaker 3: out of this, but they couldn't find him testify. A
Speaker 3: guy by the name of Craig Lacari was housed with
Speaker 3: Brian Pippott and Peter Arnaldi, and he said that Arnaldi
Speaker 3: had told him that Brian's that he was innocent, that
Speaker 3: he had never said anything about Brian confessing.
Speaker 4: We pointed out the flaws and our nullity's testimony saying
Speaker 4: that there was toilet paper steps in her mouth and
Speaker 4: I complained for soft tissue injuries and somehow he converted
Speaker 4: that into tissue paper being put in her mouth and
Speaker 4: they ignored it.
Speaker 3: That was an affidavid from Lacari. The judge wouldn't rid
Speaker 3: him out. They didn't have Peter Arnaldi testify, they didn't
Speaker 3: have all the forensic experts that we've assembled testified. They
Speaker 3: didn't have Neil King testify. So it was really a
Speaker 3: pretty tepid presentation and it was denied and appealed and denied.
Speaker 1: At which point Brian began looking for meaningful pro bono help.
Speaker 3: Brian Pippott had written to Centurion, so I went out
Speaker 3: with two other members and we interviewed him, and everything
Speaker 3: he told me turned out to be true. It took
Speaker 3: me quite a long time to find Ramus Squades, but
Speaker 3: when I found him, he was forthcoming about his having
Speaker 3: not told the truth. I also found Peter Arnaldi initially said, well,
Speaker 3: you know, they raped her, and I said, Peter, I
Speaker 3: have the autopsy report. Whoever did this didn't rape her?
Speaker 3: He said, oh my god. I always thought that you know,
Speaker 3: these you know, he wasn't charitable about what he called them,
Speaker 3: went in and raped this old lady. He said, I
Speaker 3: think I have it all wrong.
Speaker 1: Perhaps this was just how Arnaldi internally justified his false
Speaker 1: testimony for personal gain. Either way, Jim continued his investigation,
Speaker 1: moving on to Neil King.
Speaker 3: Neil King, he said the basis of his defense was
Speaker 3: that he was drunk in the backseat of the car,
Speaker 3: and that wasn't even really the truth. He wasn't even
Speaker 3: there at all, but he didn't want that disrupted. He
Speaker 3: felt that Brian Pipptt had implicated him, so he didn't
Speaker 3: want to help him, even though that wasn't the truth.
Speaker 3: But he gave us a declaration saying he wasn't there
Speaker 3: at all. Keith Musquades gave us a declaration saying he
Speaker 3: wasn't there at all. And then I have this forensic evidence, locksmith,
Speaker 3: the two different crime scene specialists, and so I put
Speaker 3: together an application to the CRU in January of two
Speaker 3: thousand twenty two. It was about seventy five pages long,
Speaker 3: doing an analysis of the different stories that Raymond told,
Speaker 3: showing photographs of the lock, and the store supported that
Speaker 3: with an eight hundred page appendix. So the CRU took
Speaker 3: the application, they started their own investigation. There's a couple
Speaker 3: of aspects of that I think we're worth mentioning too,
Speaker 3: and that is Jim Rats, the County Attorney at the
Speaker 3: onset of the CRI investigation, signed a memorandum of understanding
Speaker 3: with the Attorney General's Office and CRU, and from what
Speaker 3: I understand, he asked for a phrase in that memorandum
Speaker 3: of understanding that said I'm paraphrasing him in the event
Speaker 3: that I don't want to support the recommendation of the
Speaker 3: CRU as the County attorney. If I don't want to
Speaker 3: execute that recommendation, then in that event I agree that
Speaker 3: I will surrender jurisdiction to the Attorney General's Office.
Speaker 1: So it's fair to assume that the county Attorney waived
Speaker 1: jurisdiction and that the Attorney General's Office Conviction Review Unit
Speaker 1: has the final say.
Speaker 3: And I have to say that their investigation is astonishing
Speaker 3: and how thorough it is. They were able to get
Speaker 3: in to interview Don Hill in the psychiatric facility, something
Speaker 3: I was not able to do. They reviewed literally thousands
Speaker 3: of documents. They interviewed either twenty five or twenty six witnesses,
Speaker 3: recorded interviews. There was no leading questions. They discovered an
Speaker 3: alibi witness for Keith Musquades, who I was unable to find.
Speaker 3: They interviewed the forensic specialists, they retained an expert of
Speaker 3: their own with respect to the false confession, and ultimately
Speaker 3: they issued a report that was one hundred and eighty
Speaker 3: pages long with nine hundred footnotes to source materials. And
Speaker 3: the guy who did the majority of the investigative work
Speaker 3: for the CIRIU was an Assistant Attorney General by the
Speaker 3: name of Carmen Leone and at the end of the investigation,
Speaker 3: they prepared a draft report that was reviewed not only
Speaker 3: by carmeon Leone's immediate boss, Carrie Spurling, but by her boss,
Speaker 3: the Deputy Attorney General, David Voyce. They presented a draft
Speaker 3: as a courtesy to the BCA and to the county
Speaker 3: attorney and to the sheriff guide and I said, we're
Speaker 3: inviting you to make comments on this, and the response
Speaker 3: was an extremely hostile one, and so they they're contesting it,
Speaker 3: even though they don't have any inherent standing to do that.
Speaker 4: I have nothing to hide. I waive attorney client privilege
Speaker 4: because I knew the county signed an agreement to go
Speaker 4: along with the filings, and so I've been waiting for
Speaker 4: two and a half years for this investigation to unfold.
Speaker 4: And then April I found out that, Hey, they found
Speaker 4: the truth. They found everything that was going on. This
Speaker 4: investigation was so thorough. They found stuff that we didn't
Speaker 4: even find out. And yes, the county didn't like that.
Speaker 3: The sheriff was very hostile. He said that two courts
Speaker 3: had already had judged this case. Of course that doesn't
Speaker 3: mean anything, because everything that we've produced, no court judge
Speaker 3: or jury hasn't it hurt any of this material? And
Speaker 3: then he said something along the lines of you have
Speaker 3: to prove to me beyond reasonable doubt that he didn't
Speaker 3: do this, and I don't think you're going to be
Speaker 3: able to do that. He also said at one point,
Speaker 3: you never did a reenactment of anybody going through that window,
Speaker 3: So how do you know that somebody couldn't get through
Speaker 3: the window. And then he also said something along the
Speaker 3: lines of I knew Keith Musquaddies from years ago. He's
Speaker 3: a very athletic guy. He could have gotten through the window.
Speaker 3: The position has never been that it's physically impossible for
Speaker 3: someone to get through the window. Oh, it's tough. It's
Speaker 3: that nobody did go through the window, given the forensic
Speaker 3: evidence at the scene. And when Carmen Leone said something
Speaker 3: along the lines of, well there was cat blood there.
Speaker 3: You know, I guess a cat couldn't get through it
Speaker 3: because I've lived with cats all my life. I no
Speaker 3: cat's going to cut itself. So Carmen said to him, well,
Speaker 3: how do you think the cat blood got there? This
Speaker 3: is the mentality we're dealing with. He said, I think
Speaker 3: the misquadies went out and killed a cat and put
Speaker 3: its blood on there to put us off the track.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds reasonable.
Speaker 3: The BCA said we're going to do our own investigation,
Speaker 3: and they hired three outside people, was the experts. I
Speaker 3: don't know what the terms of those agreements are, and
Speaker 3: their motivation is undisguised that the purpose of their parallel
Speaker 3: investigation is to find something, anything, that they can use
Speaker 3: to discredit the CRU report, and so far their investigation,
Speaker 3: when you compare it to what the CRU did, is laughable.
Speaker 3: I mean, they interviewed George Horseman, but they didn't record it,
Speaker 3: and they got a summary of a statement from him,
Speaker 3: and what it was clear was that they were trying
Speaker 3: to get him to move off of his steadfast position
Speaker 3: that no peer, no cigarettes were missing. The store portion
Speaker 3: of the building was untouched, and they evidently they got
Speaker 3: him to look at some photographs and say, well, maybe
Speaker 3: there were some cigaretts there that are missing, and I
Speaker 3: guess he kind of went, well maybe, you know. Then
Speaker 3: they did a reenactment of someone making their way through
Speaker 3: the window. They were able to show that somebody could
Speaker 3: physically make their way through the window, but without the
Speaker 3: nail protruding, without the glass in it without the munting parts.
Speaker 3: Even then the kid was going through it caught his
Speaker 3: shirt on the wooden.
Speaker 1: Frame, which has always been the misunderstanding. The issue isn't
Speaker 1: whether someone could get through the window, but whether they
Speaker 1: could do it without leaving any evidence behind. Not even
Speaker 1: a cat could do it.
Speaker 3: Now, we labored under the impression that Jim rats the
Speaker 3: county attorney. He's a man of his word, because we
Speaker 3: could have been advancing our case through the court system
Speaker 3: as opposed to going through the cru which took two years.
Speaker 3: So he's renegged on that. He hasn't given any reason
Speaker 3: for that other than I think he's getting pressure from
Speaker 3: his sheriff there and maybe the BCA. So we filed
Speaker 3: a seventy five page petition with the Aiken County Court.
Speaker 3: We've asked for some discovery. I want to know what's
Speaker 3: going on with the so called consultants from the BCA.
Speaker 3: I want that DNA testing evidence from the BCA. There's
Speaker 3: a wallet that we believe the assailant touched the cuttings
Speaker 3: from the nightgown. Evidently there was some material under her fingernails,
Speaker 3: we understand, and last January, when the Attorney General's Office
Speaker 3: was investigating the case. Person from the BCA contacted Carmen
Speaker 3: Leones and said there's insufficient male DNA under her fingernails
Speaker 3: to warrant any further testing. So I have requested those
Speaker 3: test materials. There's evidently a quant test done. There must
Speaker 3: have been enough there for them to determine that it
Speaker 3: was mail DNA, and thus far they've not been forthcoming
Speaker 3: with providing that to us. And so the defense to
Speaker 3: our petition, our seventy five page petition was a nine
Speaker 3: page reply by the county attorney. It has some allegations
Speaker 3: that are demonstrably false, and it basically relies in kind
Speaker 3: of an amalgam of some technical claims. Well, this has
Speaker 3: already been adjudged. What are we doing here? That's the
Speaker 3: extent of what they've put in to defend against this.
Speaker 1: But there is a way to circumvent them.
Speaker 3: Tim Walls has the power to take the case from
Speaker 3: the county attorney and give it to Keith Ellison. He
Speaker 3: will not do that without Keith Ellison and formally asking
Speaker 3: him to do that. I think with the election pending,
Speaker 3: there's little appetite to do that. Keith Ellison also has
Speaker 3: to maintain working relationships with the various county attorneys, and
Speaker 3: taking this from the county attorney could be problematic for.
Speaker 1: Him, although I wish this was treated with the urgency
Speaker 1: it deserves. After November twenty twenty four, either Tim Waltz
Speaker 1: or Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan, who happens to be of
Speaker 1: the White Earth Band of Ojaboy, will be able to
Speaker 1: empower Keith Ellison to do what is right. We have
Speaker 1: linked a petition in the episode description to show your support,
Speaker 1: and with that we go to our closing, in which
Speaker 1: I'm going to thank our guests for joining us today
Speaker 1: and then just sit back and lock it up as
Speaker 1: they share their final thoughts.
Speaker 3: The bottom line is that Brian Pippott was not there,
Speaker 3: He had no involvement in this case. He doesn't know
Speaker 3: who did it, and he's been wrongfully charged and convicted,
Speaker 3: and the authorities at this point are not treating him fairly.
Speaker 3: Law enforcement's so called investigation of this, I have to say,
Speaker 3: is a discredit to law enforcement because it's not an
Speaker 3: honest investigation, and by that I mean the BCA and
Speaker 3: sheriff guide his investigation. The man should be let out.
Speaker 3: He's innocent. Anybody who's looked at this case in any
Speaker 3: real detail, which is my organization. The Attorney General's Office
Speaker 3: and Mitchell Hamlin Law School Clinic studied the case and
Speaker 3: did a pretty comprehensive job themselves, has determined that he
Speaker 3: is factually innocent. Yet he languishes in prison, has been
Speaker 3: there for twenty five years. His relatives have died in
Speaker 3: the meantime. Let the man out.
Speaker 4: I'd like to say Jim Cousins and the Centurion Ministries
Speaker 4: for helping me throughout Pears and the fear you for
Speaker 4: highly time and time and the truth. What's got made
Speaker 4: through this twenty six years is hope that the truth
Speaker 4: will come out. It has and as a state prosecutor,
Speaker 4: Keith ellis and he knows the truth. And I can't
Speaker 4: understand why he will not ask for this case because
Speaker 4: the way it was explained to me is that other
Speaker 4: prosecutors will get mad because he took the case away
Speaker 4: from accounting. Well, he's doing what's right. His job is
Speaker 4: not about making friends keeping friends, whether people will like
Speaker 4: what he does. It's his job, see and something he
Speaker 4: could do. Sixty two years old. Native Americans don't have
Speaker 4: that long of a lifespan, and I don't want to
Speaker 4: die in prison. I have this belief that your soul
Speaker 4: stays where you die, and I don't want my still
Speaker 4: staying around prison for eternity. And I wanted to be
Speaker 4: around family and around nature where I feel connection. I
Speaker 4: figure I've got ten years at the most, I want
Speaker 4: to live life lived.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
Speaker 2: to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
Speaker 2: week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for
Speaker 2: Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our
Speaker 2: production team, Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as
Speaker 2: my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliber.
Speaker 2: The music in this production was supplied by three time
Speaker 2: OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
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Speaker 2: at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram
Speaker 2: at It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
Speaker 2: Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One.
Speaker 1: We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported
Speaker 1: in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed
Speaker 1: by the individuals featured in this show are their own
Speaker 1: and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good