WEBVTT - #353 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Tommy Ward Pt. 1 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:07.880 Hey guys, it's Laura and I Writer. In Season two 0:00:08.000 --> 0:00:11.080 of False Confessions, we brought you the stunning story of 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:14.360 Tommy Ward, and unfortunately I have some sad news to 0:00:14.360 --> 0:00:17.959 share about his case. In January twenty twenty one, a 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:21.400 district judge at the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals gave 0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:24.079 us the news we were all hoping for and vacated 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:27.720 Tommy's conviction, but he waited in prison still while the 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:32.040 state appealed that decision. Sadly, justice hasn't yet been served. 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:35.800 This innocent man is still in prison. The state won 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:40.199 their appeal reinstating Tommy's conviction in twenty twenty two, and 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:43.239 as of this update, Tommy and his legal team are 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:47.600 preparing to file again with the federal courts. Tommy, We're 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:49.680 all hoping that the courts get it right this time 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:53.199 and grant you the freedom you deserve. Keep fighting and 0:00:53.240 --> 0:01:01.600 stay strong. Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:05.520 and I Writer, and I'm Steve Dressing. In nineteen eighty four, 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:09.559 a woman from Ada, Oklahoma, went missing. A few months later, 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:12.640 a man named Tommy Ward told police that he'd had 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:16.640 a bad dream about her murder. Incredibly, the police took 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:20.840 that dream and turned it into a false confession. Tommy 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:24.880 Ward's story has fascinated the world. In two thousand and six, 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:28.160 the author John Grisham wrote a book about Tommy and 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:31.880 his co defendant, Carl Fontaneau. John's career as a writer 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:35.160 was changed by Tommy and Carl's case, but he's not 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:37.480 the only one who's been moved by it. A few 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:40.400 years ago, their story was made into a Netflix global 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:44.479 series called The Innocent Man. Now the whole world has 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:47.400 been moved too. It's our honor to be part of 0:01:47.400 --> 0:01:51.080 the fight to exonerate Tommy Ward and Carl Fonteneau. Here's 0:01:51.120 --> 0:01:53.440 hoping we can deliver a wake up call in this 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:54.640 nightmare of a case. 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:09.919 I'm John Grisham, author of a number of legal thrillers 0:02:09.960 --> 0:02:14.080 and one work of nonfiction. About fifteen years ago, I 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:18.840 found myself in Ada, Oklahoma, doing the research for a 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:23.400 nonfiction book that was eventually titled The Innocent Man. It's 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:26.480 just a truly fascinating case because there were no clues, 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:30.080 there were no witnesses, there was no body, there was 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:32.519 no corpse, there was no murder weapon, there was nothing 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:36.480 for Tommy Wiard confessed to the crime, and from. 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:38.200 That moment on he was a guilty man. 0:02:39.000 --> 0:02:41.639 The judge allowed this case to go forward without a body. 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:44.480 Even on my most creative days, I'm not sure I 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:45.720 could create stuff like this. 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:52.800 Once I started researching Tommy's case Carl's case, I realized 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:56.760 that there are thousands of innocent people in prison, and 0:02:56.800 --> 0:03:00.120 I've never realized that before. At that point I moved away, 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:05.400 for the most part, from suspense intrigue thrillers to something 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:09.959 still similar but much more issue driven capital punishment, wrong 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:14.160 for confiction, mass incarceration, the issues I care about in 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:17.760 the criminal justice system and the injustices that we tolerate 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:19.880 when we could fix this stuff if we had the will. 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:20.079 To do it. 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:23.400 So, the Tommy Willard Carl Fontina case had a profound 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:24.520 impact on me as a writer. 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:28.400 You know, Steve John Grisham's right in this case, the 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:31.240 truth really is stranger than fiction. This is one of 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:34.520 the most bizarre kinds of false confessions you can imagine. 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:38.280 This case is fascinating because it is about a dream 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:43.120 that is converted by police officers into a confession. Cases 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:44.880 like this are extremely. 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:46.920 Rare, right, I mean, how many dream cases do you 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:47.320 know about. 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:51.880 I've studied hundreds of false confessions and maybe there's a dozen. 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:54.520 Of them to our listeners. If you haven't heard this story, 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:57.600 get ready, it's an incredible one. If you have read 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:00.320 John Grisham's book or seen the Netflix series, we have 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:02.160 some new developments to share with you. 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:06.400 Because attorneys at the Center on Wrongful Convictions, the organization 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:11.680 You and I Codirect have uncovered new information that makes 0:04:11.720 --> 0:04:14.280 it clear that Tommy Ward is innocent, but. 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:17.160 He's still in prison. He's been there for thirty five years. 0:04:17.520 --> 0:04:25.719 He needs to come home now, right now. Tommy's story 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:29.160 starts in the town of Ada, a rural Oklahoma community 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:32.799 of about seventeen thousand people. It's a Bible belt town 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:36.040 where the churches are full but the factories are empty. 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:40.240 In Aida, poverty can sometimes make justice seem like a 0:04:40.279 --> 0:04:45.320 faraway dream. In nineteen eighty four, Denise Harroway was one 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:49.400 of Ada's seventeen thousand people. Denise was twenty four years old, 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:53.120 a petite, blonde woman who'd recently gotten married. She was 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:56.120 enrolled in college and helped pay tuition by working the 0:04:56.160 --> 0:05:01.000 evening shift by herself at mckinellly's convenience store, but when 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:04.800 customers walked into mcinally's at eight fifty pm on April 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:08.640 twenty eighth, they found an open cash register and no 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:13.159 attendant in sight. Denise had vanished. There'd be no sign 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:17.960 of her for a year and a half. Ada police 0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:22.760 started investigating Denise's disappearance, and right away they suspected foul play. 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:26.680 A customer who'd been at mcinally's earlier that evening told 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:29.799 police he'd seen Denise leave the store with a strange 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:33.279 man who drove her away in a pickup truck. Police 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:36.360 also spoke to a female clerk at a different nearby 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:40.840 convenience store. She reported that a few hours before Denise disappeared, 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:44.839 two men came into her store. They were rowdy, she said, 0:05:45.160 --> 0:05:49.240 and kept buying alcohol. They made her nervous. She gave 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:52.839 the cops some rough descriptions, and a police artist made 0:05:52.880 --> 0:05:56.760 two composite sketches. In terms of evidence, that was it. 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:00.640 No one knew what happened to Denise. There was no body, 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:04.640 no sightings, no nothing. Police showed the composite sketches on 0:06:04.680 --> 0:06:08.640 TV and asked for the public's help. Dozens of tips 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:11.839 were phoned in a few callers thought that the sketches 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:14.320 looked a little bit like a twenty four year old 0:06:14.360 --> 0:06:16.360 Ada man named Tommy Ward. 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:17.760 Now. 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:21.599 The Ward family was poor. They lived on Ada's South Side, 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:24.080 in the part of town that everyone knew was on 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:26.880 the wrong side of the tracks. Growing up, there were 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:30.760 eight kids in the house. Tommy was number seven. Everyone 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:33.720 children included was expected to pitch in to keep the 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:37.280 lights on and the rent paid. The older kids would work, 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:41.520 the younger kids would spend hot Oklahoma summers walking along 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:44.600 the highway searching for empty beer cans that they could 0:06:44.600 --> 0:06:47.760 turn in for a five cent deposit. The Wards were 0:06:47.800 --> 0:06:50.880 a law abiding family. When Tommy was a teenager, he'd 0:06:50.880 --> 0:06:54.480 been arrested a few times for petty crimes like public drunkenness, 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:59.080 but nothing serious. The idea of him suddenly kidnapping Denise 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:03.760 Harroway was pretty crazy. Despite this, police brought Tommy in 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:07.960 for questioning just a few days after Denise's disappearance. Tommy 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:11.240 told them he had nothing to do with Denise. In fact, 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:13.720 he said on the night she disappeared, he was at 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:16.760 a keg party out of town twenty five miles away. 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:22.160 Police released Tommy and tracked down some other partygoers, several 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:26.760 of them confirmed Tommy's alibi, but police also caught wind 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:30.120 of a rumor that had been spreading around town. Tommy 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:34.360 supposedly told others at the party that he'd done something terrible. 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:38.640 That one word was apparently enough to make the cops 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:43.000 think that Tommy had killed Denise. They bring Tommy back 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:46.520 to the station months later, on October eighteenth, nineteen eighty four, 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:52.280 for what would become nine hours of interrogation. Who killed 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:55.160 that girl? Did you kill her? You thought she was pretty, 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:59.200 didn't you. The questions come fast and furious, but Tommy 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:03.040 still denied having anything to do with Denise's disappearance. He 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:07.560 reminds his interrogators of his alibi, but they administer a polygraph. 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:11.080 They falsely tell Tommy that it proved he'd been lying. 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:16.000 That's when the interrogation turns nightmarish. Tommy tells the cops 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:18.800 that maybe he failed the polygraph because he was nervous. 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:22.320 In fact, he says, knowing he was a suspect in 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:25.200 this case had upset him so much that he had 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:28.880 a bad dream. Tell us about your dream, the police say, 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:33.480 and Tommy does. In the dream, Tommy was out by 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:37.160 Ada's local power plants, sitting in a pickup truck with 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:40.920 three people he didn't know, two men and a woman. 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:43.719 One of the men tried to kiss the woman and 0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:46.760 Tommy told him to back off. Then Tommy said he 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:51.240 wanted to go home. You're already home, the man answered. Suddenly, 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:54.480 Tommy was standing at his kitchen sink trying to scrub 0:08:54.520 --> 0:09:00.800 a dark liquid off his hands. The cops pounced. They say, 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:04.240 matches the facts of the case. There's a pickup truck 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:07.160 in your dream, and we believe Denise was kidnapped in 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:09.880 a pickup truck. It doesn't make sense to say this 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:12.600 was just a dream. They say. You know what does 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:16.040 make sense, you and these other two men killing Denise. 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:21.520 So where did the story in Tommy's dream come from? 0:09:22.000 --> 0:09:25.439 Turns out a few days before this nine hour interrogation, 0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:28.959 police had briefly talked to Tommy, and during. 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:33.600 That questioning, the police officers said to Tommy, use your 0:09:33.640 --> 0:09:37.800 imagination for just a moment. This girl was taken out 0:09:37.840 --> 0:09:41.800 of a grocery store at night. Two guys come in 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:44.679 and got her, and they'd gotten a pickup and they 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:48.679 drove away. A beautiful girl like that. Maybe they raped 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:52.480 her before they killed her. That is a direct quote 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:57.000 from these detectives. The police officers had planted the core 0:09:57.120 --> 0:10:01.200 ideas of this crime in Tommy's mind, including the pickup truck, 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:04.480 which remember as a detail that a witness had already 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:08.840 told them about, and Tommy began to have nightmares about 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:10.800 the story the police told him. 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:15.480 The interrogation continues for hours. Police tell Tommy he'll get 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:19.480 the death penalty if he doesn't confess to killing Denise. Eventually, 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:24.000 Tommy caves. He starts changing his dream to include what 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:27.560 the police tell him. In his dream, he says he 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:30.880 did recognize the other guys. They were two eight of 0:10:30.960 --> 0:10:35.560 men named Carl Fontaneau and Odell Titsworth. He dreamed that 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:39.720 they'd robbed Mcanelli's together, that they'd kidnapped Denise and raped 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:42.439 her in a pickup truck. They stabbed her in the 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:45.240 dream too, he says, and left her body in a 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:49.400 culvert by the power plant. After nine hours of this, 0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:53.560 police bring in a video camera. According to Tommy, they say, 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:57.079 time to cut the dream. Bullshit. This wasn't something you dreamed, 0:10:57.360 --> 0:10:58.760 it was something you did. 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:06.920 Tommy. You have the power plant where nay share? Why 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:09.839 did you go to the para plant It's worth and 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:10.400 pulled over. 0:11:11.040 --> 0:11:14.760 Tommy finds himself repeating the whole story on camera, not 0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:17.920 as a dream, but as cold hard reality. 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:19.240 It was the first person in the door. 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:21.840 Did he have any weapons? 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:24.560 They told me that he was going to kill her. 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:26.200 That's where got out. 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:29.040 To you understand how serious this investigation is. 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:35.439 Incredibly, the police have transformed Tommy's dream into a murder confession. 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:39.199 Let's talk a little bit about dream statements. You know, 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:43.720 there comes a point in every interrogation where the police 0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:48.280 officers have tried to get the suspect to confess, and 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:52.400 the suspect just says, well, I have no memory of 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:56.680 committing this crime, or I can't help you. I wasn't there. 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:00.920 And then either the police officers suggest to the suspect 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:05.199 have you had any dreams about this case? Or the 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:08.839 suspect will suggest on his own accord, you know, I 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:12.440 have had some dreams about this And what that does 0:12:12.679 --> 0:12:17.680 is it gives police officers something to exploit. It allows 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:22.200 the conversation to continue, and the police officers end up 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:25.959 converting what was a dream into a confession. 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:31.040 During Tommy's videotaped statement, the only lingering reference to any 0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:33.600 of this being a dream comes at the very end. 0:12:34.400 --> 0:12:37.040 Is there anything else you want to add? Police ask him. 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:42.080 I thought it was just a dream. Tommy quietly says he. 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:47.280 Always thought that the police officers would recognize this is 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:52.320 not reality. Go out investigate the case, and you're going 0:12:52.400 --> 0:12:57.160 to find out that this is all a bunch of horseship. 0:12:57.840 --> 0:13:01.600 Based on his so called confession, Tommy Ward found himself 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:05.880 in jail, charged with capital murder, and the investigation that's 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:09.120 to come, well, horseshit is exactly the right word. 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:22.760 I was stationed on an aircraft current when my sister 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:25.839 called and started telling me that they got Tommy for this. 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:27.920 It was not a good day. 0:13:28.840 --> 0:13:32.360 That's Melvin Ward, one of Tommy's older brothers. He was 0:13:32.440 --> 0:13:34.520 in the service when he found out that Tommy had 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:37.160 been arrested, and he flew back to Ada right away. 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:40.400 I did not believe it. I thought, well, you know, 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:42.559 he's going to get awf on this because I know 0:13:42.679 --> 0:13:45.360 he didn't do it. It's not Tommy's character to do 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:45.959 something like this. 0:13:46.720 --> 0:13:47.920 He was not a bad kid. 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:51.480 He'd never heard anybody. He'd stayed out of trouble other 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:54.920 than a few public drunks. Tommy would have been the 0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:58.000 kind of person that if somebody was attacking this lady, 0:13:58.559 --> 0:13:59.920 he would have been there to protect her. 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:01.120 That's Tommy. 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:06.240 Tommy did nothing for them to go after him like 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:09.080 they did, other than we living on another side track. 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:12.080 We was not in the proper society at the time. 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:15.360 They believed that Tommy was guilty and they was going 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:19.000 to pull no stops to get into confess, and that's 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:21.200 not proper police work at all. 0:14:22.240 --> 0:14:24.880 Tommy wasn't the only person from the wrong side of 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:28.640 the tracks who got ensnared in this case. Within hours, 0:14:28.840 --> 0:14:34.000 police arrest Tommy's dream accomplices, Carl Fontano and Odell Titsworth 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:38.320 and questioned them both. Carl was twenty years old, a 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:42.640 friend of Tommy's who was seriously intellectually disabled and pretty 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:43.760 much alone in the world. 0:14:44.160 --> 0:14:46.920 Carl was a nice guy. I know my mom liked him, 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:49.520 and my mom bless her heart, she was a good 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:52.600 judge character. At the time, she was working at one 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:55.200 of the convenience stores down there in Ada, and the 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:57.360 kid would come in and he didn't have much of 0:14:57.440 --> 0:14:59.800 the family. She would give him a sandwich from a 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:03.280 the story every now and then and I think Tommy 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:07.520 met Carl by he was sleeping on my sister's front porch. 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:10.800 Tommy kind of took Carl on his wing, and uh, 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:12.640 they become friends. 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:16.840 To understand how Carl's interrogation went down, you need to 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:20.280 know that a few months earlier, Carl had witnessed his 0:15:20.400 --> 0:15:23.400 own mother's death. The two of them had been driving 0:15:23.480 --> 0:15:26.680 on the highway when their car broke down. Carl's mom 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:29.320 got out and headed for a nearby restaurant to call 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:32.080 for help, but as she was crossing the highway, she 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:37.160 was hit and killed by another car. Carl felt terrible guilt. 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:40.240 He blamed himself for not being the one who'd gone 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:43.440 for help. It was that sense of guilt, along with 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:48.280 his disability, that police used to manipulate Carl during his interrogation. 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:52.400 The police suggested that Carl should make amends for his 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:56.240 mom's death by saying he was involved in Denise's death. 0:15:56.800 --> 0:15:59.640 Can you imagine the trauma he must have been experiencing 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:05.120 he saw his mother die. The police officers used that 0:16:05.800 --> 0:16:11.359 prior traumatic event to help break down Carl into accepting 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:15.840 responsibility for Denise's death, and he caved much sooner than 0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:16.440 Tommy did. 0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:21.080 Just like with Tommy. Police took a videotaped statement from Carl. 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:24.600 In it, he agreed that he helped Odell Titsworth and 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:27.320 Tommy Ward rape and stabbed Denise. 0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:30.680 Carl, let me ask you this, at any point in time, 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:32.760 did you stab her? No? 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:36.400 I did not, nor did Tommy Odell done all this 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:37.280 day right there? 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:40.600 Did y'all try to stop him from stander? 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:41.000 No? 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:44.840 Carl even said they'd burned her body afterwards. 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:46.120 Who spread the gas? 0:16:46.800 --> 0:16:47.160 Odell? 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:50.680 He poured all the gas on her air side and 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:53.520 went threw the match on her and walked out, and 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:55.680 then I asked to burn up on either side. 0:16:56.360 --> 0:17:00.840 Based on this confession, Carl Fontaneau was charged with Denise's death, 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:02.360 right alongside Tommy. 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:05.760 Knowing that Tommy was innocent. That made me know that 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:10.040 Carl was innocent. Tommy, it took him almost nine hours 0:17:10.119 --> 0:17:13.040 to break him down, and Carl he was a little 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:16.040 bit more acceptible to their interrogation. Now they could higher 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:17.000 in forty five minutes. 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:21.800 But the supposed third guy, Odell Titsworth, well, he's another story. 0:17:22.320 --> 0:17:26.000 Odell was a four time convicted felon with experience in 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:29.840 the interrogation room. When police questioned him about Denise. He 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:33.119 doesn't budge an inch. I don't care what Ward and 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:36.399 Fontineau say. He insists I had nothing to do with 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:40.879 Denise's disappearance. Now Odell is thrown in jail anyway, but 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:44.360 pretty soon it becomes clear that he's got a great alibi. 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:49.440 Two days before Denise's disappearance, Odell had an altercation with 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:53.399 the police and they'd broken his arm badly. On the 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:56.520 night Denise disappeared, Odell Titsworth was laid up with a 0:17:56.640 --> 0:18:00.680 spiral fracture struggle with a grown woman, hold her down 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:05.480 and rape her, stab her. It was physically impossible. Odell 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:06.479 was cleared. 0:18:07.240 --> 0:18:09.760 This is one point I've always trying to wrap around 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:13.080 people's head. If they were not being fed information, how 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:15.920 did both of them boys come up with a totally 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:19.879 innocent man's name. He can't happen, see what I'm saying. 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:24.000 While Odell Titsworth got to go home, Tommy and Carl 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:28.520 weren't so lucky. Prosecutors pressed forward with cases against Tommy 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:31.720 and Carl, even though their confessions turned out to be 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:36.040 wildly different. The confessions didn't agree on who raped Denise, 0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:39.840 where she was stabbed, or when she died, and when 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:43.200 it came to the big question where was Denise? The 0:18:43.280 --> 0:18:47.080 confessions disagreed there too. Remember, Tommy said they'd left her 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:50.399 body in a culvert near the power plant, but Carl 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:54.159 said they'd burned Denise's body in an abandoned house, and 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:57.560 then they burned the house down too. The authorities checked 0:18:57.560 --> 0:19:00.399 out both stories, but they found no sign of Denise 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:03.800 in either the culvert or the abandoned house. In fact, 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:08.960 Carl's abandoned house actually burned down ten months before Denise disappeared. 0:19:09.480 --> 0:19:14.080 Their confessions just didn't match reality. In a last ditch 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:17.320 effort to get Carl to clean up his story, police 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:19.280 try something pretty outrageous. 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:25.040 So Carl is sitting in jail, he's just confessed to 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:29.439 this crime, and the police officers go to a local 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:33.119 university and gather a bunch of. 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:36.480 Bones from the science lab human bones. 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:39.440 And they bring this bag of bones into the jail 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:44.159 and they say, we found Denise Haraway's skull where you 0:19:44.320 --> 0:19:47.720 said it was, but we can't find the rest of 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:51.120 her body. And Carl can't answer the question. He says, 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:53.200 I wish I could help, but I don't know where 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:55.360 her body is Carl's terrified. 0:19:55.400 --> 0:19:56.320 He can't tell him a thing. 0:19:56.440 --> 0:19:58.720 I mean, what the fuck is this. I've never seen 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:01.879 this before, Lara, this is just beyond the pale. 0:20:12.160 --> 0:20:15.440 Carl and Tommy were tried together on September twenty fourth, 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:20.120 nineteen eighty five. At trial, prosecutors called a mcinally's customer 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:24.160 named James Moyer. Moyer testified that he'd seen someone who 0:20:24.400 --> 0:20:27.280 looked like Tommy Ward in the store an hour before 0:20:27.400 --> 0:20:32.440 Denise disappeared. That's pretty thin evidence, but the prosecutors had more. 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:36.280 As the centerpiece of the trial, they played Tommy and 0:20:36.400 --> 0:20:41.040 Carl's confession tapes for the jury. Prosecutors conceded that, sure, 0:20:41.400 --> 0:20:44.000 Tommy and Carl got a lot of things wrong, Sure 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:46.960 their confessions were false when it came to Odell's involvement, 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:49.719 and sure the facts that they seemed to get right, 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:52.280 like the pickup truck, had been fed to them by 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:56.920 their interrogators. But set all that aside, prosecutors said, we've 0:20:57.000 --> 0:21:01.040 got proof. They said that Tommy and Carl's confession are reliable, 0:21:01.440 --> 0:21:06.920 a real ace in the hole. So what was that proof? 0:21:07.880 --> 0:21:11.840 Prosecutors argued that Tommy and Carl's confessions could be trusted 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:16.399 because they both accurately described what Denise was wearing the 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:20.520 night she disappeared. During Tommy's confession, he said Denise was 0:21:20.560 --> 0:21:23.480 wearing a button up blouse with little blue roses on 0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:27.840 it and lace on the collar and sleeves. Similarly, Carl 0:21:27.920 --> 0:21:30.119 had said she was wearing a button up blouse with 0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:34.400 ruffles on the collar and elastic on the sleeves. Now, 0:21:34.600 --> 0:21:38.160 prosecutors said at the time of the confessions the police 0:21:38.320 --> 0:21:41.600 had no idea what Denise had been wearing, so the 0:21:41.720 --> 0:21:45.320 interrogators couldn't have fed details about the blouse to Tommy 0:21:45.359 --> 0:21:49.680 and Carl. The only explanation for Tommy and Carl's matching 0:21:49.880 --> 0:21:53.399 stories was that they had both actually been with Denise 0:21:53.480 --> 0:21:57.760 that night. To really clinch the case, Denise's sister took 0:21:57.840 --> 0:22:01.080 the stand and revealed that Denise did own a blouse 0:22:01.119 --> 0:22:05.400 with blue flowers and a lacey ruffled collar. Also after 0:22:05.520 --> 0:22:09.399 Denise disappeared, the sister reported that that blouse was missing 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:13.840 from Denise's closet. Denise's sister said she hadn't told police 0:22:13.920 --> 0:22:17.720 about the missing blouse until after Tommy and Carl confessed. 0:22:18.280 --> 0:22:22.520 Going into trial, the police and prosecutors have two confessions 0:22:22.760 --> 0:22:26.159 that are at odds with the objectively noble facts of 0:22:26.200 --> 0:22:31.560 the crime. There's no corroboration of this confession, and it's 0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:36.560 filled with errors, But the police have one fact that 0:22:36.800 --> 0:22:40.680 is the anchor of their case. The defense counsel had 0:22:40.760 --> 0:22:46.280 no explanation for why both Tommy and Carl independently had 0:22:46.400 --> 0:22:50.320 described Denise's missing blouse the same way. 0:22:50.880 --> 0:22:54.240 That anchor ended up taking both Tommy and Carl down. 0:22:54.920 --> 0:22:58.679 On day thirteen of the trial, the jury returned a verdict. 0:22:59.280 --> 0:23:03.879 Both men were guilty of murdering Denise Harroway. Shortly afterwards, 0:23:04.040 --> 0:23:07.600 the judge sentenced Tommy Ward and Carl Fontana to death. 0:23:08.160 --> 0:23:11.680 The district attorney got a conviction on his boys because 0:23:11.760 --> 0:23:15.320 the description of the shirt that supposedly no one knew 0:23:15.440 --> 0:23:18.919 at the time of their confessions. I knew that Tommy 0:23:18.960 --> 0:23:23.119 and Carl was but having tom and Carl both to 0:23:23.320 --> 0:23:26.080 say something about that shirt that was a pretty hard 0:23:26.160 --> 0:23:26.960 thing to get passed. 0:23:27.520 --> 0:23:30.480 These men were sentenced to death on the basis of 0:23:30.720 --> 0:23:35.320 a single fact, a description of a blouse. Tommy and 0:23:35.440 --> 0:23:38.199 Carl were able to lead police to evidence that they 0:23:38.240 --> 0:23:41.480 didn't already have. I mean, these are the kinds of 0:23:41.840 --> 0:23:45.120 facts that you and I look at when we assess 0:23:45.200 --> 0:23:49.080 the reliability of a confession, Laura, and if police don't 0:23:49.240 --> 0:23:53.080 know information and the suspect leads them to it, that's 0:23:53.119 --> 0:23:56.560 a red flag for a reliable confession. 0:23:59.440 --> 0:24:02.240 How could Tommy and Carl have been wrong about so 0:24:02.400 --> 0:24:06.600 many facts yet right about this fact despite it all, 0:24:06.720 --> 0:24:10.040 Could they possibly be guilty? It's sure looked that way, 0:24:10.320 --> 0:24:13.920 at least at first, decades would pass before we found 0:24:13.960 --> 0:24:17.280 out the truth. There's so much more to this case, 0:24:17.640 --> 0:24:20.479 more than we can tell you today. So join us 0:24:20.560 --> 0:24:23.800 next week as we close our second season, we'll bring 0:24:23.880 --> 0:24:26.920 you part two of the story of Tommy Ward and 0:24:27.040 --> 0:24:34.080 Carl Fontaneau. Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions is a production of 0:24:34.240 --> 0:24:38.120 Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number 0:24:38.160 --> 0:24:42.159