WEBVTT - #164 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Tyra Patterson 0:00:01.800 --> 0:00:03.920 Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:06.440 I'm Laura and I writer and I'm Steve Drissen. 0:00:07.040 --> 0:00:09.760 In today's episode, will take you to Dayton, Ohio to 0:00:09.800 --> 0:00:13.360 tell you about Tyra Patterson. Nineteen year old Tira falsely 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:17.040 confessed to stealing a necklace, but an obscure law turned 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:20.239 her false confession to robbery into something far worse. 0:00:33.720 --> 0:00:36.239 I was sitting in my office one day in the 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:38.960 phone rank and on the other end of the call 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:42.320 was David Singleton, the director of a group called the 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:47.440 Ohio Justice and Policy Center. David was looking for somebody 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:52.239 who could assist him in a case that involved a 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:58.080 false confession. It was Tyra Patterson's case. We've told a 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:01.640 lot of stories about people who false confessed to murders 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:04.640 last season, but the crazy thing is, this is a 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:08.479 case where a false confession to robbery is converted into 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:13.039 a false conviction for murder, and it's all because of 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:18.080 an obscure, archaic rule called the felony murder doctrine. The 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:22.840 felony murder leads to people going down for murders who 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:23.960 never killed anyone. 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:27.600 When most people think about people in prison who they've 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:31.280 been convicted of murder. They think of truly bad people, 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:33.920 you know, scary folks. But there are a lot of 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:38.280 people in prison for murder who never touched a gun 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:39.880 or a murder weapon at all. 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:45.640 The prisons are filled with people convicted of felony murder, 0:01:45.760 --> 0:01:47.280 people like Tyer Patterson. 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:54.120 Today's story starts in Dayton, Ohio. It was a manufacturing 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:56.760 town back in the day, but those jobs left in 0:01:56.800 --> 0:02:00.600 the eighties and nineties and never came back. Eyton's claim 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:03.200 to fame is that the guys who invented the airplane 0:02:03.320 --> 0:02:06.639 used to live there, Wilbur and Orville Wright. In fact, 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:09.400 our story starts in a part of town named after 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:13.399 the Wright brothers, a lower income, mixed race neighborhood called 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:16.960 Right View. It was just after midnight on a Tuesday 0:02:17.000 --> 0:02:21.200 in Right View, September twentieth, nineteen ninety four. Tyra Patterson 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:25.160 was awake and bored. Tyra was nineteen and smart as 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:28.200 hell with a sunny personality. She was full of promise, 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:30.720 but there weren't many open doors in front of her. 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:34.440 Tyra's home life was really tough. Her dad was an 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:37.519 alcoholic who hit her mom when he'd been drinking. He 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:39.880 left when Tyra was just a kid, and they got 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:43.240 evicted when her mom couldn't pay the bills. Tyra dropped 0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:45.400 out of school in sixth grade. She was tired of 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:48.359 the other kids bullying her about being poor. She got 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:50.400 a job at a fast food restaurant and they put 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:53.120 her at the register because she was so friendly. But 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:56.280 Tyra hadn't learned enough math to make change. She was 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:59.160 humiliated every time someone handed her at twenty and quit 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:02.440 the job. By the time Tyra reached her late teens, 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:04.640 the family had found an apartment to live in again, 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:07.880 but Tyra had lost her way. She smoked a lot 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:10.120 of weed and tried not to think about how her 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:13.560 life could have been different. It was around two am 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:16.840 on September twentieth when Tyra's boring night started getting a 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:20.280 little too interesting. Tyra and her friend Rebecca were hanging 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:22.600 out at Tyra's place, and they decided to go for 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:26.079 a walk outside. They ran into five other young people 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:28.920 from right view. Tyra barely knew most of them, but 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:32.200 she and Rebecca stuck around anyway. The group was mixed 0:03:32.280 --> 0:03:36.080 gender and mixed race. Five were black, including Tyra, and 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:39.160 two were white, including Rebecca. To keep things clear, in 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:41.200 our story. We're going to call all of them the 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:45.400 Right View Group. Sometime after two am, a gray Chevrolet 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:48.400 rolled into an alley near where the group was hanging out. 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:52.040 The Chevy was filled with five teenagers, all white girls 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:55.280 from another part of town. They'd driven to Right View 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:59.120 to steal stuff from people's garages. In the alley. Two 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:01.560 of these would be thieves got out of the Chevy 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:04.280 to steal a radio. They were gone about ten minutes 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:07.560 before they returned to the car in a hurry. Following 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:11.520 them on foot were three members of the Right View group, Lashawna, Angie, 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:14.600 and Joe, and on a leash. Joe had a pitbull. 0:04:15.480 --> 0:04:17.919 Before the girls in the Chevy can drive away, another 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:20.839 car pulls up in front of them, blocking the alley's exit. 0:04:21.160 --> 0:04:23.719 It's the other four members of the Right View Group, 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:27.200 and crammed into a corner of that car. Wondering what 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:32.080 she's gotten herself into is Tira Patterson. Tyra's friend Rebecca 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:34.040 gets out of the car and heads for the Chevy 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:36.960 along with the other Right View people. Not knowing what 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:39.800 else to do, Tyra gets out too, but she's not 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:44.400 prepared for what happens next. There's a confrontation. Everyone starts yelling. 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:47.359 One of the right View girls, not Tyra, calls the 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:50.680 girls in the Chevy white bitches. Two other right View 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:53.800 girls join in, still not Tyra, and start telling the 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:56.400 girls in the Chevy to check it in. That means 0:04:56.600 --> 0:05:00.320 throw your money and jewelry on the ground. The girls 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:03.479 in the Chevy don't immediately comply, and that's when things 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:07.000 really escalate. Tyra hangs back, but three of the right 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:10.560 View girls open the car doors and start landing punches. 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:13.599 Joe lets his pit bull into the car and orders 0:05:13.600 --> 0:05:16.839 it to attack. Now it's a melee. Some of the 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:19.280 girls in the Chevy do check it in, throwing their 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:22.520 jewelry onto the ground. Tyra's not used to this kind 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:24.919 of stuff. She doesn't have a record, and she has 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:28.880 no interest in violence. She tries to calm the situation down, 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:32.599 but no one listens. As the punch is intensify, Tyra 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:35.919 and her friend Rebecca starts slipping away. They want no 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:39.960 part of this, but as they leave, Tyra spots a 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:44.080 necklace on the ground costume jewelry, a cheap gold cross. 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:47.040 She's never owned that kind of jewelry and it seems 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:50.359 valuable to her. Tyra picks up the necklace, puts it 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:52.359 in her pocket, and keeps walking away. 0:05:53.040 --> 0:05:56.680 When Tyra picked up that necklace, at worst it was 0:05:56.720 --> 0:05:58.600 a theft. It might not even have been a cry. 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:03.080 Picking up a necklace off the ground is not something 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:06.520 that prosecutors are interested in. It's not something that people 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:09.520 go to prison for, and it's certainly not murder. 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:13.880 Right as Tyra's walking away, she hears words being yelled, 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:16.800 yelled maybe to her by one of the girls in 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:20.840 the chevy, eighteen year old Holly Lay, Please make them stop. 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:24.480 Holly calls, we don't have anything. Before Tyra can respond, 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:29.080 a gunshot rings out. Lashawna Keeney, part of the Right 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:32.000 View group, had pulled out a gun and fired into 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:35.159 the car. The bullet went straight into the temple of 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:40.120 Michelle Lay, Holly's fifteen year old sister. Michelle died instantly. 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:44.480 Later on, another one of the Right View girls, Angie, 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:48.440 expressed bewilderment that it all happened so fast. We just 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:51.679 meant to punk them out, she said within minutes, though, 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:58.880 punking out turned into murder. The moment the shots rang out, 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:02.760 everyone scattered. Most members of the Right View group fled 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:06.240 to a nearby motel, but Tyra ran to her apartment 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:09.560 only a few hundred feet away, where she panicked and 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:12.600 flushed the necklace down the toilet. She was afraid it 0:07:12.600 --> 0:07:15.440 would connect her to a shooting she didn't commit. For 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:17.960 her part, Holly Lay got out of the Chevy and 0:07:18.000 --> 0:07:22.080 started banging on doors, pleading desperately for someone, anyone to 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:25.880 call an ambulance help her sister. Eventually, someone did call 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:39.400 nine one one. It was Tyra. Police only needed about 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:42.200 twelve hours to figure out who'd been there when Michelle 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:45.040 Lay was shot. The girls from the Chevy gave some 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:48.840 pretty good descriptions of both their assailants and the pit bull. 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:52.520 Police found the dog sitting outside its owner's house, and 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:55.840 when the owner matched the girl's descriptions of Joe, police 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:59.000 knew they'd found one of the Right View group. Pretty soon, 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:01.800 several people had been rounded up and the police were 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:06.720 knocking at Tyrastoor too. Before long, Tyra Patterson found herself 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:16.760 in an interrogation room. 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:21.320 This episode is sponsored by AIG, a leading global insurance company, 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:25.280 and Paul Weiss, Rifkin, Wharton and Garrison, a leading international 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:28.920 law firm. The AIG Pro Bono program provides free legal 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:33.760 services and other support to many nonprofit organizations and individuals 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:36.880 most in need, and recently they announced that working to 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:39.640 reform the criminal justice system will become a key pillar 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:43.200 of the program's mission. Paul Weiss has long had an 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:47.480 unwavering commitment to providing impactful, pro bono legal assistance to 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:50.560 the most vulnerable members of our society and in support 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:54.199 of the public interest, including extensive work in the criminal 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:54.960 justice area. 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:02.760 The police were angry. The shooting was tragic, and they 0:09:02.760 --> 0:09:05.680 wanted to nail as many people as possible for murder, 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:09.800 not just Lashana who pulled the trigger, but the others too. 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:12.320 But how do you get someone who didn't kill anyone 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:15.600 to go down for murder. Well, one tool that police 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:19.800 and prosecutors have is that felony murder rule. We mentioned earlier. 0:09:20.200 --> 0:09:24.480 This little known law can be the source of enormous injustice. 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:29.400 In its purest form, the felony murder rule is felony 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:35.280 plus death equals first degree murder. So if you commit 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:39.400 a felony and during the course of that felony someone dies, 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:43.280 you are convicted of first degree murder, even though you 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:46.520 never intended to kill somebody, Even though you couldn't have 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:50.080 foreseen that somebody would have died. It is the intent 0:09:50.200 --> 0:09:55.520 to commit that felony that substitutes for the intent to kill. 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:59.600 They didn't coerce Tyra into confessing to murder because they 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:03.760 knew who before the interrogation who the murderer was. It 0:10:03.840 --> 0:10:07.319 was Lashawnakiny. All they needed to do was get Tyra 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:10.880 to say that she grabbed a necklace by force from 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:13.520 one of the girls in the car. That's a robbery. 0:10:14.000 --> 0:10:17.440 They could get her for the same murder that Lashawna 0:10:17.520 --> 0:10:18.320 Kinney committed. 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:22.280 So getting Tyra to say she snatched the necklace instead 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:28.240 of picking it up is what this interrogation is all about. Now, 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:31.320 like all interrogations that aren't fully recorded, there are two 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:34.280 stories about what happened in the room. There is the 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:37.400 official story told in police reports, and then there's the 0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:41.520 story told by the defendant. They almost always diverge. In 0:10:41.559 --> 0:10:45.520 Tyra's case, the police story goes like this. Tyra admitted 0:10:45.559 --> 0:10:48.439 to being there, but she denied being involved in the robbery, 0:10:48.480 --> 0:10:51.800 assault or shooting. But as she was being booked, Tyra 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:55.560 spontaneously announced that she wanted to tell the truth and 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:58.560 admitted reaching into the car. And grabbing the necklace off 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:01.600 one of the girls that when police captured her confession 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:06.439 on videotape, no coercion, no drama. But according to Tyra 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:10.040 and her lawyer, she confessed after a very different sequence 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:13.920 of events. Here's David Singleton, that lawyer who called Steve 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:17.440 about this case. David has represented Tyra for the past 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:18.280 eight years. 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:24.040 Tyra recalls very clearly the detective screaming at her, saying 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:27.200 she's a murderer, that she's going to be locked up 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:30.760 for the rest of her life, cursing at her, telling 0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:33.760 her she's an effing liar, because Tyra was saying, I 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:38.679 didn't rob anybody, I didn't shoot anybody. Eventually, the detective 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:43.360 takes Tyra out of the interrogation room and walks her 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:48.000 past where Tyra could see Rebecca sitting in a police 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:50.520 car about to go home. And Tyra's like, well, you 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:53.360 know Rebecca's going home. Why am I not going home. 0:11:54.040 --> 0:11:58.760 The detective said, well, she gave us a videotape statement, 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:01.439 and Tyra said, well, I'll give you a videotape statement. 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:04.079 The detective said, well, you don't have anything to tell us, 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:07.240 and Tyra said, well, I picked up a necklace from 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:10.360 the ground, and the sector smiled and took her back 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:13.000 in to try and charge her. 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:16.560 The police tell Tyra she just needs to change one 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:19.400 thing in her story about the necklace. She didn't pick 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:22.560 it up off the ground. Instead, she robbed it from 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:26.000 the girls. After all, they say, wouldn't it be better 0:12:26.040 --> 0:12:29.360 to go down for a robbery than for murder? Getting 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:31.640 caught up in a murder is what Tyra's been terrified 0:12:31.679 --> 0:12:35.320 of all along, so this is what breaks her. She 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:38.160 falsely admits to snatching the necklace off one of the 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:41.920 girls in the chevy. Now she's confessed to robbery and 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:45.199 the cops have their felony. It's only at this point 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:46.760 that the video camera gets turned on. 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:49.319 Describe the necklace. 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:59.480 Is a necklace, thank big goal. 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:01.120 I wouldn't live. 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:02.280 I don't know why I grab it? 0:13:03.040 --> 0:13:04.920 And from which girl in the back sheet? 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:05.480 Did you take that? 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:05.880 Next? 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:07.680 The driver? 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:12.480 Okay, from the person behind the driver? 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:13.440 Okay? Yeah. 0:13:14.040 --> 0:13:17.840 What struck me about Tyra's appearance in that video is 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:22.880 she did look tired. She also looks scared. At one 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:26.079 point you hear somebody screaming in another room and she's 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:32.680 just terrified. And another point, I recall very vividly. She's 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:37.440 looking to the detective for an answer. I mean, she 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:40.920 was trying to satisfy what he wanted because she thought 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:44.640 that was her ticket to go back home and continue 0:13:44.679 --> 0:13:48.760 on with her life. And the minute that she finished 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:52.079 the video and the camera was turned off, she said, 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:55.320 do I get to go home now? And he said no, 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:58.240 I'm booking you for murder. That's when the nightmare truly began. 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:01.520 How is Tyra to know that one little change in 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:04.440 her story was enough to charge her not just with robbery, 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:08.800 but with felony murder. That one little change made Tira 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:12.959 as liable for Michelle Lay's death as the murderer herself. 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:17.600 You know, there's a huge irony in this case. They 0:14:17.640 --> 0:14:21.320 needed Tyra to confess to a robbery, not a theft, 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:23.840 and the way they did it was they told her 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:27.600 it's better to go down for a robbery than it 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:31.520 is for a murder, and she accepted that explanation. 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:32.960 She believed that premise. 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:37.320 Everybody believes that, of course, because they don't understand the 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:41.800 felony murder rule. We've seen police officers lie before, but 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:46.240 this is a particularly dangerous lie because it sets somebody 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:48.400 up for murder charges. 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:51.120 There's actually a second irony in this case too, because 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:54.120 here you have the felony murder rule being applied to 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:57.520 Tyra Patterson. She didn't have a weapon with her that night. 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:00.280 She didn't know the people who did come to that 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:03.760 scene with weapons. She tried to intervene and stop the fight. 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:06.360 She tried to de escalate as things were getting more 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:09.400 serious and more violent, and when she couldn't stop the fight, 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:12.240 she walked away. After the gunshot. She called nine to 0:15:12.240 --> 0:15:15.560 one to one. Tyra's a hero here. She's not a murderer. 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:22.520 She's the one, though, who ends up going down. Tyra 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:25.800 Patterson's only crime, if it even was a crime, was 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:29.360 picking up a necklace from the ground, But suddenly, somehow 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:32.800 she was on trial for murder and facing life in prison. 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:37.600 And like too many murder trials, Tyra's was a shit show. 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:42.240 So Tyra was represented by attorneys in the local public 0:15:42.240 --> 0:15:47.920 defender office. The problem was that they were overwhelmed and 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:54.600 didn't have the resources to defend Tyra appropriately. 0:15:55.280 --> 0:15:58.360 The primary evidence against Tyra was her confession, but her 0:15:58.440 --> 0:16:01.920 attorneys never argued that it was false or coerced. In fact, 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:05.360 no one, not the judge or the jury ever heard 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:09.560 Tyra's account of her interrogation. Her attorneys actually advised her 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:12.560 not to testify in her own defense, not to tell 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:14.560 her side of the story, and why not. 0:16:15.120 --> 0:16:21.160 They said that she was too unsophisticated and talked too 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:27.040 much like she was from the ghetto, that she'd be 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:30.440 eaten alive by the prosecutors, and I think that Tyra 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:32.000 got ridden off in that way. 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:35.920 The jury did hear, though, from Holly Lay, who testified 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:39.000 that she'd seen Tyra reaching into the car. A few 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:42.000 other girls from the Chevy testified the same way. Their 0:16:42.080 --> 0:16:46.240 stories went unchallenged by Tyra's lawyers, even though they could 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:49.200 have called Rebecca to testify that Tyra never snatched the 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:52.720 necklace off anyone. The lawyers didn't even play Tyra's nine 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:54.720 to one one call, which would have showed that she 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:55.760 was trying to help. 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:59.360 We were able to find out by talking to the 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:03.000 jurors years later that that nine one one call would 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:04.920 have made a difference had they heard it. When I 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:06.640 played it for them, they were like, we never would 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:08.640 have convicted her had we known that she had called 0:17:08.720 --> 0:17:11.840 nine one one. But the defense gave the jurors nothing 0:17:11.880 --> 0:17:13.040 to work with nothing. 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:20.679 And that's how Tira Patterson, the woman who never touched 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:24.160 a gun or robbed anyone, was convicted of one kind 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:28.720 of aggravated murder and four counts of aggravated robbery. When 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:31.880 the jury announced its verdict, she stood up and shouted 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:35.720 in disbelief. But I didn't do it. It didn't matter. 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:39.600 She was sentenced to forty three years to life. That's 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:43.040 thirteen more years than Lashana who actually pulled the trigger. 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:48.800 And in December nineteen ninety five, Tira Patterson became Ohio 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:53.000 Department of Correction's inmate number three seven seven three seven. 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:10.040 Fast forward to twenty eleven, Tira Patterson had been in 0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:13.640 prison for just over sixteen years, not even halfway through 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:17.240 her sentence. When she got her first break. Ohio Governor 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:20.119 Ted Strickland learned about her case. He thought it was 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:22.880 unfair that her sentence was more severe than the shooters, 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:25.480 so he issued what's called a commutation. 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:30.560 Tyra tried to stop this from happening. She walked away 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:35.000 before the shots were fired. All she did was pick 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:39.040 up a necklace off of the ground. LASHAWNA Keeney brought 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:42.560 the gun to this event, and she pulled the trigger 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:46.720 that led to Michelle Lay's death. It is grossly unfair 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:50.359 for Lashawna to be sentenced to thirty years and for 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:54.160 Tyra to be sentenced to forty three years, and that's 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:58.919 why the governor commuted tyra sentence to sixteen years to life, 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:02.360 which made her immediately eligible for parole. 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:06.240 But Tyra's hopes of freedom were dashed a few months later. 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:10.399 The Ohio Parole Board denied her request for parole, and 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:12.920 they said she had to wait up to seven years 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:16.800 before asking again. They said her crime was too severe. 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:20.560 That's when David Singleton got involved. He'd heard about her 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:23.439 case from a friend and he decided to go meet 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:27.439 Tira Patterson. When David met Tyra in prison, she was 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:30.400 different from that nineteen year old girl whose future looked 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:33.960 like a broken promise behind bars. Tyra had redeemed her 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:36.919 own promise. She had gained skills in prison, working as 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:40.400 a porter, a food service worker, a maintenance person. She'd 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:43.160 gone from an illiterate sixth grade dropout to someone who 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:47.080 earned her ged. She'd participated in more than two hundred 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:51.080 self improvement programs, and most importantly, she was becoming an 0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:55.720 incredible advocate for herself and for justice. When she told 0:19:55.800 --> 0:19:58.800 David she was innocent, he believed her and he set 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:02.240 out to prove it, listing Steve Drisson's help in the process. 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:07.159 There's no DNA miracle for people like Tyra and for 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:09.760 most of the people who are locked up in prison. 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:13.360 I mean, DNA is only present in maybe ten percent 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:14.800 of all cases. 0:20:15.000 --> 0:20:17.080 Well, that's the thing. Even if the shooter had left 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:20.200 DNA on the gun, everybody already knew that Leashana Kini 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:22.080 was the one who pulled the trigger. This is not 0:20:22.119 --> 0:20:24.920 a case where DNA testing is going to exonerate Tyra Patterson. 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:29.960 What she needed here was a reinvestigation, an advocacy. 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:32.960 As David and Steve dove into the case against Tyra, 0:20:33.200 --> 0:20:37.000 they found some major cracks. First, David discovered that the 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:40.679 victim's sister, Holly Lay, had testified at the trial of 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:43.000 another one of the Right View girls a year before 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:47.080 Tyra's trial. Back then, Holly had testified that Tyra wasn't 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:49.480 the one who reached into the car and snatched the necklace. 0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:53.719 It had actually been someone else. Second, David uncovered the 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:56.159 very first statements the girls in the Chevy gave to 0:20:56.200 --> 0:20:59.880 police right after Michelle Lay was shot. And when he 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:03.760 and Steve reviewed those early statements, well, it was revealing. 0:21:04.200 --> 0:21:06.800 Remember some of these were given within an hour or 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:11.359 two of the crime, so the memories were fresh for 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:15.640 their witnesses, and Tyra was like a ghost. The two 0:21:15.840 --> 0:21:20.880 people who were mentioned far less than everybody else in 0:21:21.000 --> 0:21:25.439 all of these accounts were Tyra and Becca, and so 0:21:25.560 --> 0:21:27.840 that's squared with Tyra's story. 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:31.439 Third, David talked to some of the other Right View girls, 0:21:31.640 --> 0:21:33.560 the ones who were born involved in what went down 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:38.000 that night. Three of them signed affid David supporting Tyra's innocence, 0:21:38.320 --> 0:21:43.399 including Lashawna Keeney. Lashawna confirmed that far from participating, Tyra 0:21:43.520 --> 0:21:48.000 had actually tried to stop the confrontation from escalating. Before long, 0:21:48.119 --> 0:21:51.560 Tyra's case was attracting attention among some pretty influential people. 0:21:52.080 --> 0:21:56.000 Ohio State Senator Peggy Lanner visited Tyra in prison, and 0:21:56.040 --> 0:21:58.960 she was so compelled by Tyra's story that she got 0:21:59.080 --> 0:22:02.520 four other states senators to back Tyra's efforts for release. 0:22:03.080 --> 0:22:07.639 Celebrities and advocates also began getting involved, everyone from actor 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:11.600 Elfrey Woodard to Mad Men creator Matthew Weener. They began 0:22:11.640 --> 0:22:15.040 tweeting and posting in support of Tyra, using the hashtag 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:16.760 I Am Tyra Patterson. 0:22:17.160 --> 0:22:20.639 This I Am Tyra Patterson campaign the hashtag. What it 0:22:20.720 --> 0:22:25.560 meant was they were in solidarity with her. People were 0:22:25.600 --> 0:22:30.880 saying We're there for you, we see you, we hear you, 0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:35.000 and that was a powerful message. 0:22:35.200 --> 0:22:36.879 You know, I think the first time I heard the 0:22:36.920 --> 0:22:40.000 name Tira Patterson was when I opened up my Twitter 0:22:40.000 --> 0:22:42.560 feed one day and there I see a video of 0:22:42.680 --> 0:22:46.920 Steve giving a speech and holding a poster that says, 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:49.760 in big black letters, I am Tira Patterson. 0:22:50.200 --> 0:22:54.840 That was take five of that video, because the first 0:22:54.880 --> 0:22:58.240 take went along what I thought was really well, and 0:22:58.280 --> 0:23:01.080 then I picked up the sign I am holding it 0:23:01.200 --> 0:23:02.000 upside down. 0:23:02.200 --> 0:23:02.440 Great. 0:23:02.520 --> 0:23:07.520 Great. The point of the campaign was to demonstrate that 0:23:07.720 --> 0:23:12.840 anybody could falsely confess if pressured by the police, and 0:23:12.960 --> 0:23:16.920 I am Tyra Patterson to me, was making that message 0:23:17.080 --> 0:23:18.000 loud and clear. 0:23:18.480 --> 0:23:19.920 I could have been Tyra Patterson. 0:23:20.080 --> 0:23:22.280 Now, my child could have been Tyra Patterson. 0:23:22.640 --> 0:23:26.359 That's how Tyra became, in my view, her best advocate. 0:23:26.480 --> 0:23:31.400 It was exposing people to her so that they could 0:23:31.400 --> 0:23:38.640 see her as a living, breathing daughter, sister, and person 0:23:38.720 --> 0:23:41.560 who was going to shine in the community if we 0:23:41.600 --> 0:23:42.320 could get her free. 0:23:42.840 --> 0:23:45.800 One person this message reached was the victim's sister. 0:23:46.359 --> 0:23:50.560 Twenty sixteen is when Holly Lay got in touch with me, 0:23:50.800 --> 0:23:53.920 and her husband said, Holly wants to meet you at 0:23:53.960 --> 0:23:58.119 Michelle's grave on Michelle's birthday. So I showed up. I 0:23:58.160 --> 0:23:59.639 didn't think they were going to come. I was like, 0:23:59.680 --> 0:24:04.639 this not be happening. Holly said, you know, Tyra didn't 0:24:04.680 --> 0:24:07.960 do this. And in fact, that night, Tyra walked by 0:24:08.359 --> 0:24:11.480