WEBVTT - #220 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Emerson Stevens 0:00:04.280 --> 0:00:07.240 Hey guys, it's Laura. I'm here with some breaking news. 0:00:07.640 --> 0:00:10.760 In the season two of Wrongful Conviction and False Confessions, 0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:13.080 Steve and I brought you the story of a Virginia 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:18.120 fisherman named Emerson Stevens. Emerson spent more than thirty years 0:00:18.160 --> 0:00:21.240 behind bars for a murder he didn't commit. Remember this 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:24.240 is that crazy case where prosecutors tried to get an 0:00:24.280 --> 0:00:28.840 expert to say that the victim's way down body floated 0:00:29.080 --> 0:00:32.720 up the river against the current for miles before we're 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:35.960 landing near emerson stock. The expert ended up telling the 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:40.680 prosecutors their case was eyewash. That's Virginia slang for bullshit. 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:45.560 But Emerson was wrongly convicted anyway. We told his story 0:00:46.000 --> 0:00:49.159 and we asked you to tell the governor of Virginia 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:53.320 that he should grant Emerson's request for a pardon. So 0:00:53.640 --> 0:00:57.280 here's the breaking news. After more than three decades of waiting, 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:02.880 Emerson finally got justice. On August sixteen, Virginia Governor Ralph 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:07.640 Northam granted Emerson a pardon based on actual innocence. That 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:10.880 means that Emerson is now eligible for compensation from the state, 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:15.440 and it means his innocence has been publicly recognized once 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:18.360 and for all. Thank you to all our listeners who 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:23.280 supported Emerson. Congratulations to Emerson's longtime lawyers at the University 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:27.480 of Virginia Law Innocence Project and Emerson. This news is 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:31.840 the best hope you celebrate in style. We're re releasing 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:37.720 your episode in honor of you. Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:41.200 False Confessions. I'm Laura and I writer and I'm Steve Drison. 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:44.679 Today we'll tell you the story of Emerson Stevens, a 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:48.280 fisherman from Virginia's Chesapeake Bay. When a young mother was 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:51.560 found murdered, it seemed all the evidence pointed to Emerson 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:56.200 until the case fell apart. Emerson survived thirty one years 0:01:56.200 --> 0:01:58.880 in prison with the help of an ally from across 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:01.840 the bay. Now, oh, you can help him finally clear 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:05.560 his name. Today's episode is based on interviews with Emerson 0:02:05.600 --> 0:02:19.040 Stevens and his lawyers, along with legal filings and court opinions. So, Steve, today, 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:21.120 we're going to break them old. We're going to break 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:23.480 them all. This is not a case that involves a 0:02:23.520 --> 0:02:27.640 false confession. This is a case that involves a false 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:33.080 inculpatory statement. Sometimes detectives can't get a confession, but they'll 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:37.360 settle for a false inculpatory statement. Right. That's lawyer talk 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:39.320 for something you say that makes you look really bad. 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:42.800 That's exactly right, and it's false. So it's a lie. 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:46.360 And the same tactics that are used to get false 0:02:46.400 --> 0:02:51.359 confessions are often used to get these false inculpatory statements, 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:55.320 and they can have the same devastating consequences. So when 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:58.080 I think about this case, I think about it in 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:00.960 terms of a puzzle. You know, and my family goes 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:03.960 on vacation, we often buy a puzzle and we spend 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:07.000 a lot of time putting that puzzle together. And anyone 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:10.480 who puts puzzles together knows that there are a lot 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:13.640 of times where the piece that you think will finish 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:17.520 a part of the puzzle doesn't quite fit. It looks 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:21.840 like it should fit, but just a little bit off. 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:25.160 And that's what happened with a lot of the evidence 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:30.760 in Emerson Stevens case. They manipulated the evidence to make 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:34.080 it seem like it fit the police theory. That's what 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:37.320 happens in runful conviction cases. Right tunnel vision makes police 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:41.040 officers force these puzzle pieces together when in reality they 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:43.440 might not fit at all. It was only after the 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:46.800 fact that you could see that the pieces never really 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:53.440 fit in the first place. Today's story takes place in 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:57.280 Lancaster County, Virginia, a rural community instled between the Chesapeake 0:03:57.320 --> 0:04:00.440 Bay and the Rappahannock River. It's a place that'smells like 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:04.480 ocean salt, an honest sweat. Generations there have made a 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:07.120 living with their hands, hauling fish out of the bay 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:10.880 and crabs and oysters out of the river. In this 0:04:10.960 --> 0:04:14.200 county was home to Mary Harding, who was Lancaster through 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:18.120 and through. Petite and blue eyed, Mary was homecoming queen 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:21.120 at Lancaster High before she and her high school sweetheart 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:24.520 tied the knot. By age twenty four, Mary was working 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:27.000 as a bookkeeper at the local bank while her husband 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:29.680 was a fisherman. They had two young kids and a 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:33.480 modest ranch home located just across the street from the cemetery. 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:41.120 On Friday, August, that modest home became the scene of 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:45.320 a terrible discovery. On weekdays, Mary had a routine before work, 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:47.160 she'd drop off her one year old at the home 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:50.920 of her husband's grandmother, Virginia Walker. But that Friday morning, 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:54.160 Mary didn't show up. Virginia was worried, so she drove 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:57.360 over to Mary's house. Virginia was greeted at the door 0:04:57.440 --> 0:05:00.240 by Mary's four year old son, who told here that 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:03.560 he couldn't find his mom. The TV and lights were 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:07.039 on throughout the house. Some unrinsed comet was left in 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:10.160 the bathroom sink, and the little boy's chicken dinner from 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:13.560 the night before was still sitting on the table. Don't worry, 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:16.200 the four year old assured his great grandma. In his 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:20.120 mother's absence, he was taking care of the baby. Virginia 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:23.200 knew there's no way Mary would abandon her children. There's 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:27.239 only one explanation for her disappearance. Mary must have been taken. 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:31.160 Virginia calls the police, and soon a state police detective 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:33.680 by the name of David Riley arrives at the house. 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:36.560 He finds cat litter scattered on the ground outside the 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:39.760 back door, along with one of Mary's white sandals, but 0:05:39.839 --> 0:05:44.000 there's no sign of Mary. Pretty soon, word spreads and 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:47.080 the whole community starts searching through the woods and along 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:51.320 the shore, but they find nothing. Nothing that is until 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:54.440 four days later. That's when a woman's body is found 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:58.240 in the shallows of the Rappahannock River. The body is unclothed, 0:05:58.400 --> 0:06:02.159 badly decomposed, and hard to identify, but it's clear something 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:05.600 horrific has happened. The woman's back is covered with deep, 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:09.479 evenly spaced slashes. There's a rope tied around her neck 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:12.440 with a huge cinder block attached to the other end. 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:15.279 A heavy chain is wrapped around the woman's right leg. 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:19.600 Soon enough, the medical examiner confirms this is Mary Harding. 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:23.719 She's been strangled to death. Now here's the thing. The 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:26.360 rope and chain were the same kind that you can 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:30.160 find on most fisherman's boats in Lancaster. So suddenly this 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:34.960 close knit community was being torn apart by suspicion. Everyone 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:37.880 was wondering who would have done this to the homecoming queen. 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:41.800 Before long, the authorities settled on a suspect, thirty two 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:46.440 year old Emerson Stevens. Like so many other Lancaster men, 0:06:46.560 --> 0:06:49.240 Emerson had worked on the water since he was a teenager. 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:52.800 Emerson was a crabber and an oysterman who hauled his 0:06:52.880 --> 0:06:55.720 catch in on a boat named after his wife. He'd 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:57.839 spent his life by the shore, the kind of guy 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:01.400 who has salt water in his veins. It was Mary's 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:04.839 husband who pointed police to Emerson Steven's. Emerson had gone 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:08.640 to Mary's funeral, and Mary's husband thought Emerson seemed nervous there. 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:12.120 Mary's husband also remembered that he had once heard Emerson 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:16.000 make a crude joke about female anatomy. This wasn't much 0:07:16.040 --> 0:07:19.000 to go on, but days later, a couple of people 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:21.920 told police they had seen a light colored pickup truck 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:26.120 outside Mary's home on the night she disappeared. Now, Emerson 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:29.560 Steven's happened to drive a white Dodge pickup, so he 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:35.880 quickly became the police's number one suspect. Detective Riley asks 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:38.920 Emerson to meet him at Mary Harding's house and the 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:42.280 two men sit down on the front porch. According to Emerson, 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:45.880 Riley gestures to the street and asks, why were you 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:49.160 parked in front of this house the night Mary vanished. 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:53.160 If you question somebody on the porch, you're creating a 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:57.440 context that is different from your standard police interrogation. You 0:07:57.480 --> 0:08:02.320 can tap into all of the emotions of This is 0:08:02.320 --> 0:08:05.440 where this woman lived, this is where she had her children, 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:09.520 this is where she was last seen. This is not 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:12.240 a police interrogation room. It feels like the kind of 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:15.080 place where you'd have a heart to heart conversation. And 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:18.600 there's another thing that makes this porch interrogation even more emotional. Yeah, 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:23.200 not only was this the front porch at Mary's house, 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:27.280 it was right across the street from the burial ground 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:32.559 where her headstone was. As the two men look out 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:36.880 at the cemetery, Riley presses Emerson for information, but Emerson 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:39.959 is stunned he hadn't been at Mary's house. He says 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:42.640 he'd been at home. Then he'd taken his kids over 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:45.840 to the neighbors to watch TV and eat crab. They'd 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:49.440 returned home together at about nine pm, and Emerson's wife 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:52.520 had gotten home from work shortly after. He tells Riley 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:55.640 to talk to his neighbor and confirm the alibi, but 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:59.520 Riley doesn't buy Emerson's story. Instead, he orders a search 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:03.200 of Erson's pickup truck. After digging through the truck for hours, 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:07.080 police discover a single strand of hair. They send the 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:10.040 hair off to the state crime lab for forensic analysis. 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:13.040 The next week, Riley asks Emerson to come to a 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:16.560 nearby Virginia police station for a polygraph as soon as 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:22.040 the polygraphs completed, Riley tells Emerson he failed. According to Emerson, 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:25.320 Riley says he must either have killed Mary Harding or 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:28.680 done something else related to her murder. Those are two 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:33.120 pretty bad options, and Emerson is terrified. But then Riley 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:36.720 offers Emerson a third choice that seems a lot better. 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:40.480 Maybe you were at Mary's house that night doing something innocent. 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:43.760 Maybe you were driving by and you stopped on the 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:46.920 side of the road to take a leak. The fisherman 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:50.199 takes the bait. He's desperate to please Riley and changes 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:54.160 his story to exactly what Riley suggested. If detectives can't 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:59.680 get a full confession, they'll settle for a false inculpatory statement. 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:03.600 All the detective can get from Emerson is a statement 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:06.160 that he pulled over on the side of the road 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:11.199 a short distance away from Mary's house to relieve himself 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:15.679 at the approximate time of death. That's the admission I 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:19.559 was in the vicinity of her home near the time 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:23.319 where the medical examiner believed she was killed. That was 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:26.440 all Emerson said. He did not confess, but he'd said 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:29.640 enough to get himself in real trouble. He just placed 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:35.319 himself at the crime scene. Detective Riley was on high alert, 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:38.760 but the case against Emerson was pretty damn thin until 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:42.040 test results came back from the State crime Lab on 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:45.280 that hair from Emerson's truck. The lab had put the 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:48.439 hair under a microscope and compared it to Mary Harding's hair, 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:52.680 and the lab said it was an exact match. The 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:57.360 police's thin case suddenly seemed rock solid, and in late October, 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:02.000 Emerson Stevens was a rested for the abduction and murder 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:14.800 of Mary Harding. The trial of Emerson Stevens was one 0:11:14.800 --> 0:11:17.640 of the most dramatic events Lancaster County had ever seen. 0:11:18.160 --> 0:11:21.240 To a packed courtroom, prosecutors described how they thought the 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:26.040 crime unfolded. Emerson kidnapped Mary, they said, then strangled her 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:29.160 and threw her body into the river. They even suggested 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:32.800 that Emerson slashed Mary's back with his fishing knife in 0:11:32.920 --> 0:11:36.160 order to attract crabs so there wouldn't be anything left 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:40.240 of her body. The worst imaginable kind of cry. It's 0:11:40.280 --> 0:11:43.040 like throwing chum over the side of a boat to 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:47.319 entice sharks. But there were problems with the prosecution's theory. 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:50.800 They claimed that Emerson had thrown Mary's body into the 0:11:50.880 --> 0:11:53.360 river off the end of his own dock, but her 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:59.600 body was actually found a full ten miles upstream. How 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:02.880 does a body that is waged down with a cinder 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:09.880 block travel ten miles upstream upstreams against the current. That's 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:11.880 the thing. I mean. To swim those ten miles upstream 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:14.720 would have been crazy, let alone somehow to float a 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:17.760 weighted down body that distance. It makes no sense at all. 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:21.920 It's absurd, But prosecutors found a witness to bolster this 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:26.240 theory insane though it seemed. A marine scientist testified that 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:29.720 it was possible for Mary's body to float against the 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:33.319 current cinder block and all for ten miles from Emerson's 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:35.920 dock to where it was found, and there were other 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:39.960 witnesses to Detective Riley told the jury that Emerson claimed 0:12:40.000 --> 0:12:42.560 to have been near Mary's house on the night she disappeared, 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:46.880 and the prosecution called two people to corroborate Emerson's statement, 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:50.679 Clyde Dunaway and and Dick. They both claimed they had 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:53.880 seen a pickup truck resembling Emerson's near the victim's house 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:57.160 that night, and finally, the prosecution called a witness from 0:12:57.160 --> 0:13:00.200 the crime lab to testify that the hair and emer'sons 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:03.319 truck seemed to match Mary's. So it seemed at this 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:07.640 point as though all the puzzle pieces fit together, and 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:13.080 they painted a compelling portrait of Emerson's guilt. But this 0:13:13.160 --> 0:13:16.040 is not the end of the story, not by a 0:13:16.080 --> 0:13:19.520 long shot. When the defense's turn came, Emerson's lawyers put 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:22.280 on a strong case of their own, no fewer than 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:26.880 four alibi witnesses. In the end, the jury hung unable 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:30.880 to reach a verdict. The prosecution was quick to retry Emerson, 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:35.720 and on July the second trial began. This time, the 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:40.520 prosecution's case seemed, if anything, weaker. The marine scientist was 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:43.400 a no show, so the prosecutor read the jury his 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:47.520 testimony from the previous trial. Only one witness, Clyde Dunaway, 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:51.240 testified about seeing Emerson's pickup near Mary's house, but the 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:54.920 crime lab technician repeated his previous testimony about the hair 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:58.600 in the truck, and Detective Riley testified again about Emerson's 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:02.120 statements to ring the second trial, Emerson's lawyer put on 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:06.120 his alibi witnesses again, and Emerson himself took the stand. 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:09.560 He tried to explain that he was innocent, that he 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:12.840 hadn't actually pulled over near Mary's house that night. He'd 0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:17.960 only said that to satisfy his interrogator. Prosecutors pounced, you 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:22.000 admit to us You lied, They asked, yes, I told that, 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:26.720 Emerson answered. Later he quietly added, I'm not a smart person. 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:31.000 The case wasn't any stronger than at the first trial, 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:34.960 but this time the jury reached a verdict guilty, and 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:38.000 Emerson Stevens was sentenced to a prison term of one 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:46.320 hundred and sixty four years. Fast forward to two thousand two. 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:50.320 During those sixteen years behind bars, Emerson earned his g 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:53.720 e d. He worked in the dusty prison wood shop, 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:58.120 building furniture for state institutions. He wrote letters constantly to 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:01.440 his family and to lawyers, begging for help with his case. 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:05.080 When he wasn't working or writing, Emerson would dream about 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:08.000 the smell of the shore. He wondered if he'd ever 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:11.280 be on the water again. In April two thousand two, 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:14.720 Emerson's attention was caught by a news story about a 0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:18.800 genteel of Virginia lady named Beverly Monroe. Beverly was a 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:22.880 professional chemist whose upper middle class background seemed worlds away 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:27.200 from Emerson. At least at first you see. Ten years earlier, 0:15:27.360 --> 0:15:30.240 fifty five year old Beverly had been dating a wealthy 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:34.080 real estate mogul named Roger de la Byrd. Roger lived 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:37.920 on a massive estate in Virginia Horse Country. He claimed 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:41.600 to be an art dealer who was descended from European nobility. 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:44.280 But when Roger turned up dead one morning from a 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:49.080 gunshot wound, police suspected Beverly of murder, even though she'd 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:52.000 never had so much as a traffic ticket. The case 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:55.520 against Beverly was absurd from day one. Beverly had a 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:58.800 grocery store received proving she hadn't been at Roger's estate 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:01.400 at the time he died, and Roger's death had been 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:05.040 ruled a suicide. Turns out his life was falling apart. 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:08.600 The FBI was investigating him for art fraud, and his 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:12.040 claims of nobility were also being exposed as phony. But 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:16.040 Beverly ended up being wrongly convicted of Roger's murder anyway. 0:16:16.040 --> 0:16:20.120 Why because in part of Detective David Riley, the same 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:23.680 officer who had built the case against Emerson Stevens. When 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:27.200 Detective Riley interrogated Beverly, she refused to admit to something 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:31.000 she didn't do, but Riley administered a polygraph and told 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:33.800 Beverly she failed it, and then he suggested that she 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:37.720 must have been present when Roger shot himself. Detective Riley 0:16:37.760 --> 0:16:41.200 seems to have manipulated Beverly into placing herself at the 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:43.560 scene of the crime, just like he seems to have 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:49.000 done with Emerson. The similarities are unmistakable. Beverly Monroe was 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:55.840 wrongfully convicted based on inculpatory statements that placed her at 0:16:55.880 --> 0:17:01.360 the crime scene, and Riley then built his case around 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:05.240 that statement to make it look like this wasn't a 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:08.760 suicide at all, that this was a murder. It's amazing, 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:12.760 just like Emerson, Beverly never confessed to anything. Same detective 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:17.280 using the same modus operandi in order to get not 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:21.639 a false confession, but a false inculpatory statement that was 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:24.800 used to convict them and send them away for crimes 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:28.600 they did not commit. A federal judge later called Riley's 0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:33.479 interrogation of Beverly Monroe deceitful and manipulative. Even so, Beverly 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:36.960 ended up serving ten years in prison before her conviction 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:39.480 was thrown out and she was released in April two 0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:43.080 thousand two. That news story Emerson saw on TV from 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:47.800 behind Bars was about Beverly's first moments of freedom. Emerson 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:50.960 didn't waste a minute. He immediately wrote to Beverly's lawyer, 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:54.200 who agreed to take his case. And when Beverly herself 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:57.760 heard about Emerson, she got involved too. She went to 0:17:57.840 --> 0:18:01.359 the lawyers that had just exonerated her her and said, 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:05.040 now you need to do it again for this other guy, 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:08.320 which you know, to their credit, they did. They tried 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:11.600 to reinvestigate as much as they could, and then when 0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:14.680 it became clear that they were sort of losing steam, 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:17.480 Beverly turned her sides to me. That's dear to end Right, 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:20.719 the director of the University of Virginia's Innocence Project Clinic. 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:23.920 She's one of the lawyers Beverly enlisted to join Emerson's 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:27.640 legal team. Emerson, you know, he had been trying for years, 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:30.639 writing to people about his case and begging for help. 0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:33.280 And if you ever meet or speak to Beverly, you 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:35.680 will learn that you will do anything that Beverly says 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:41.040 to do, because she's absolutely charming but also absolutely compelling. 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:45.720 Beverly made it something of a mission to help other 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:48.480 people who were convicted by the evidence collected by the 0:18:48.520 --> 0:18:51.520 same detective. With Beverly's help, Emerson now had a top 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:54.520 notch legal team, and while the lawyers got to work, 0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:59.639 Beverly and Emerson began corresponding. Beverly is not only college 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:02.640 educ but she's a chemist, and she lived a very 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:06.560 extravagant life with her partner before this all happened. And 0:19:06.640 --> 0:19:10.879 Emerson is this waterman who grew up, you know, with 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:14.199 his nine siblings in Lancaster. I mean, this is the 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:17.720 classic thing that happens in these wrongful conviction cases, is 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:21.200 that people who would never in a lifetime be near 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:25.840 each other or connect do. Beverly and Emerson became friends. 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:29.280 Beverly sensed how much this fisherman longed for the water, 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:32.720 and started sending him photographs of the place he missed most, 0:19:33.080 --> 0:19:36.800 the Chesapeake Bay. She was hyper aware of taking care 0:19:36.840 --> 0:19:40.080 of him while he was incarcerated so he didn't feel abandoned, 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:42.879 writing and calling and making sure he had money in 0:19:42.960 --> 0:19:47.879 his commissary and holidays and birthdays. And I remember thinking, 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:50.960 she knows what he's feeling better than any of us. 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:55.199 I think that Emerson, once he had Beverly, he knew 0:19:55.400 --> 0:19:58.640 that there was another person out there who was advocating 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:02.480 for him ferociously. I mean, most people who are incarcerated 0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:05.480 don't have that person. And because she was so smart 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:07.760 and because she had been through it, she wasn't going 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:10.480 to hear that it couldn't be done. While Beverly was 0:20:10.560 --> 0:20:15.040 keeping Emerson's hope alive, his legal team was systematically unwinding 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:17.640 the case against him, and, as it turned out, one 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:20.880 piece of faulty evidence after another seemed to lead back 0:20:21.000 --> 0:20:24.440 to Detective Riley. First up was the claim that witnesses 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:27.800 had seen a white pickup truck like Emerson's near Mary's house. 0:20:28.240 --> 0:20:31.000 A woman named and Dick had testified to that effect 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:34.040 at the first trial, but her story had changed by 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:36.679 the time of the second trial. There she swore that 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:39.600 the person she saw driving the truck was not Emerson. 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:42.000 Stevens when asked why she didn't say that to the 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:45.960 first jury, and answered because Detective Riley told me not to. 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:50.200 The other pickup truck witness, Clyde Dunaway Well turns out 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:53.840 he came forward only after police offered a twenty thousand 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:57.800 dollar reward for information. He asked Detective Riley about the 0:20:57.840 --> 0:21:01.680 money during their very first conversation, but at Emerson's second trial, 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:06.240 Dunaway swore he never asked anyone about the reward. Now, 0:21:06.359 --> 0:21:08.720 Detective Riley was sitting in the courtroom listening to this, 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:12.480 He must have known Dunaway was lying, but the detective 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:15.959 never said a word. Eventually, Dunaway paid a price for 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:19.239 his false testimony in Emerson Steven's case. He ended up 0:21:19.240 --> 0:21:24.520 pleading guilty to obstruction of justice. Once you dangle reward money, 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:28.400 especially in a place like Lancaster where there's a lot 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:31.640 of people living very much on a margin, the fact 0:21:31.720 --> 0:21:36.520 that Clyde Dunaway bit on that is hardly surprising. He 0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:39.280 repeatedly inquired about when am I going to get that money, 0:21:39.359 --> 0:21:42.680 and the detective would say, only after you testify. The 0:21:42.800 --> 0:21:46.000 upshot of the investigation is that Clyde Dunaway got in trouble, 0:21:46.560 --> 0:21:50.119 and our dirty detective, who sat on that information during 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:54.000 both trials, walked away unscathed. The little guy got it 0:21:54.160 --> 0:21:57.960 as usual. Next up was the bizarre claim that Mary's body, 0:21:58.080 --> 0:22:02.280 cinder block and all floated up stream ten miles that 0:22:02.400 --> 0:22:06.000 marine scientists who testified at the first trial, remember he 0:22:06.119 --> 0:22:09.159 was m i A. At the second trial, prosecutors had 0:22:09.200 --> 0:22:12.480 to read the jury a transcript of his previous testimony. 0:22:12.520 --> 0:22:15.320 Why didn't he show up the second time? Well, Emerson's 0:22:15.400 --> 0:22:18.280 lawyers found a letter from the scientist to the prosecutor 0:22:18.400 --> 0:22:21.800 that provided a pretty clear explanation. After the first trial, 0:22:21.840 --> 0:22:25.840 the scientist wrote, Lieutenant Riley applied what maybe the correct 0:22:26.040 --> 0:22:28.919 term to my testimony in this case. He called it 0:22:29.080 --> 0:22:34.480 I wash. I wash is Virginia slang for bullshit. Oh god, 0:22:34.560 --> 0:22:39.359 the marine scientists. It's clear that the science that he 0:22:39.440 --> 0:22:44.080 put forth at this trial wasn't real. Even Detective Riley 0:22:44.119 --> 0:22:49.320 called this theory eye wash. Why a marine biologist went 0:22:49.359 --> 0:22:51.320 along with that the first time I have no idea, 0:22:51.359 --> 0:22:54.880 But by the second time he clearly did not want 0:22:54.920 --> 0:22:57.240 to do it and thought it was dirty. Right. That's 0:22:57.240 --> 0:22:59.720 what his letters suggested, is you're asking me to do 0:22:59.760 --> 0:23:03.560 something that's nonsensical. Suddenly there was reason to believe that 0:23:03.680 --> 0:23:06.960 Detective Riley had jinned up some of the evidence against Emerson, 0:23:07.400 --> 0:23:10.439 and it seems that Riley tried to take it even further. 0:23:11.000 --> 0:23:14.520 The owner of a Lancaster convenience store gave Emerson's lawyers 0:23:14.560 --> 0:23:18.800 a sworn statement that reads as follows. Detective Riley tried 0:23:18.840 --> 0:23:21.159 to get me to say that Emerson Stevens woke me 0:23:21.240 --> 0:23:23.040 up in the middle of the night, that Mary Harding 0:23:23.080 --> 0:23:26.159 disappeared so that he could buy five gallons of gas. 0:23:26.880 --> 0:23:31.119 Detective Riley was extremely aggressive and pushy, insisting that I 0:23:31.160 --> 0:23:33.399 agree with his story even though it was not true. 0:23:33.920 --> 0:23:35.679 I was never woken up in the middle of the 0:23:35.760 --> 0:23:39.800 night by Emerson Stevens. Ever, for any reason, none of 0:23:39.800 --> 0:23:43.240 these pieces of the puzzle actually fit together. They were 0:23:43.320 --> 0:23:46.720 all manipulated by this detective so that they fit his 0:23:47.000 --> 0:23:51.359 theory that Emerson was guilty of this crime. Now that's 0:23:51.400 --> 0:23:54.119 the eye wash. The rest of the case crumbled to 0:23:54.800 --> 0:23:57.960 remember the theory that Emerson used his knife to slash 0:23:58.040 --> 0:24:00.800 Mary's back. A new assess s meant by the medical 0:24:00.840 --> 0:24:05.080 examiner showed that those evenly spaced gashes were probably made 0:24:05.080 --> 0:24:07.800 by a boat propeller, not by a human with a knife. 0:24:08.560 --> 0:24:11.640 And finally, what about the hair from Emerson's truck Back 0:24:11.640 --> 0:24:14.639 in the crime lab had put that hair under a 0:24:14.680 --> 0:24:18.760 microscope and claimed that it was an exact match to marry. 0:24:18.800 --> 0:24:22.679 This technique, known as hair microscopy, has since been debunked. 0:24:23.160 --> 0:24:25.360 There's no way you can match hairs with that level 0:24:25.400 --> 0:24:28.200 of certainty just by looking through a microscope. In fact, 0:24:28.280 --> 0:24:31.719 more than seventy people have been exonerated after bogus hair 0:24:31.760 --> 0:24:35.879 evidence was used to convict them. There's just nothing to 0:24:35.960 --> 0:24:41.240 the science that you can microscopically compare hairs and identify anybody. 0:24:41.520 --> 0:24:43.760 We've had cases where people say that this is a 0:24:43.800 --> 0:24:46.000 human hair belonging to this victim, and it belongs to 0:24:46.000 --> 0:24:50.560 a dog. Even according to the FBI, hair microscopy is 0:24:50.760 --> 0:24:55.600