Speaker 1: In nine, eighteen year old Tyrone Nolan lived with friends
Speaker 1: whose ages ranged from fourteen to twenty in Alliance, Ohio.
Speaker 1: With no real adult supervision were resources, The boys engaged
Speaker 1: in several minor robberies, including one where Tyrone had accidentally
Speaker 1: fired a stolen twenty five caliber pistol into the floor
Speaker 1: and no one was hurt. The young men were arrested
Speaker 1: and Tyrone and his friend Gary st Clair played guilty.
Speaker 1: Around that same time, one county away in Atwater, Ohio,
Speaker 1: on April fifth, nine nine, Bernhardt and Cora Harding were
Speaker 1: shot to death in their home with the twenty five
Speaker 1: caliber gun. The sheriff's office immediately had several leads, including
Speaker 1: Tyrone and his friends, but after ballistics testing showed that
Speaker 1: Tyrone's tent caliber gun was not a match to the
Speaker 1: murder weapon, and with no other physical evidence or eyewitness accounts,
Speaker 1: Tyrone and his friends were dismissed as suspects. Nevertheless, when
Speaker 1: the investigation failed to nail the other more viable suspects,
Speaker 1: and investigators turned back to Tyrone and his friends, who
Speaker 1: are coerced into turning on one another by lies about
Speaker 1: non existent evidence and the real threat of the death penalty.
Speaker 1: His friends Joey Dallassandro, Butch Walcott and Gary st. Clair
Speaker 1: agreed to tout the false narrative in which Tyrone and
Speaker 1: Gary Saint Clair murdered the Heartings, testimony they all later recanted. However,
Speaker 1: without knowledge of the much more likely suspects, and only
Speaker 1: presented with the coerced false testimonies, the jury sent Tyrone
Speaker 1: to death row, from where he and the Ohio Inists
Speaker 1: Project continue to fight to clear his name to this
Speaker 1: very day. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction.
Speaker 1: This is a hard one even for me, because this
Speaker 1: is one of the most twisted, entangled, nonsensical and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say evil, wrongful convictions that I know of. And
Speaker 1: of course I'm referring to the case of Tyrone Knowling.
Speaker 1: Tyrone has been on death row in Ohio for over
Speaker 1: thirty years, where he remains to this day and with
Speaker 1: us today to talk about the case. Is a man
Speaker 1: who knows it like the back of his hand. Brian
Speaker 1: how Brian is an attorney with the Ohio Innocence Project. So, Brian,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you're here, But Jesus, this is gonna be
Speaker 1: a tough one. Thanks and Tyrone, I'm so glad you're
Speaker 1: here with us today, even though I'm so very sorry
Speaker 1: because of the reason why you're here and even more
Speaker 1: so because of where you are. Thank you. So, Tyrone,
Speaker 1: let's start by going back to before everything that's happened.
Speaker 1: What was your life like growing up? I grew up
Speaker 1: in a small town outside of camp Ohio and Start
Speaker 1: County called Alliance. I grew up it up one parent
Speaker 1: home with four other siblings, and my childhood was like
Speaker 1: any other childhood. Did sports, went to school, and as
Speaker 1: I got older, I got in a little trouble, but
Speaker 1: for the most part, life at home was pretty good.
Speaker 1: Turned eighteen and pretty much found myself on my own,
Speaker 1: just hanging out with a group of friends that I
Speaker 1: had grew up with, and a group of friends that
Speaker 1: you mentioned here. You're talking about Johnny transit Fare, Gary st.
Speaker 1: Clair and Joseph Alessandra and Push Walcott, and the latter
Speaker 1: three all play a part in this wrongful conviction. Now
Speaker 1: f you all were staying together in the same house, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't really know, butch Wilcock, I grew up with
Speaker 1: Gary st. Clair and Joey Dallas Sandrow. We lived pretty
Speaker 1: much in the same neighborhood and knew each other since kindergarten.
Speaker 1: Gary's stepdad had an accident and the house became vacant,
Speaker 1: so we all just started congregating there. We were just
Speaker 1: hanging out. We were doing dump stuff, you know, bought pizza,
Speaker 1: Chase girl was stayed up late and Brian, I want
Speaker 1: to bring you back in here. So, like Tyrone says,
Speaker 1: he was getting into some trouble, which is what leads
Speaker 1: to the connection with this crime. Right sure, I mean
Speaker 1: the reason that Tyrone was on the radar of investigators
Speaker 1: was that there were two burglaries that happened the next
Speaker 1: county over. The Tyrone was ultimately arrested for I'm pretty
Speaker 1: guilty too, and those robberies were what made him a
Speaker 1: target in the heart of murder investigation to begin with, Right,
Speaker 1: Tyrone and the other young men were involved in some burglaries,
Speaker 1: and in one he did have a gun that they
Speaker 1: got from another robbery, and the gun went off accidentally
Speaker 1: and shot directly into the floor. But Tyrone made sure
Speaker 1: that no one was hurt before running away. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is not a guy who was out to hurt anyone.
Speaker 1: He was definitely doing some very dumb things, but not
Speaker 1: a violent guy. And he was arrested for those robberies,
Speaker 1: pled guilty, and ended up serving time in prison. And
Speaker 1: that leads us up to this crime, which happens faithfully
Speaker 1: around the same time. I'm talking about April fifth, nineteen ninety,
Speaker 1: which is when Bernhardt and Cora Harding, both eighty one
Speaker 1: years old, were shot to death in their own home.
Speaker 1: From the look of things, they had been doing some
Speaker 1: spring cleaning and they were shot while sitting at their
Speaker 1: dining room table. This is an at Water, Ohio, which
Speaker 1: is a rural town in Portage County. And if you
Speaker 1: don't know at Water, Ohio, it's almost a stretch to
Speaker 1: call it a town. The people who live within a
Speaker 1: square mile of this you could count on your hands.
Speaker 1: So let me set the stage. Saturday, April seven, ninety
Speaker 1: at six fifteen pm, Chief Detective Dwayne Cayley was notified
Speaker 1: by dispatcher Cathy Rabino that Jim Rabino had called and
Speaker 1: reported that there were two people laying on the kitchen,
Speaker 1: Florida neighbor's house, Jim's mother, who had lived next door
Speaker 1: to the heart As for thirty years asked him to
Speaker 1: go check on them when she noticed their garage had
Speaker 1: been opened with the lawnmower outside for almost three days.
Speaker 1: There was no answer when he knocked on the door
Speaker 1: and their car was in the garage. He looked inside
Speaker 1: and saw the heart as laying on the kitchen floor.
Speaker 1: Now caliber shell cases were found on the floor of
Speaker 1: the heart a home. Papers from the living room desk
Speaker 1: were scattered around the room. Dresser drawers and jewelry boxes
Speaker 1: were open and had been rifled through. At this point,
Speaker 1: Detective Kayley reported that there didn't seem to be any
Speaker 1: signs of struggle from the victims. Mr. Hardick's wallet was
Speaker 1: in his pocket and the money was still inside, so
Speaker 1: there was no forced entry found in the house, and
Speaker 1: it seemed as if there had been at least one
Speaker 1: other person sitting at the kitchen table. You want to
Speaker 1: take it from here, because this gets weirder and weirder. Sure, so,
Speaker 1: it's not a usual occurrence in at Water, Ohio to
Speaker 1: have a double murder, especially eight plus yr old victims,
Speaker 1: And so the Sheriff's department began investigating one of the
Speaker 1: first leads that they had. And this is even as
Speaker 1: they are processing the scene, they get a call from
Speaker 1: a roller rink maybe a couple of miles away, and
Speaker 1: there is a person they're saying that he lost a
Speaker 1: twenty five caliber pistol there on Friday night. You know,
Speaker 1: he was looking for it, trying to see if anyone
Speaker 1: had turned it in. He was worried that some kids
Speaker 1: were going to find it. And the person is a
Speaker 1: man named Dennis fan Steamberg who lived in the area.
Speaker 1: Police investigate that, but while they're doing that, leads are
Speaker 1: sort of pouring in. Right, this is a big deal
Speaker 1: in the county, it's a big deal in the city.
Speaker 1: One of the tips they get again almost right away,
Speaker 1: is from high school student named Nathan Chesley, and he
Speaker 1: says that my foster brother told me that he was
Speaker 1: the person who had killed the Heartiggs, and so police
Speaker 1: are investigating that lead as well. Okay, so right off
Speaker 1: the bat, they have some pretty strong leads here, right,
Speaker 1: So what's going on with the first guy, Dennis van Steinberg.
Speaker 1: They go talk to him. He says, well, yes, I
Speaker 1: did have a twenty five I don't know where it went.
Speaker 1: It must have fallen out of my car or something
Speaker 1: like that around the time of the murders. He said
Speaker 1: he had found it. So the police check the pistol
Speaker 1: to the ballistics of the rounds recovered from the scene
Speaker 1: and it's not a match. And so at that point
Speaker 1: the investigation into vann Steinberg sort of fades away. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, a police have followed up on Nathan Chesley's tip.
Speaker 1: They go to his house, which is a woman who
Speaker 1: had fostered a lot of sort of troubled teams in
Speaker 1: the area. It's less than a mile and a half
Speaker 1: from the scene. And you remember, there's not a lot
Speaker 1: of people who live as close as Nathan Chesley did
Speaker 1: to the victims in this case, and so the police
Speaker 1: asked whether there's a foster brother around who they can interview,
Speaker 1: and they're told there's a foster brother. He's only fourteen
Speaker 1: years old, and they eliminate this foster brother pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, they also get a tip from the
Speaker 1: neighboring county, Start County. Start County has been investigating a
Speaker 1: series of break in where a group of teenagers has
Speaker 1: been going to various houses saying my car broke down
Speaker 1: and i'd like to use your telephone. When they're let
Speaker 1: inside the house. They then produce a shotgun and it
Speaker 1: turns out to be a fake thirty eight caliber revolver,
Speaker 1: and they take various valuables VCRs, jewelry, things like that,
Speaker 1: and that turns out to be Tyrone rolling and his
Speaker 1: co defendants. So Tyrone is arrested with this code defendants
Speaker 1: and they find a caliber gun, so now it's very
Speaker 1: interesting to the Porch County authorities. They test that one
Speaker 1: for ballistics and it turns out that it does not
Speaker 1: match the one that was used in the crime. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's no getting around that. So at this point the
Speaker 1: Sheriff no Oh is that these guys, Tyrone and his
Speaker 1: friends are not involved in the murders. So at that
Speaker 1: point the investigation sort of stalls out for about a year.
Speaker 1: The detectives are facing pressure, they come up with another lead.
Speaker 1: This time they talked to the heart Eggs doctor Dr canone.
Speaker 1: The week before the bodies were found, Mr Hardigg told
Speaker 1: Dr Canogne that he had lent ten thousand dollars to
Speaker 1: an insurance salesman, that the insurance salesman had failed to
Speaker 1: pay when the loan had come due on April one,
Speaker 1: that something fishy was going on. With this loan and
Speaker 1: with the insurance salesman explanation for why I refused to pay,
Speaker 1: and as soon as he got off the phone with
Speaker 1: Dr Canne, he was going to go sort this out
Speaker 1: with the insurance salesman. The police start to look at
Speaker 1: insurance salesman that the Heartings had dealt with. Then they
Speaker 1: find a man named Louis Lehman. Louis Lehman denies having
Speaker 1: taken out alone, but he was the insurance salesman for
Speaker 1: the Heartings. And what's more, he had a twenty five
Speaker 1: caliber pistol as well. Unlike the other two pistols that
Speaker 1: the police have compared, they're able to look up the
Speaker 1: make and model and see that the pistol Lehman had
Speaker 1: was consistent with the general rifling characteristics of the rounds
Speaker 1: that were found in the house. They asked Lehman where
Speaker 1: his pistol was. He said, well, I must have sold it,
Speaker 1: but I don't remember who bought it. I don't remember
Speaker 1: when I sold it, and I'm done answering questions from
Speaker 1: you all. He refused to take a lot of detector
Speaker 1: test and basically stopped talking to detectives, and at that
Speaker 1: point the investigation had basically completely stalled up. So this
Speaker 1: lead with Lehman. I mean, if this was a movie script,
Speaker 1: you would say that this is it was too obvious. Right.
Speaker 1: What I'm trying to wrap my head around here is
Speaker 1: this sounds like the investigators are just bungling this at
Speaker 1: every stage and we haven't even gotten to one of
Speaker 1: the craziest leads, and that is this guy, Dan Wilson.
Speaker 1: That's right. Dan Wilson is arrested for were a murder
Speaker 1: a few counties over in northern Ohio. Dan had gotten drunk,
Speaker 1: put a young woman that he'd met earlier that night
Speaker 1: in the trunk of his car, and set the car
Speaker 1: on fire. This was very big news, and law enforcement
Speaker 1: across northeast Ohio started looking at Dan for basically every
Speaker 1: unsolved murder that they had that included the Portish County
Speaker 1: Sheriff's Department. When they did that, they discovered something about
Speaker 1: Dan Wilson that they'd missed earlier, and that is that
Speaker 1: he was a foster brother of Nathan Chess, the very
Speaker 1: kid who came to them the day after the murder
Speaker 1: and said, my foster brother confessed that When the detectives
Speaker 1: followed up on that they never interviewed Nathan Chesley and
Speaker 1: eliminated the wrong foster brother. They never connected the dots
Speaker 1: to Dan Wilson, they never bothered to interview Nathan Chesley,
Speaker 1: and so Dan Wilson, who lived within a mile of
Speaker 1: the house and who police now believe is a serial killer,
Speaker 1: was own to them almost immediately after the murderer, and
Speaker 1: they let it slip through their fingers. He went on
Speaker 1: to kill another woman. You know, at the very least,
Speaker 1: they think it must have been embarrassing to the office
Speaker 1: that they had this tip within days of the murder,
Speaker 1: and they didn't realize the mistake until Dan Wilson had
Speaker 1: committed another very high profile murder. Right at the same
Speaker 1: time that that's happening. Someone gets a call from a
Speaker 1: woman named Marlene van Steinberg. She is, I believe the
Speaker 1: aunt of Dennis van Steinberg, again, who was the very
Speaker 1: first person who they looked at and who they eliminated
Speaker 1: after he turned in his weapon. Well, Marlene says that
Speaker 1: in those first days of the investigation, Dennis's father had
Speaker 1: come over to their house and asked his brother, who
Speaker 1: was Marline's husband, if he could borrow his twenty five
Speaker 1: caliber pistol for a few weeks, and when Richard van
Speaker 1: Steinberg asked, why do you need my twenty five, the
Speaker 1: response was, well, Dennis had to get rid of his
Speaker 1: because he was in some sort of trouble with the police,
Speaker 1: and he needed a different one to give the police,
Speaker 1: and so they ultimately gave it to him, and that
Speaker 1: was the weapon that was turned into the police and eliminated.
Speaker 1: What's more, Marline says that she called the police to
Speaker 1: tell them this during that original investigation, So the police
Speaker 1: should have been on notice that Dennis van Steinberg is
Speaker 1: turning in the wrong gun for comparison purposes, and they
Speaker 1: still eliminated van Steinberg as a suspect. So those two
Speaker 1: things are happening right back to back. Dan Wilson comes
Speaker 1: to light and it comes to light that they've basically
Speaker 1: wasted a blistic comparison on what they should have known
Speaker 1: was the wrong gun Dennis fan Steamer. So we have
Speaker 1: these incredibly powerful leads that should have led them not
Speaker 1: towards but away from those four boys, because there's no
Speaker 1: connection between these nefarious characters and the four kids. What
Speaker 1: happens next, so that is when the Porridge County prosecuting
Speaker 1: Attorney's office takes over the investigation and they assigned their
Speaker 1: own investigator to the case, a man named Ron Craig. Yes,
Speaker 1: Ron Craig, let's not skip over this character. From my understanding,
Speaker 1: he was known for his extremely aggressive interrogation techniques, for
Speaker 1: playing fast and loose with the rules in order to
Speaker 1: get results that he wanted. That's right. Ron Craig was
Speaker 1: a person who the prosecuting Attorney's office turned to who
Speaker 1: could crack this case open through aggressive interrogation get results.
Speaker 1: That is what he was known for at that time.
Speaker 1: If you look at where the investigation was when they
Speaker 1: took it over, Dan Wilson at that time was under
Speaker 1: indictment for murder. You could not interview him without an attorney.
Speaker 1: Louis Lehman at that point was not cooperating. He had
Speaker 1: gotten an attorney as well. Maybe the most logical place
Speaker 1: for Ron Craig to go was back to these other
Speaker 1: four kids who had also been eliminated through ballistics and
Speaker 1: try to see what he could do in terms of
Speaker 1: interrogating them. And so he started with Butch Wolcott, who
Speaker 1: was sixteen years old at the time. Yeah, and this
Speaker 1: part it gets more and more disturbing because they took
Speaker 1: these four young kids, and with the very real threat
Speaker 1: of the death penalty, they were able to scare these
Speaker 1: kids and brow beat them into saying things that they
Speaker 1: knew weren't true because they weren't there and they didn't
Speaker 1: know anything. And basically, as in other false confession cases
Speaker 1: or false eye witness cases that we've seen over and
Speaker 1: over again, they were fed the information by the police
Speaker 1: and then they were given basically a Sophie's choice, either
Speaker 1: you lie and implicate your friends, or we are going
Speaker 1: to send you to death row. Right say no, And
Speaker 1: I mean for Butch. If you read the series of
Speaker 1: interrogations and statements that he makes, at least my impression
Speaker 1: is that he was terrified, and it's clear as he's
Speaker 1: just trying to do his best. He continues to insist
Speaker 1: he wasn't there, He had nothing to do with this.
Speaker 1: He tells them everything they want to know about the
Speaker 1: two robberies that happened in Start County, but he says,
Speaker 1: we never went to Portage County, we never went out
Speaker 1: at water. He doesn't know where it is, and that's
Speaker 1: not an answer that Ron Craig is willing to accept.
Speaker 1: So what they do is they send him to a
Speaker 1: child psychologist who then puts Butcher, the sixteen year old kid,
Speaker 1: under hypnosis in order to recover what they allege our
Speaker 1: repressed memories of the murder. And so under hypnosis, they
Speaker 1: would ask things like when did the murderer take place?
Speaker 1: And Butch would say it was not quite dark, but
Speaker 1: it was not quite light. I don't know, maybe somewhere
Speaker 1: in between. I just don't remember. And he would give
Speaker 1: answers like that to every question, and even the psychologists
Speaker 1: at the time that if we keep this up, he's
Speaker 1: just going to say false things to try and make
Speaker 1: the investigators happy because he's so terrified. But it didn't
Speaker 1: stop it, right, And I want to also mention that
Speaker 1: this detective, Ron Craig made sure to separate Butch from
Speaker 1: his father. This detective pressured young Butch Walcott relentlessly lying
Speaker 1: directly to the kid. That's right, that he had hard
Speaker 1: evidence implicating him, including a witness m DNA matches, right,
Speaker 1: So you know, you can imagine what's going on in
Speaker 1: this poor kid's brain where it's just getting completely scrambled.
Speaker 1: He's just given these answers that don't make any sense.
Speaker 1: And let us not forget that the tape recorder was
Speaker 1: only turned on when Walcott finally made statements that had
Speaker 1: been fed to him that were consistent with what they
Speaker 1: wanted to hear. Right, that was when he implicated the
Speaker 1: subject of our show today, Tyrone Noling. And then Craig
Speaker 1: turned to one of the other kids, the Alessandro, who
Speaker 1: said he knew nothing about the murders, but his own
Speaker 1: attorney convinced him and his family that he should plead
Speaker 1: bargain to avoid the electric chair. That's right, Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: once they can get Butch Wolcott to come up with
Speaker 1: the story, the rest sort of fall in line at
Speaker 1: that point. They don't need to go any further. Of
Speaker 1: Tyrone's the main target, and he's indicted for aggravated murder
Speaker 1: with capital specifications. Okay, in addition to the other guys,
Speaker 1: st Clair pled guilty to the Heartick murders as well. Right,
Speaker 1: he had given into pressure from Detective Craig as well
Speaker 1: as his own attorneys and his family, and he was
Speaker 1: understandably scared out of his mind about the death penalty.
Speaker 1: And then Tyronne Knowling is indicted, initially for the murders.
Speaker 1: But this is when things get even weirder. In June,
Speaker 1: the court entered a noel process, which means that the
Speaker 1: prosecutor or plaintiff states that they will no longer pursue
Speaker 1: the matter. So they dismissed the case. The whole thing
Speaker 1: should have wrapped up right there. That should have been it. Well,
Speaker 1: that's right, And the reason that the case was initially
Speaker 1: dismissed was that almost as soon as they had made
Speaker 1: the deals, both Joey Delessandro and Gary st Clair started
Speaker 1: taking them back. You know, it's one thing under a
Speaker 1: lot of pressure, under threats, with deals being offered, to
Speaker 1: sort of agree to it in the abstract, under that
Speaker 1: very immediate pressure. But as the court date actually approached,
Speaker 1: the Alessandro recanted, asserted their innocence, We had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with this, and Gary st Clair recanted in a
Speaker 1: prison interview, said we lied, we were pressured, we had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with this, and at that point I
Speaker 1: think the state had no choice but to gree to
Speaker 1: dismissed the case and Tyrone. This all has to be
Speaker 1: so crazy because you have your friends and these guys
Speaker 1: you've known most of your life saying things about this
Speaker 1: crime that you know you weren't a part of, but
Speaker 1: you're indicted for it. And then they dropped the charges.
Speaker 1: You know, when they dropped charges against me, I didn't
Speaker 1: see it coming. They offered a deal. I took a
Speaker 1: lot of detect or tests, and it was placed on
Speaker 1: the prosecutor's desk on that Friday. By Monday, they were
Speaker 1: rushing me in the back of a courtroom with a
Speaker 1: judge saying, you know, you need to cop out. I
Speaker 1: don't want to sentence you to death. And I'm pleading
Speaker 1: with them back there and I'm telling him I didn't
Speaker 1: do this, and so they sent me back and I'm
Speaker 1: talking to my dad on the phone and I'm crying
Speaker 1: and I'm saying I don't know what to do. And
Speaker 1: my dad says, did you do this? And I said no,
Speaker 1: and he just said, well, then you stick to your guns.
Speaker 1: And that's what I didn't, even though I knew the
Speaker 1: osby against me. So the next day I go back
Speaker 1: into the court room and I stand up and the
Speaker 1: judge says, the prosecutor wants to say something, and uh,
Speaker 1: he just misses every charge against me. And I can't
Speaker 1: even explain the feeling at that point, I was happy.
Speaker 1: I wanted to cry, I wanted to yell. I just
Speaker 1: wanted to get out of there. I can't even imagine
Speaker 1: to have them trying to get you to take an
Speaker 1: ill while they know their cases falling apart, but they're
Speaker 1: still trying to force you into it with the very
Speaker 1: real threat of death, of the death penalty, and then
Speaker 1: to just drop it. It's like you get dizzy from this, right,
Speaker 1: So what happened next? For three years almost I didn't
Speaker 1: hear nothing, and then all of a sudden, the new
Speaker 1: prosecutor comes in, and now they got Joey back on board.
Speaker 1: Once he realizes all the time he's about to do
Speaker 1: on other charges and decides that he's just going to
Speaker 1: make up some stuff and remembers everything they want him
Speaker 1: to say, and I'm being charged again. The nightmare happens
Speaker 1: once again, Brian, what Tyrone is talking about here with
Speaker 1: the election of the new prosecutor in Portage County and
Speaker 1: Joey Della Sandro coming back on what's going on there? Well,
Speaker 1: Joey at that point had been serving time on unrelated
Speaker 1: charge and was sort of unhappy with his circumstances and
Speaker 1: his sentence. He reached back out and explored the option
Speaker 1: of what would happen if he did go back on
Speaker 1: his recantation and agree to cooperate, which he ultimately agreed
Speaker 1: to do. That is what caused the state to reindite Tyrone.
Speaker 1: Knowing and now with both Butch and Joey Delessandro, they
Speaker 1: were ready to reprosecute the case. So Tyrone's trial begins
Speaker 1: in January, six years after the crime. Right, so, Walcott, Alessandro,
Speaker 1: and st Clair will call this prosecution witnesses. But the
Speaker 1: former two boys gave testimonies that were very inconsistent on
Speaker 1: significant details, but they nevertheless supported the state's narrative. They
Speaker 1: said that after the second robbery and their alliance Ohio neighborhood,
Speaker 1: all four boys allegedly drove to Atwater, where Tyrone allegedly
Speaker 1: chose the house to rob. Once they were at the
Speaker 1: Harding house, the Alessandro or Walcott said they waited in
Speaker 1: the car while Noling and st Clair allegedly went to
Speaker 1: the front door. Sometime later, according to Walcott and d Alessandro,
Speaker 1: Nolan and st Clair came running from the Heartache House
Speaker 1: and I got back into the card. Alessandro testified that
Speaker 1: he allegedly smelled smoke coming from Nolan's gun, and that
Speaker 1: Walcott said he saw the gun smoking. They also said
Speaker 1: that Nolan confessed to them. So, Tyrone, you're a trial
Speaker 1: and you see your friends they're telling these crazy lies.
Speaker 1: Can you take us back to that moment? It was unbelievable.
Speaker 1: I've known these guys for all my life and for
Speaker 1: them just disregard my life and just sit up and
Speaker 1: they couldn't even look me in the face. They just
Speaker 1: kept their eyes on the prosecutor. And I wanted to
Speaker 1: get up in the screen. I wanted to ask, why
Speaker 1: are you doing this? And so Dallasandra and Walcott are
Speaker 1: saying these things. But st Clair decides not to lie
Speaker 1: for the state anymore. He recanted his statement before trial
Speaker 1: and again courageously did again on the stand. He denied
Speaker 1: going to Atwater and committing the murders. And then he
Speaker 1: was declared a hostile witness. And get this, the state
Speaker 1: read the entirety of his prior statement to the jury,
Speaker 1: which when I was reading about this case, I was like,
Speaker 1: how how can that even for me? That seems beyond
Speaker 1: the pale. So Brian, what did the defense attorneys say
Speaker 1: I mean the other what about the other suspect? Well,
Speaker 1: all of these plausible and I think likely alternate suspects
Speaker 1: who the police had originally investigated and who the police
Speaker 1: hadn't really excluded. None of those names came up during
Speaker 1: Tyrone's original trial, and it's plausible to believe that it's
Speaker 1: because that information wasn't turned over to the defense at
Speaker 1: the time of trial. There was only one theory ever
Speaker 1: presented to the jury about who committed the crime, and
Speaker 1: there were problems with that theory. There were holes in
Speaker 1: that theory. You remember, the caliber gun that Tyrone and
Speaker 1: his friends had taken in the prior robbery was still excluded.
Speaker 1: It was not the murder weapon, and so they just
Speaker 1: had to come up with another story about how they
Speaker 1: must have had a second gun, then they must have
Speaker 1: picked it up somewhere, and then they got rid of
Speaker 1: it somewhere. And there were things about this that didn't
Speaker 1: make sense. But I think the community was still really
Speaker 1: hurt and outraged by this murder, and they were only
Speaker 1: really given one theory as to what happened, and despite
Speaker 1: the problems in that theory, he was convicted. So Tyrone
Speaker 1: when the jury went out to deliberate. Did you have
Speaker 1: any hope at all that things were going to go
Speaker 1: with your favor? I always stay optimistic, even though I
Speaker 1: knew the cars were stacked against me. And I kind
Speaker 1: of remember when they came and got me from the
Speaker 1: county jail. They was taking me up the steps and
Speaker 1: they were lined up with deputy sheriff's all the way up,
Speaker 1: and that it never happened before. So my heart just
Speaker 1: think at that point, and I remember being in the
Speaker 1: courtroom and that the jury coming and one of the
Speaker 1: young ladies that was a Jersey, she sat down and
Speaker 1: she looked at me. She started crying, and huh, I
Speaker 1: knew it was over there. I was scared to death.
Speaker 1: I'm about to go someplace that they say is the
Speaker 1: worst of the worst. You're sentenced to death, You're sentence
Speaker 1: to god people that have committed paine as crimes. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm still a young man. I don't know what to expect,
Speaker 1: and I have no choice because they're gonna take me regardless.
Speaker 1: So you have a good team of attorneys smiling post
Speaker 1: conviction motions, but they were all denied. And it's important
Speaker 1: to mention here that all of the prosecution's witnesses, all
Speaker 1: of them, Walcott, Alessandro, and st Clair. Every single one
Speaker 1: of them has since recanted their testimonies. Right then, in
Speaker 1: two thousand six, the Ohio Innocence Project took on your case.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us how that came about? Well, my investigator,
Speaker 1: Vicki buck Walter, was hired on and she stayed with
Speaker 1: me after my conviction because she could not believe what happened.
Speaker 1: She helped me contact people, write letters, and we contacted
Speaker 1: the Innocence Project. It was kind of weird because Mark
Speaker 1: Gotzy showed up with a couple of students, and I
Speaker 1: thought I was just going there for an attorney visit,
Speaker 1: and I told me I thought he had in the
Speaker 1: wrong room, and then he proceeded to tell me who
Speaker 1: he was, and I just sat down and I felt
Speaker 1: a weight off my shoulders defined, and we found me
Speaker 1: somebody's gonna help me. I had a lot of respect
Speaker 1: from gratitude for them and and those ensuing fifteen years
Speaker 1: bringing us right up to the present day, they found
Speaker 1: a ton of stuff that made it seem like the
Speaker 1: doors of the prison should have sprung open by now
Speaker 1: and you should have walked free right out into the sunshine.
Speaker 1: But of course we know that that not how the
Speaker 1: justice system works in Ohio or unfortunately in the rest
Speaker 1: of our country. So probably can you tell us what
Speaker 1: the Ohio in this project has been doing to bite
Speaker 1: this case and where things are at today. Originally, the
Speaker 1: Higo Inniscence Project was representing Tyrone just for the purposes
Speaker 1: of trying to get DNA testing, specifically on a cigarette
Speaker 1: butt that was found at the scene. The Heartings were
Speaker 1: very sort of meticulous people. They were not the kind
Speaker 1: of people to leave a cigarette butt in the middle
Speaker 1: of their driveway, and so there was an idea that
Speaker 1: this might have been left by the killer. It was
Speaker 1: eventually tested, and of course Tyrone all of his co
Speaker 1: defendants were excluded. But there are a few things that
Speaker 1: we know we're last touched by the person who committed
Speaker 1: the crime, and that is the ten shell casings that
Speaker 1: were found at the scene, and the ring boxes and
Speaker 1: other items that the perpetrator had rifled through after the
Speaker 1: crime or during the crime. DNA technology today is sensitive
Speaker 1: enough to develop profile from even just a few human cells,
Speaker 1: and so the hope was that if we were able
Speaker 1: to conduct DNA testing on those items, that you would
Speaker 1: develop a clear profile, and if that profile does not
Speaker 1: match Tyrone, Knowling or anyone of his code defendence, that's
Speaker 1: going to be very very strong evidence of his innocence. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: we're not able to convince the court to allow us
Speaker 1: to conduct that DNA testing, and so to this day
Speaker 1: that evidence has not been tested. In the meantime, Tyrone's
Speaker 1: other attorneys had filed a motion for new trial based
Speaker 1: on very specific pieces of evidence that were uncovered at
Speaker 1: the end of the original investigation by the Sheriff's Department, Specifically,
Speaker 1: first of all, the Nathan Chesley tip that was uncovered
Speaker 1: in Tyrone's co defendants files. Secondly, the statement by Marlene
Speaker 1: van Steinberg that the gun that had been eliminated from
Speaker 1: Vennis van Steinberg was not the actual gun that he
Speaker 1: had on the night that the murder may have taken place.
Speaker 1: And finally, it had been known at the time that
Speaker 1: police had excluded Tyrone and his friends from the cigarette
Speaker 1: but using this more primitive protein testing. But they had
Speaker 1: been concerned enough about Dan Wilson as a suspect that
Speaker 1: they had tested Dan Wilson against that cigarette but and
Speaker 1: he was not able to be excluded using that prior
Speaker 1: primitive technology that was not turned over we believe to
Speaker 1: the defense at the time of the original trial either
Speaker 1: now here today. We are still waiting for an opportunity
Speaker 1: to fully examine the prosecutor's files, to fully examine the
Speaker 1: Shares files, to try to see what, if anything, was
Speaker 1: in these files that was subject to disclosure back at
Speaker 1: the original trial. In God, it's just too much, I
Speaker 1: mean this one, really, it just goes beyond my ability
Speaker 1: to comprehend. There's so many things, and it seems like
Speaker 1: any one of them, in a fair and just system
Speaker 1: would be enough for an adult somewhere to step in
Speaker 1: and go This has gone on too long, But on
Speaker 1: it goes, and Tyrone remains on death route right now
Speaker 1: while we're having this conversation. If he were to get
Speaker 1: a fair trial today, with all of the evidence that
Speaker 1: we know in front of a jury, there's no chance
Speaker 1: that he would be convicted. And to be in a
Speaker 1: world where this is all sort of continuing to happen,
Speaker 1: it's continuing to advance in slow motion. I mean, it's surreal. Certainly,
Speaker 1: our hope is that he is successful in his current
Speaker 1: post conviction litigation, that we're able to put this evidence
Speaker 1: finally in front of a jury and give him a
Speaker 1: fair day in court. Amen to that, And Tyrone, for
Speaker 1: our audience listening today, for someone who wants to see
Speaker 1: you have that fair shot, which I'm sure everyone in
Speaker 1: our audience does, and who wants to help and to
Speaker 1: get involved with righting this wrong. Is there something that
Speaker 1: you'd like to ask them to do. I would encourage
Speaker 1: them to reach out to our governor, to reach out
Speaker 1: to stay in local politicians. I would ask them to
Speaker 1: be a voice. Somebody out there knows something and they
Speaker 1: can go to Tyrone Knowling dot com or they can
Speaker 1: get Ahold of the Innocent Cincinnati in this this project
Speaker 1: that they're willing to help or to be a voice,
Speaker 1: because I need a voice. I need that more than anything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll definitely have Tyrone Nolan dot com linked in our bio,
Speaker 1: so please go there and learn what steps you can
Speaker 1: take to help. And I also want to mention there's
Speaker 1: a TV docuseries called Death Row Stories that did a
Speaker 1: piece on this case last year called The Lost Boy,
Speaker 1: which shows a very powerful case for the actual innocence
Speaker 1: of Tyrone. And with that we turn now to closing arguments.
Speaker 1: This is the part of our show where I thank
Speaker 1: you Tyrone knowling To for just being with us today
Speaker 1: sharing your story, and also Brian Howe for fighting tirelessly.
Speaker 1: So again, thank you for doing what you're doing and
Speaker 1: for being here and sharing this awful story with our audience.
Speaker 1: And now closing arguments works just like this. I'll kick
Speaker 1: back in my chair and turn my microphone off, leave
Speaker 1: my headphone, so I'll close my eyes and just listen
Speaker 1: to any final thoughts you want to share. So Brian,
Speaker 1: why don't you go first and we'll save the best
Speaker 1: for last. And that's, of course that's you Tyrone. So
Speaker 1: Brian closing arguments, Well, you know, first, let me thank
Speaker 1: you Jason for what you all are doing here. As
Speaker 1: surreal as it sometimes seems that this is still happening,
Speaker 1: it feels good to know that people care, and if
Speaker 1: the people are paying attention, it feels good to know
Speaker 1: that there are people who care about what's happening in
Speaker 1: this case and what's happening to Tyrone. Again, our hope
Speaker 1: is that people understand what's happening, that Tyrone get a
Speaker 1: fair day in court. And the other thing is is
Speaker 1: that the fact that Tyrone is innocent, but I'm personally
Speaker 1: convinced of You know, I'm not familiar with every death
Speaker 1: row case in the country, but I wouldn't be surprised
Speaker 1: if he were the strongest case of innocence of anyone
Speaker 1: currently on death row. That means that there's someone who
Speaker 1: is responsible for this crime that was never brought to justice.
Speaker 1: And it means that there could be someone out there
Speaker 1: right now who knows something that may have for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: not wanted to come forward and not wanted to get involved.
Speaker 1: I really truly hope that that person is out there
Speaker 1: and that they will reach out and come forward with
Speaker 1: any information that they might have about the Harding murders.
Speaker 1: There is a man's life on the line, an innocent man,
Speaker 1: and if people have information, I truly truly hope that
Speaker 1: they'll come forward with it and allow it to be
Speaker 1: raised and brought before the court. And now over to you,
Speaker 1: Tyrone Well, I would like first thank you, and again
Speaker 1: I think the most important thing here is a voice.
Speaker 1: I'm an innocent person on OHIWS death brow and I
Speaker 1: don't belong here and I need help. Now is the time.
Speaker 1: This is difficult, It's difficult, cleaning for your life especially
Speaker 1: when you haven't been heard for a long time. So
Speaker 1: I would just like to thank everybody and to encourage
Speaker 1: them again to look into black case, to get involved,
Speaker 1: to be a voice for me, and to help me
Speaker 1: get out of here because I'm innocent. I don't want
Speaker 1: to be here, So please thank you for listening to
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall,
Speaker 1: Justin Golden, Jeff Clyburne, and Kevin Wardis with research by
Speaker 1: Lila Robinson. The music in this production was supplied by
Speaker 1: three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to
Speaker 1: follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction podcast, and on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as
Speaker 1: well as at Lava for Good. On all three platforms,
Speaker 1: you can also follow me on both TikTok and Instagram
Speaker 1: at It's Jason flom Raleful Conviction is the production of
Speaker 1: Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number
Speaker 1: one