WEBVTT - #234 Jason Flom with Tyrone Noling 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:06.200 In nineteen ninety, eighteen year old Tyrone Noling lived with 0:00:06.240 --> 0:00:10.000 friends whose ages ranged from fourteen to twenty in Alliance, Ohio. 0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:14.360 With no real adult supervision or resources, The boys engaged 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:18.360 in several minor robberies, including one where Tyrone had accidentally 0:00:18.400 --> 0:00:21.240 fired a stolen twenty five caliber pistol into the floor 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:24.320 and no one was hurt. The young men were arrested 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:27.120 and Tyrone and his friend Gary Saint Clair pled guilty 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:31.600 around that same time. One county away, in Atwater, Ohio, 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:35.559 on April fifth, nineteen ninety, Bernhardt and Cora Harding were 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:37.600 shot to death in their home with a twenty five 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:41.800 caliber gun. The sheriff's office immediately had several leads, including 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:45.240 Tyrone and his friends, but after ballistics testing showed that 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:47.839 Tyrone's twenty five caliber gun was not a match to 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:50.720 the murder weapon, and with no other physical evidence or 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:56.000 eyewitness accounts, Tyrone and his friends were dismissed as suspects. Nevertheless, 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:59.800 when the investigation failed to nail the other more viable suspects, 0:00:59.840 --> 0:01:02.800 investigators turned back to Tyrone and his friends, who were 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:06.119 coerced into turning on one another by lies about non 0:01:06.120 --> 0:01:09.080 existent evidence and the real threat of the death penalty. 0:01:09.600 --> 0:01:13.440 His friends Joey Dallasandro, Butch Walcott and Gary Saint Clair 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:16.360 agreed to tout the false narrative in which Tyrone and 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:21.959 Gary Saint Clair murdered the Hardings testimony they all later recanted. However, 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:25.639 without knowledge of the much more likely suspects, and only 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:29.920 presented with the false testimonies, the jury sent Tyrone to 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:34.160 death row, from where he and the Ohioanists Project continue 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:37.760 to fight to clear his name to this very day. 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:56.280 This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. This 0:01:56.320 --> 0:01:58.840 is a hard one even for me, because this is 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:05.640 one of the most twisted, entangled, nonsensical and I'm gonna 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:10.400 say evil, wrongful convictions that I know of. And of 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:13.840 course I'm referring to the case of Tyrone Noling. Tyrone 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:17.960 has been on death row in Ohio for over thirty years, 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:21.120 where he remains to this day and with us today 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:24.880 to talk about the case. Is a man who knows 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:27.519 it like the back of his hand. Brian how Brian 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:30.920 is an attorney with the Ohio Innocence Project. So, Brian, 0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:33.359 I'm glad you're here. But Jesus, this is gonna be 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:36.560 a tough one. Thanks Jason and Tyrone. I'm so glad 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:39.560 you're here with us today, even though I'm so very 0:02:39.600 --> 0:02:42.840 sorry because of the reason why you're here and even 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:47.560 more so because of where you are. Thank you So, Tyrone, 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:52.520 let's start by going back before everything that's happened. What 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:53.960 was your life like growing up? 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:56.960 I grew up in a small town outside of kant 0:02:56.960 --> 0:02:59.760 Ohio in Star County called Alliance. I grew up in 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:03.200 a one parent home with four other siblings, and my 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:07.400 childhood was like any other childhood. Did sports, went to school, 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:10.520 and as I got older, I got in a little trouble, 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:13.480 but for the most part, life at home was pretty good. 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:17.360 Turned eighteen and pretty much found myself on my own, 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:19.799 just hanging out with a group of friends that I. 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:20.519 Had grew up with. 0:03:21.400 --> 0:03:24.200 And the group of friends that you mentioned here. You're 0:03:24.240 --> 0:03:28.440 talking about Johnny Trandafer, Gary Saint Clair and Joseph Alasandra 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:31.920 and Butch Walcott, and the latter three all play a 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:35.880 part in this wrongful conviction. Now, you all were staying 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:37.960 together in the same house, right. 0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:41.200 Yeah, I didn't really know Butch Wilcock. I grew up 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:44.280 with Gary Saint Clair and Joey Dallas Sandro. We lived 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:47.000 pretty much in the same neighborhood and knew each other 0:03:47.040 --> 0:03:51.880 since kindergarten. Gary's stepdad had an accident and the house 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:54.960 became vacant, so we all just started congregating there. 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:57.680 We were just hanging out. We were doing dumb stuff, 0:03:57.720 --> 0:03:59.560 you know, Bot pizza Chase. 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:02.960 Girl was stayed up late and Brian, I want to 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:06.560 bring you back in here. So, like Tyrone says, he 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:10.000 was getting into some trouble, which is what leads to 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:11.520 the connection with this crime. 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:14.440 Right sure, I mean the reason that Tyrone was on 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:20.720 the radar of investigators was that there were two burglaries 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:24.120 that happened the next county over that Tyrone was ultimately 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:29.920 arrested for I'm pleaded guilty to. And those robberies were 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:34.120 what made him a target in the Harding murder investigation 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:34.720 to begin with. 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:38.200 Right, Tyrone and the other young men were involved in 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:41.679 some burglaries, and in one he did have a gun 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:44.240 that they got from another robbery, and the gun went 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:48.160 off accidentally and shot directly into the floor. But Tyrone 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:51.479 made sure that no one was hurt before running away. 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:54.719 I mean, this is not a guy who was out 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:58.320 to hurt anyone. He was definitely doing some very dumb things, 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:02.479 but not a violent and he was arrested for those robberies, 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:05.600 pled guilty, and ended up serving time in prison. And 0:05:06.000 --> 0:05:11.600 that leads us up to this crime, which happens faithfully 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:15.480 around the same time. I'm talking about April fifth, nineteen ninety, 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:18.200 which is when Bernhardt and Cora Harding, both eighty one 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:20.320 years old, were shot to death in their own home. 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:23.000 From the look of things, they had been doing some 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:25.880 spring cleaning and they were shot while sitting at their 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:28.960 dining room table. This isn't at Water, Ohio, which is 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:30.880 a rural town in Portage County. 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:34.680 And if you don't know at Water, Ohio, it's almost 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:37.400 a stretch to call it a town. The people who 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:41.440 live within a square mile of this you could count 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:42.320 on your hands. 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:46.479 So let me set the stage. Saturday, April seventh, nineteen ninety, 0:05:46.520 --> 0:05:51.440 at six fifteen pm, Chief Detective Dwayne Cayley was notified 0:05:51.440 --> 0:05:55.919 by dispatcher Kathy Rabino that Jim Rabino had called and 0:05:55.960 --> 0:05:58.719 reported that there were two people laying on the kitchen 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:02.279 floor at the neighbor's house. Jim's mother, who had lived 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:05.000 next door to the Heartigs for thirty years, asked him 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:07.600 to go check on them when she noticed their garage 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:11.360 had been open with the lawnmower outside for almost three days. 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:13.640 There was no answer when he knocked on the door, 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:16.440 and their car was in the garage. He looked inside 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:19.280 and saw the Heardgs laying on the kitchen floor. Now 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:21.960 ten twenty five caliber shellcases were found on the floor 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:24.480 of the Hartig home. Papers from the living room desk 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:27.440 were scattered around the room. Dresser drawers and jewelry boxes 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:30.200 were open and had been rifled through. At this point, 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:33.320 Detective Kayley reported that there didn't seem to be any 0:06:33.360 --> 0:06:37.040 signs of struggle from the victims. Mister Hardigs wallet was 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:41.360 in his pocket and the money was still inside, so 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:44.240 there was no force entry found in the house, and 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:46.000 it seemed as if there had been at least one 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:49.400 other person sitting at the kitchen table. You want to 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:52.200 take it from here, because this gets weirder and weirder. 0:06:52.880 --> 0:06:57.120 Sure, so, it's not a usual occurrence in at Water, 0:06:57.160 --> 0:07:00.440 Ohio to have a double murder, especially eighty plus year 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:05.560 old victims, and so the Sheriff's department began investigating one 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:08.800 of the first leads that they had, and this is 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:12.720 even as they are processing the scene, they get a 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:16.200 call from a roller rink, maybe a couple of miles away, 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:22.000 and there is a person there saying that he lost 0:07:22.000 --> 0:07:25.440 a twenty five caliber pistol there on Friday night. He 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:27.200 was looking for it, trying to see if anyone had 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:29.000 turned it in. He was worried that some kids were 0:07:29.040 --> 0:07:31.680 going to find it. And the person is a man 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:34.520 named Dennis van Steinberg who lived. 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:34.960 In the area. 0:07:35.120 --> 0:07:38.800 Police investigate that, but while they're doing that, leads are 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:40.760 sort of pouring in. Right, this is a big deal 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:42.360 in the county, it's a big deal in the city. 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:45.160 One of the tips that they get again almost right away, 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:50.200 is from a high school student named Nathan Chesley, and 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:52.920 he says that my foster brother told me that he 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:56.000 was the person who had killed the Heartiggs and so 0:07:56.200 --> 0:07:59.160 police are investigating that lead as well. 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:02.000 Okay, so right off the bat, they have some pretty 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:05.280 strong leads here, right, So what's going on with the 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:07.240 first guy, Dennis van Steinberg. 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:10.240 They go talk to him. He says, well, yes, I 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:12.320 did have a twenty five. I don't know where it went. 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:14.200 It must have fallen out of my car or something 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:16.600 like that around the time of the murders. He said 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:19.960 he had found it. So the police check the pistol 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:23.320 to the ballistics of the rounds were covered from the 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:25.880 scene and it's not a match. And so at that 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:30.120 point the investigation into van Steinberg sort of fades away. 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:33.720 In the meantime, a police have followed up on Nathan 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:38.640 Chesley's tip. They go to his house, which is a 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:41.200 woman who had fostered a lot of sort of troubled 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:45.000 teens in the area. It's less than a mile and 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:47.160 a half from the scene, and you remember, there's not 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:50.640 a lot of people who live as close as Nathan 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:53.880 Chesley did to the victims in this case, and so 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:57.280 the police ask whether there's a foster brother around who 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:00.560 they can interview, and they're told there's a foster brother. 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:04.080 He's only fourteen years old, and they eliminate this foster 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:07.439 brother pretty quickly. In the meantime, they also get a 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:11.679 tip from the neighboring county, Stark County. Stark County has 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:15.560 been investigating a series of break in where a group 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:20.680 of teenagers has been going to various houses saying my 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:23.559 car broke down and I'd like to use your telephone. 0:09:23.600 --> 0:09:26.800 When they're let inside the house, they then produce a 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:29.679 shotgun and it turns out to be a fake thirty 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:34.880 eight caliber revolver, and they take various valuables VCRs, jewelry, 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:38.120 things like that, and that turns out to be Tyrone 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:42.440 Noling and his co defendants. So Tyrone is arrested with 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:47.000 this code defendants and they find a twenty five caliber gun, 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:50.040 so now it's very interesting to the Porche County authorities. 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:52.920 They test that one for ballistics and it turns out 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:55.480 that it does not match the one that was used 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:55.920 in the crime. 0:09:56.080 --> 0:09:58.559 I mean, there's no getting around that. So at this 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:02.079 point the Sheriff no Oh is that these guys, Tyrone 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:04.720 and his friends are not involved in the murders. 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:07.880 So at that point the investigation sort of stalls out 0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:11.760 for about a year. The detectives are facing pressure, they 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:14.320 come up with another lead. This time they talk to 0:10:15.320 --> 0:10:19.320 the Hardiggs doctor doctor canone. The week before the bodies 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:22.360 were found, mister Hardigg told doctor Canon that he had 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:25.640 lent ten thousand dollars to an insurance salesman that the 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:28.280 insurance salesman had failed to pay. When the loan had 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:31.400 come due on April first, that something fishy was going 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:34.440 on with this loan and with the insurance salesman explanation 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:36.319 for why I refused to pay, and as soon as 0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:38.040 he got off the phone with doctor Canone, he was 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:40.840 going to go sort this out with the insurance salesman. 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:43.920 The police start to look at insurance salesmen that the 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:46.160 Heartiggs had dealt with. Then they find a man named 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:51.280 Lewis Leman. Lewis Leman denies having taken out alone, but 0:10:51.400 --> 0:10:55.520 he was the insurance salesman for the Heartiggs. And what's more, 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:59.400 he had a twenty five caliber pistol as well. Unlike 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:02.800 the other two pistols that the police have compared, they're 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:05.240 able to look up the make and model and see 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:08.760 that the pistol Leeman had was consistent with the general 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:12.800 rifling characteristics of the rounds that were found in the house. 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:17.400 They asked Leman where his twenty five cal pistol was. 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:19.640 He said, well, I must have sold it. I don't 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:22.280 remember who bought it, I don't remember when I sold it, 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:25.120 and I'm done answering questions from you all. He refused 0:11:25.160 --> 0:11:27.880 to take a lot of detector test and basically stopped 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:32.600 talking to detectives, and at that point the investigation had 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:34.080 basically completely stalled out. 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:38.040 So this lead with Lehman, I mean, if this was 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:41.440 a movie script, you'd say that this is it was 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:44.320 too obvious. Right. What I'm trying to wrap my head 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:47.360 around here is this sounds like the investigators are just 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:52.360 bungling this at every stage and we haven't even gotten 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:56.080 to one of the craziest leads, and that is this guy, 0:11:56.200 --> 0:11:57.000 Dan Wilson. 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:00.960 That's right, Dan Wilson is arrested for a murder a 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:04.960 few counties over in northern Ohio. Dan had gotten drunk, 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:07.880 put a young woman that he'd met earlier that night 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:11.360 in the trunk of his car, and set the car 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:16.040 on fire. This was very big news, and law enforcement 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:21.800 across northeast Ohio started looking at Dan for basically every 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:25.360 unsolved murder that they had that included the Portis County 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:28.400 Sheriff's Department. When they did that, they discovered something about 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:32.079 Dan Wilson that they'd missed earlier, and that is that 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:36.480 he was a foster brother of Nathan Chesney, the very 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:39.240 kid who came to them the day after the murder 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:41.240 and said, my foster brother confessed to that when the 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:44.520 detectives followed up on that, they never interviewed Nathan Chesley 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:48.040 and eliminated the wrong foster brother. They never connected the 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:51.280 dots to Dan Wilson, they never bothered to interview Nathan Chesley, 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:55.000 and so Dan Wilson, who lived within a mile of 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:58.960 the house and who police now believe is a serial killer, 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:02.800 was owing to them almost immediately after the murder, and 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:04.960 they let it slip through their fingers. He went on 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:25.720 to kill another woman. You know, at the very least, 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:27.880 I think it must have been embarrassing to the office 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:31.360 that they had this tip within days of the murder, 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:34.600 and they didn't realize their mistake until Dan Wilson had 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:37.839 committed another very high profile murder. Right at the same 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:41.120 time that that's happening. Someone gets a called from a 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:44.760 woman named Marlene van Steinberg. She is, I believe the 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:47.800 aunt of Dennis van Steinberg, again, who was the very 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:49.960 first person who they'd looked at and who they eliminated 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:53.240 after he turned into his weapon. Well, Marlene says that 0:13:53.800 --> 0:13:58.160 in those first days of the investigation, Dennis's father had 0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:01.559 come over to their house and asked his brother who 0:14:01.600 --> 0:14:05.320 is Marlene's husband if he could borrow his twenty five 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:09.679 caliber pistol for a few weeks. And when Richard van 0:14:09.720 --> 0:14:12.120 Steinberg asked, why do you need my twenty five, the 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:15.480 response was, well, Dennis had to get rid of his 0:14:15.880 --> 0:14:18.360 because he was in some sort of trouble with the 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:21.960 police and he needed a different one to give the police, 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:26.600 and so they ultimately gave it to him, and that 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:29.280 was the weapon that was turned into the police and eliminated. 0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:32.360 What's more, Marlene says that she called the police to 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:36.280 tell them this during that original investigation, So the police 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:39.600 should have been on notice that Dennis van Steinberg is 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:44.680 turning in the wrong gun for comparison purposes, and they 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:49.200 still eliminated van Steinberg as a suspect. So those two 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:52.400 things are happening right back to back. Dan Wilson comes 0:14:52.400 --> 0:14:55.280 to light, and it comes to light that they basically 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:58.840 wasted a ballistic comparison on what they should have known 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:00.960 was the wrong gun, Dennis van Steinberg. 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:05.480 So we have these incredibly powerful leads that should have 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:08.000 led them not towards but away from those four boys, 0:15:08.000 --> 0:15:10.880 because there's no connection between these nefarious characters and the 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:12.960 four kids. What happens next. 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:17.120 So that is when the Porridge County Prosecuting Attorney's office 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:20.800 takes over the investigation and they assigned their own investigator 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:23.240 to the case, a man named Ron Craig. 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:28.120 Yes, Ron Craig, let's not skip over this character. From 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:34.640 my understanding, he was known for his extremely aggressive interrogation techniques, 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:39.240 for playing fast and loose with the rules in order 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:41.600 to get results that he wanted. 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:42.200 That's right. 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:46.360 Ron Craig was a person who the prosecuting Attorney's office 0:15:46.400 --> 0:15:51.600 turned to who could crack this case open through aggressive 0:15:51.880 --> 0:15:55.760 interrogation get results. That is what he was known for 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:58.680 at that time. If you look at where the investigation 0:15:58.920 --> 0:16:01.640 was when they took it over, Dan Wilson at that 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:04.320 time was under indictment for murder. You could not interview 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:07.400 him without an attorney. Lewis Lehman at that point was 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:10.880 not cooperating. He had gotten an attorney as well. Maybe 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:14.800 the most logical place for Ron Craig to go was 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:17.400 back to these other four kids who had also been 0:16:17.440 --> 0:16:21.480 eliminated through ballistics and try to see what he could 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:25.000 do in terms of interrogating them. And so he started 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:29.080 with Butch Walcott, who was sixteen years old at the time. 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:33.520 Yeah, and this part it gets more and more disturbing 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:37.720 because they took these four young kids, and with the 0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:40.920 very real threat of the death penalty, they were able 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:45.320 to scare these kids and brow beat them into saying 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:49.400 things that they knew weren't true because they weren't there 0:16:49.400 --> 0:16:52.440 and they didn't know anything. And basically, as in other 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:56.080 false confession cases or false eyewitness cases that we've seen 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:59.080 over and over again, they were fed the information by 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:02.720 the police and then they were given basically a Sophie's choice. 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:05.800 Either you lie and implicate your friends, or we are 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:08.879 going to send you to death row. Right, am I missing? 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:11.359 I say no, and I mean for Butch. If you 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:14.520 read the series of interrogations and statements that he makes, 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:17.920 at least my impression is that he was terrified, and 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:20.520 it's clear as he's just trying to do his best. 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:24.320 He continues to insist he wasn't there, He had nothing 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:26.560 to do with this. He tells them everything they want 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:29.119 to know about the two robberies that happened in Stark County, 0:17:29.480 --> 0:17:32.159 but he says, we never went to Fordage County, we 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:34.680 never went out to Atwater. He doesn't know where it is, 0:17:35.400 --> 0:17:38.520 and that's not an answer that ron Craig is going 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:41.920 to accept. So what they do is they send him 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:46.919 to a child psychologist who then puts Butch, the sixteen 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:50.080 year old kid, under hypnosis in order to recover what 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:55.040 they allege are repressed memories of the murder. And so 0:17:55.280 --> 0:17:57.639 under hypnosis, they would ask things like when did the 0:17:57.720 --> 0:18:00.480 murder take place? And Butch would say, well, it was 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:02.639 not quite dark, but it was not quite light. I 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:05.040 don't know, maybe somewhere in between. I just don't remember. 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:07.679 And he would give answers like that to every question, 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:10.760 and even these psychologists at the time that if we 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:13.600 keep this up, he's just going to say false things 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:16.840 to try and make the investigators happy because he's so terrified. 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:18.800 But it didn't stop. 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:21.199 It, right, And I want to also mention that this 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:25.199 detective ron Craig made sure to separate Butch from his father. 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:30.040 This detective pressured young Butch Walcott relentlessly lying directly to 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:33.000 the kid. That's right, that he had hard evidence implicating him, 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:35.879 including a witness and DNA matches, right, so you know, 0:18:35.920 --> 0:18:37.919 you can imagine what's going on in this poor kid's 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:41.160 brain where it's just getting completely scrambled. He's just giving 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:44.159 these answers that don't make any sense. And let us 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:47.639 not forget that the tape recorder was only turned on 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:51.560 when Walcott finally made statements that had been fed to 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:55.080 him that were consistent with what they wanted to hear. Right, 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:58.879 that was when he implicated the subject of our show today, 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:02.919 Tyrone noling. And then Craig turned to one of the 0:19:02.920 --> 0:19:06.360 other kids, the Alessandro, who said he knew nothing about 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:09.280 the murders, but his own attorney convinced him and his 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:11.840 family that he should plead bargain to avoid the electric chair. 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:15.000 That's right, Yeah, I mean, once they can get Butch 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:19.240 Wolcott to come up with the story, the rest sort 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:21.320 of fall in line at that point. They don't need 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:24.160 to go any further. Tyrone's the main target, and he's 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:28.120 indicted for aggravated murder with capital specifications. Okay. 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:30.880 In addition to the other guys, Saint Clair pled guilty 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:33.880 to the Hartig murders as well. Right, he had given 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:37.160 into pressure from Detective Craig as well as his own 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:42.360 attorneys and his family, and he was understandably scared out 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:45.639 of his mind about the death penalty, and then Tyrone 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:48.840 Noling is indicted initially for the murders in nineteen ninety three. 0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:52.640 But this is when things get even weirder. In June 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:56.080 nineteen ninety three, the court entered a nol pross, which 0:19:56.119 --> 0:20:00.400 means that the prosecutor or plaintiffs states that they will 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:04.119 no longer pursue the matter, so they dismissed the case. 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:07.720 The whole thing should have wrapped up right there. That 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:08.440 should have been it. 0:20:08.760 --> 0:20:11.040 Well, that's right, And the reason that the case was 0:20:11.080 --> 0:20:15.600 initially dismissed was that almost as soon as they had 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:19.439 made the deals, both Joey Delassandro and Gary Saint Clair 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:22.600 started taking them back. You know, it's one thing under 0:20:22.600 --> 0:20:25.640 a lot of pressure, under threats, with deals being offered, 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:28.440 to sort of agree to it in the abstract, under 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:32.240 that very immediate pressure. But as the court date actually approached, 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:36.760 Delessandro recanted, asserted their innocence, We had nothing to do 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:40.080 with this, and Gary Saint Clair recanted in a prison interview, 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:43.119 said we lied, we were pressured, we had nothing to 0:20:43.160 --> 0:20:44.960 do with this. And at that point I think the 0:20:45.000 --> 0:20:47.960 state had no choice but to gree to dismiss the case. 0:20:48.560 --> 0:20:52.200 And Tyrone this all has to be so crazy because 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:54.400 you have your friends and these guys you've known most 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:57.160 of your life saying things about this crime that you 0:20:57.240 --> 0:21:00.480 know you weren't a part of, but you're indicted for it. 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:03.440 And then they dropped the charges. 0:21:03.720 --> 0:21:06.000 You know, when they dropped charges against me, I didn't 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:08.760 see it coming. They offered a deal. I took a 0:21:08.800 --> 0:21:11.840 lot detector test and it was placed on the prosecutor's 0:21:11.920 --> 0:21:16.119 desk on that Friday. By Monday, they were rushing me 0:21:16.160 --> 0:21:18.440 in the back of a courtroom with a judge saying, 0:21:18.440 --> 0:21:20.560 you know, you need to cop out. I don't want 0:21:20.560 --> 0:21:22.880 to sentence you to death. And I'm pleading with them 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:24.600 back there and I'm telling them I didn't do this, 0:21:25.160 --> 0:21:27.439 and so they send me back and I'm talking to 0:21:27.480 --> 0:21:29.480 my dad on the phone and I'm crying and I'm 0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:30.520 saying I don't know what to do. 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:32.159 And my dad says, did you do this? 0:21:32.240 --> 0:21:35.400 And I said no, and he just said, well, then 0:21:35.440 --> 0:21:36.480 you stick to your guns. 0:21:36.520 --> 0:21:38.040 And that's what I did, even though I knew the 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:38.879 ODSBA against me. 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:41.040 So the next day I go back into the courtroom 0:21:41.560 --> 0:21:44.359 and I stand up and the judge says, the prosecutor 0:21:44.400 --> 0:21:47.359 wants to say something, and he just misses every charge 0:21:47.359 --> 0:21:47.800 against me. 0:21:48.119 --> 0:21:50.800 And I can't even explain the feeling at that point. 0:21:50.880 --> 0:21:53.520 I was happy. I wanted to cry, I wanted to yell. 0:21:53.600 --> 0:21:54.880 I just wanted to get out of there. 0:21:55.720 --> 0:21:59.040 I can't even imagine to have them trying to get 0:21:59.080 --> 0:22:02.480 you to take a deep while they know their case 0:22:02.560 --> 0:22:05.840 is falling apart, but they're still trying to force you 0:22:06.000 --> 0:22:09.480 into it with the very real threat of death, of 0:22:09.520 --> 0:22:13.280 the death penalty, and then to just drop it. It's 0:22:13.320 --> 0:22:17.639 like you get dizzy from this, right, So what happened next? 0:22:18.000 --> 0:22:21.280 For three years almost I didn't hear nothing, and then 0:22:21.440 --> 0:22:23.879 all of a sudden, a new prosecutor comes in, and 0:22:23.920 --> 0:22:26.840