Speaker 1: Good. Just before nine o'clock last night, the jury returned
Speaker 1: guilty verdicts against all three defendants.
Speaker 2: It was absolute shambles, to tell you the truth, just absolutely.
Speaker 1: Really pallous blood on his clothing the day after the
Speaker 1: alleged at top.
Speaker 3: A shallow mud bank, and it fits Roy River. Basically.
Speaker 3: I think most of the people are used to me
Speaker 3: are good people. I think a really important question we
Speaker 3: need to ask is how many Indigenous prisoners in Australia
Speaker 3: are innocent.
Speaker 1: This is Curtain, a podcast where we pulled back the
Speaker 1: blinds to shine a light on the darkest parts of
Speaker 1: our justice system and ask who are the victims. I'm
Speaker 1: Amy Maguire and.
Speaker 3: I'm Martin Hodgson, a senior advocate for the Foreign Prisoner
Speaker 3: Support Service. And a warning, this series contains the names
Speaker 3: of deceased peoples and has distressing content that might upset
Speaker 3: some listeners.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Curtain the podcast. Now today we're going
Speaker 1: to take you again overseas to a case that's close
Speaker 1: to both of our hearts. The reason it's so important
Speaker 1: for me is because, as we've said previously on this show,
Speaker 1: it's the case that led me to asking Martin Hodgson
Speaker 1: to investigate Kevin Henry's case. It's the case of Rodney Reid,
Speaker 1: who is an African American man who was on death
Speaker 1: row for the murder of a white woman in Belstrop, Texas,
Speaker 1: back in the nineties, and when we first spoke about it,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of troubling similarities with Kevin Henry's case,
Speaker 1: but also a lot of key differences. And one of
Speaker 1: the key differences currently is that Rodney Reid is still
Speaker 1: on death row. Granted he's been given a stay of
Speaker 1: execution and in definite stay of execution, but his family
Speaker 1: and his legal team are still fighting for him to
Speaker 1: be free. We know that Kevin Henry is currently out
Speaker 1: on parole and we're still fighting that exoneration, but that
Speaker 1: to me stands as one of the key differences is
Speaker 1: that you know Rodney Reed. There is still this ongoing
Speaker 1: fight for Rodney Reed to be free, to be out
Speaker 1: in his community with his family. But there has been
Speaker 1: some updates in the case now. Martin has been working
Speaker 1: on Rodney's case for over a decade and he's been
Speaker 1: following these proceedings very closely. In fact, he's still involved
Speaker 1: with the legal team Martin, can I first ask you
Speaker 1: about the context behind the recent hearing, what led to
Speaker 1: this hearing and what does the hearing mean for Rodney
Speaker 1: Reid and his family in the case.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, over the last two weeks there's been an
Speaker 2: evidentiary hearing in Texas and basically after his execution was stayed,
Speaker 2: this new evidentiary hearing was required to assess the new
Speaker 2: evidence and to get new evidence from forensic experts that
Speaker 2: can shine a light on new forensic methods and things
Speaker 2: like that. There's also new witnesses have come forward and
Speaker 2: basically the judge, once this proceedings are finished, will then
Speaker 2: have some time to think about it and he can
Speaker 2: come back and either say Rodney's guilty and to continue
Speaker 2: with the execution. He can order a retrial, or he
Speaker 2: could exonerate Rodney and set him free. So the stakes
Speaker 2: really couldn't be any higher.
Speaker 1: What has actually brought us to this point? Briefly, Martin,
Speaker 1: I mean, how long has this taken to get a
Speaker 1: new hearing for Rodney.
Speaker 2: Well, it's probably over a decade to get to this
Speaker 2: point of being able to present this new evidence to
Speaker 2: a court. So as people are probably aware, Stacey Stitz
Speaker 2: was found murdered on the side of the road in Texas.
Speaker 2: She was nineteen at the time. Her fiance was the
Speaker 2: primary suspect, A police officer named Jimmy Fanell and his
Speaker 2: neighbor and friends in law enforcement investigated the case and
Speaker 2: never got anywhere really with it, and then after about
Speaker 2: six months they turned their attention to Rodney. Now, we've
Speaker 2: always said that there was no evidence linking Rodney to
Speaker 2: the crime. In fact, that there was considerable evidence pointing
Speaker 2: to Jimmy Fanel, the police officer fiance, and we've always
Speaker 2: just wanted to get this evidence into court and also
Speaker 2: to show that the prosecution withheld information at the initial trial,
Speaker 2: that the forensic evidence presented was wrong at the initial trial,
Speaker 2: and that there was witnesses who were scared or didn't
Speaker 2: come forward at the time because the prosecution either didn't
Speaker 2: let the defense know they even existed or those people
Speaker 2: were threatened. So that's how it's taken over a decade
Speaker 2: to get to this point. And now we feel like
Speaker 2: over the last two weeks we've given it a really
Speaker 2: good crack at presenting that new evidence.
Speaker 1: And so what was that new evidence? Can you take
Speaker 1: us through some of the details of what was hurt
Speaker 1: in court.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So one of the key points is at what time
Speaker 2: Stacy died. We've always argued that she was murdered at
Speaker 2: home sometime after dinner by her fiance, Jimmy Fanel, and
Speaker 2: the state has always said that she was killed the
Speaker 2: following morning. If she was killed the following morning, they say,
Speaker 2: then Rodney could have done it when she was on
Speaker 2: her way to work. We say, Jimmy did it, as
Speaker 2: I say, just after dinner. So to the first witnesses
Speaker 2: at this new evidentiary hearing were doctor Andrew Baker, who
Speaker 2: is the Minnesota's chief forensic pathologist, and he testified in
Speaker 2: the successful prosecution of the police officer who killed George Floyd,
Speaker 2: and basically he found endless errors in the original forensic
Speaker 2: evidence and basically disputed all of that evidence. He also
Speaker 2: pointed out to the fact that Stacey had clearly been
Speaker 2: murdered earlier on in the night, which is what we've
Speaker 2: always said. And one important factor too, was that the
Speaker 2: prosecution has always claimed that Rodney had raped Stacy, and
Speaker 2: what doctor Baker found was that there was no evidence
Speaker 2: whatsoever of a sexual assault. And that's really important because
Speaker 2: without that there's again there's nothing linking Rodney. But this
Speaker 2: was something that, as we've spoken about on this podcast,
Speaker 2: when they can't get a black man guilty, it's really
Speaker 2: easy to throw this accusation of rape up, as happened
Speaker 2: to Kevin Henry, and now, as in Kevin's case, same
Speaker 2: with Rodney. The new forensic evidence is that there never
Speaker 2: was a rape. And I think it's a horrific thing
Speaker 2: the police do to the family of the victim, telling
Speaker 2: them that something shocking like that occurred when they know
Speaker 2: they didn't know it didn't. The second witness was the
Speaker 2: Kentucky medical examiner and forensic pathologist, doctor Gregory Davis. He
Speaker 2: not only agreed with doctor Baker, but brought a letter
Speaker 2: with him to court of fourteen other of the nation's
Speaker 2: leading medical examiners. They the head examiners from different states,
Speaker 2: who all agreed that literally the forensic evidence at the
Speaker 2: first trial made no sense. It was basically deliberately botched
Speaker 2: to point to Rodney when there was no evidence. And
Speaker 2: so he went through a litany of forensic evidence about
Speaker 2: dating the bruises on Stacy's body, looking at issues of
Speaker 2: lividity and rigormortis discoloration of the body, and also the
Speaker 2: way that Stacy might have been murdered. Now we say
Speaker 2: it's never been proven conclusively. The state says she may
Speaker 2: have been that she was strangled by Rodney Reid. We
Speaker 2: say that's not correct. And what doctor Davis said was
Speaker 2: that there is also a possibility that she was drowned
Speaker 2: and that that could have taken place in the bathtub
Speaker 2: inside her home with Jimmy Fanell. And as everyone knows
Speaker 2: who's listened to the podcast, their house was never searched
Speaker 2: or examined. And what he showed was that one point
Speaker 2: two liters of fluid was in Stacy's left lung. Now
Speaker 2: how that got there is anyone's guess, but again it
Speaker 2: points to Jimmy and away from from Rodney.
Speaker 1: It's interesting you brought up Jimmy Fanella, which who was
Speaker 1: Stacey Stite's fiance at the time, and he was a
Speaker 1: lot older than her as well, and she was only
Speaker 1: nineteen and she tragically lost her life. He actually, for
Speaker 1: the first time was brought to the stand, wasn't he
Speaker 1: How was it when he gave evidence or what what
Speaker 1: was his testimony like?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was quite unusual because generally when someone who
Speaker 2: is being pointed at as a new suspect as far
Speaker 2: as the state might be concerned, and the person we've
Speaker 2: always believed and known committed the murder, generally they will
Speaker 2: plead the Fifth Amendment and they won't answer questions. And
Speaker 2: we were under the assumption and had been told that's
Speaker 2: what would happen. But in fact, Jimmy answered all the
Speaker 2: questions that Rodney's legal team put to him. And there
Speaker 2: was nothing interesting about Jimmy's statements to the court other
Speaker 2: than that every other witness who had given evidence at
Speaker 2: the hearing was lying. And whenever he was questioned about
Speaker 2: this new forensic evidence, he said that the forensic pathologists
Speaker 2: were lying. Questioned about eyewitnesses, he said they were lying.
Speaker 2: Other police officers who gave evidence against him at this
Speaker 2: new forensic hearing, he said, were lying. Former cellmates of his. Because,
Speaker 2: as people will be aware, Jimmy Fanell, ten years after
Speaker 2: Stacy died, was still a serving police officer when he
Speaker 2: kidnapped a woman who he'd pulled over and raped her,
Speaker 2: and he was sentenced to ten years in prison, and
Speaker 2: he's only just been released now. One of the witnesses
Speaker 2: was one of his former inmates. And what's quite interesting
Speaker 2: about this witness is that he was a member of
Speaker 2: the Aryan Brotherhood, the most well known white supremacist prison gang,
Speaker 2: and Jimmy had sought their protection while he was in prison.
Speaker 2: And this witness, Arthur Snow Junior, said was that Jimmy
Speaker 2: confessed to him while he was inside and that he
Speaker 2: said that that basically he said that Jimmy had told
Speaker 2: him that and I quote, you wouldn't believe how easily
Speaker 2: a belt would break strangling an N word loving whore.
Speaker 2: That's what Jimmy said to mister Snow Now. The important
Speaker 2: thing about that is that Jimmy had been overheard to
Speaker 2: say this about using the N word and using those
Speaker 2: sort of names to describe Stacy. But the belt did
Speaker 2: break when he strangled Stacy, and that was something that's
Speaker 2: not really that well known unless you've really studied the evidence.
Speaker 2: And this witness, Arthur Snow, was in prison when the
Speaker 2: murder happened, so he had no way of knowing it.
Speaker 2: There was also another former inmate who was friends with
Speaker 2: Jimmy inside who said basically the same thing, that not
Speaker 2: only had he killed his fiance, but that Jimmy had
Speaker 2: got away with it, and that there was a man
Speaker 2: on death row, and he'd said to Michael Bordellen that
Speaker 2: I took care of her and that damn n word
Speaker 2: is doing the time for it. And Bordellan even says
Speaker 2: that when he Jimmy told him that he simulated strangulation.
Speaker 2: And one thing that's really important to note, as I say,
Speaker 2: the belt that was used to strangle Stacey did in
Speaker 2: fact break and the other half of that belt was
Speaker 2: found next to Jimmy Fanell's car, and that vehicle was
Speaker 2: also where Stacy's body was believed to have been in
Speaker 2: just before her body was dumped, and only Jimmy's, Jimmy
Speaker 2: Fanell's DNA and Stacy's d was in that vehicle. So
Speaker 2: you have the murder weapon, Jimmy Fanell's DNA, Stacy's DNA,
Speaker 2: and these confessions inside that Jimmy had killed her in
Speaker 2: this way. And then we had a litany of witnesses
Speaker 2: who were at Stacy's funeral who were friends of hers,
Speaker 2: co workers, friends of the family, one being a Lee
Speaker 2: County Deputy, Lee Clampet. And so this is a former
Speaker 2: police officer with no reason to lie, and he says
Speaker 2: at the funeral, Jimmy told him that Stacy and I quote,
Speaker 2: she got what she deserved. And this was backed up
Speaker 2: by a large number of witnesses, including Richard Scoggins who
Speaker 2: worked with Stacy, and Faranell had said to him that
Speaker 2: and again, this is a horrible thing that he said,
Speaker 2: but again this was at the fun funeral, that she
Speaker 2: deserved it, and that she was a lying, fucking bitch.
Speaker 2: And this is a guy supposedly at the funeral of
Speaker 2: his fiance who's died just before they are supposed to
Speaker 2: get married, and this is what he's saying to everyone,
Speaker 2: from his own friends, fellow police officers, her friends, and
Speaker 2: co workers. Yeah, there was just a litany of those witnesses, and.
Speaker 1: Martin, I think you haven't mentioned it on this podcast.
Speaker 1: We do. I know you've mentioned it before. But there
Speaker 1: was a reason he was saying those things about Stacy,
Speaker 1: and it's a reason that some people have said is
Speaker 1: the reason Rodney is guilty. Is that Rodney was having
Speaker 1: an affair with stacy'starts, which is something he's always said.
Speaker 1: And I know that there were other witnesses, weren't They
Speaker 1: have friends who had confirmed that who previously hadn't been
Speaker 1: listened to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, and they were some of the key
Speaker 2: new witnesses that we say the prosecution withheld from the
Speaker 2: defense at the original trial, which is that Rodney admits
Speaker 2: that he and Stacy were having an affair, and a
Speaker 2: number of her good friends and co workers confirmed that
Speaker 2: and took the stand to confirm that, and that they,
Speaker 2: you know, they'd seen them together, that Rodney had been
Speaker 2: to her work, that they'd seen her with Rodney at
Speaker 2: an ice cream store, and things like that. So there
Speaker 2: was all this evidence really that not only was Jimmy
Speaker 2: prior to Rodney ever having the affair with Stacy, he
Speaker 2: was already a very jealous, abusive guy, but then once
Speaker 2: and look, you know, there's no doubt he joined the
Speaker 2: Aryan brotherhood in prison, so he's clearly a racist that
Speaker 2: you know, the fact that his fiance was having an
Speaker 2: affair with a black man sent him off the edge.
Speaker 2: And in this case, one of the most startling new
Speaker 2: witnesses was a man named William Sappington, and he his
Speaker 2: son and wife attend church with one of the highest
Speaker 2: law officers in the area, are Ted Williams. And what
Speaker 2: makes William very interesting is that he was one of
Speaker 2: Jimmy Fanell and Stacy Stitz's neighbors, and he approached his
Speaker 2: friend at church, Ted Williams, and told him that he,
Speaker 2: his son and his wife had heard loud arguing between
Speaker 2: Jimmy and Stacy, that they'd heard screaming, that they'd heard
Speaker 2: things like her being thrown to the ground having their
Speaker 2: hair pulled. They said that they'd always observed him to
Speaker 2: be very jealous, very controlling, and threatening. Stacy had even
Speaker 2: mentioned to them that she didn't think that the wedding
Speaker 2: would go ahead. They'd observed what would amount to considerable
Speaker 2: domestic violence by Jimmy Fanell. And these are the next
Speaker 2: door neighbors. And they, as I say, they went to
Speaker 2: church with this wems who was one of the highest
Speaker 2: law officers in the area. They taught his children at
Speaker 2: Sunday School. They described themselves as very God fearing people.
Speaker 2: And we have no reason to believe they would possibly
Speaker 2: make this up or why. And all three of them
Speaker 2: not only testified that they witnessed and overheard this domestic violence,
Speaker 2: that they witnessed and overheard threats towards Stacy from Jimmy Fanel,
Speaker 2: but they approached this wems outside of their church and
Speaker 2: were told and I quote, to hush your mouth. So
Speaker 2: they were warned off by the police, and so they
Speaker 2: never came forward and when asked, when Miss Sappington was
Speaker 2: asked why she didn't even though she knew Jimmy had
Speaker 2: probably done it, and it seemed clear to her that
Speaker 2: Rodney never had. This is a white woman from Texas,
Speaker 2: a church going woman from a good family, said simply
Speaker 2: that she was scared of the police and that it
Speaker 2: simply wasn't worth the risk to her family, but that
Speaker 2: they simply couldn't stay quiet any longer. And you know,
Speaker 2: her son then took to the stand and mentioned that
Speaker 2: during the day when Stacy and Jimmy were home on
Speaker 2: one particular occasion, he'd gone to their back door to
Speaker 2: inquire because he'd heard tables and chairs being thrown and
Speaker 2: screaming and shouting, and that he'd said to his father
Speaker 2: when he came on came home what he'd heard, and
Speaker 2: his father had basically said on the stand that that's
Speaker 2: Jimmy up there yelling at Stacy. It goes on all
Speaker 2: the time. So there was this clear evidence of ongoing
Speaker 2: domestic violence by Jimmy Fanel being committed against Stacy.
Speaker 1: It makes me just wonder, Martin, you know what you
Speaker 1: said about, you know, this white church going lady being
Speaker 1: scared of the police. Did it come up in the
Speaker 1: trial at all about why the case wasn't probably investigated
Speaker 1: and why Jimmy Fanell wasn't actually charged over this overseas's murder, Because,
Speaker 1: as you've said many times, like the first suspect is
Speaker 1: the husband, the partner, or the fiance. Did it come
Speaker 1: up in the hearing about why or why the police
Speaker 1: investigation actually zeroed in on Rodney and why not Jimmy Fanel.
Speaker 2: Well, there's a few reasons, I mean, one being that
Speaker 2: Jimmy was a local police officer and it was his
Speaker 2: partner and good friend who were investigating this murder. Now,
Speaker 2: for those who have been listening, they may know what
Speaker 2: happened to those officers. For those who haven't, I'll explain.
Speaker 2: So one of those officers' names was Ed Celmeller, and
Speaker 2: six months after Stacey died, before Rodney had ever been charged,
Speaker 2: Ed committed suicide. Except there was a problem, and this
Speaker 2: was evidence that we presented in the past few weeks.
Speaker 2: Ed was right handed. Naturally had always been right handed.
Speaker 2: All his police documentation showed that that he wrote right handed,
Speaker 2: used his firearm right handed. The forensic evidence clearly shows
Speaker 2: he killed himself with his left hand. Now, one of
Speaker 2: the problems with that is Ed cel Meller couldn't hit
Speaker 2: the side of a barn with his left hand because
Speaker 2: he'd sustained an injury while serving as a police officer
Speaker 2: to his left hand. And so his brother has continued
Speaker 2: to give evidence that not only was his brother not suicidal,
Speaker 2: that his brother suspected Jimmy Fanel, his colleague, and that
Speaker 2: he did not believe his brother could possibly have killed himself.
Speaker 2: Now this wasn't new. This was something we've made available
Speaker 2: to the public. Something that wasn't known is that one
Speaker 2: of the other officers, Gary joe' bryant, was investigating Stacy's
Speaker 2: death for the neighboring police department, that was the Giddings
Speaker 2: Police Department. Now, what we've always known is that just
Speaker 2: like Ed Celmeller, Gary jo'bryant died too before Rodney was
Speaker 2: ever arrested, and he'd told his wife, and his wife
Speaker 2: testified that Gary jo'bryant, the Giddings police officer, believed it
Speaker 2: was Jimmy who'd killed Stacy, and he was investigating that. Now,
Speaker 2: up until the last few weeks, we'd been told that
Speaker 2: Gary joe' bryant had been murdered by a Mexican immigrant
Speaker 2: who was in Texas without papers. And for Australians, where
Speaker 2: this murder in Texas took place is very close to
Speaker 2: the Texas border. We're also led to believe that it
Speaker 2: was an automatic weapon that was used to kill Gary joe' bryant.
Speaker 2: This is a police officer investigating Jimmy Fanel who believed
Speaker 2: Jimmy was the real killer. Well, what we learned this
Speaker 2: week is there probably never was a Mexican because when
Speaker 2: we've demanded to have that person, this Mexican citizen, brought
Speaker 2: before the court, that's been denied. Now, finally, the state
Speaker 2: of Texas has claimed that that Mexican man was deported
Speaker 2: back to Mexico and never charged with the police officer's murder. Now,
Speaker 2: this is ridiculous. No one can possibly believe that what
Speaker 2: they and I quote an illegal immigrant could kill a
Speaker 2: serving police officer and never be charged with murder, that
Speaker 2: they would simply just deport them back, get away with it,
Speaker 2: away you go. So that's ridiculous, So we don't believe
Speaker 2: that person ever existed. What else we learned this week
Speaker 2: was something really shocking that, just like ed Selmeller, Gary
Speaker 2: Jo Bryant was killed with his own gun, a forty
Speaker 2: five pistol that was his police service weapon. Now this
Speaker 2: had never been disclosed before. So here we have two
Speaker 2: police officers investigating Jimmy Fanel. One has told his brother
Speaker 2: he believes Jimmy did it. The others told his wife
Speaker 2: that they believe he did it. And within about a
Speaker 2: week they're both dead, murdered with their own guns, but
Speaker 2: not killed. They didn't kill themselves quite clearly. Is shocking,
Speaker 2: and their families deserve answers too.
Speaker 1: And we've talked a lot about this case, and you've
Speaker 1: outlined a lot of the evidence before and just knowing
Speaker 1: that evidence, but also knowing just hearing what you're saying today,
Speaker 1: all the new witnesses, all the evidence that hadn't previously
Speaker 1: come before court, the fact these two police officers who
Speaker 1: are investigating Jimmy Finill were found dead, it makes you know,
Speaker 1: it's almost unbelievable to think that Rodney Read isn't free.
Speaker 1: What were the prosecution's case or what did they bring
Speaker 1: to the hearing.
Speaker 2: Yes, so they brought to the hearing a number of
Speaker 2: witnesses who were largely police officers and largely friends and
Speaker 2: family of Stacy. One of those police officers is a
Speaker 2: former detective who was involved in the initial investigation, and
Speaker 2: he was the first person to the scene, and he
Speaker 2: made quite a few slip so, I mean, initially he
Speaker 2: claimed that they thoroughly investigated Jimmy and he was first
Speaker 2: to the scene and he was able to rule Jimmy
Speaker 2: out for a variety of reasons. The problem with his evidence,
Speaker 2: and his name is retired police detective David Board, was
Speaker 2: that he claims when he found Jimmy's truck in a
Speaker 2: school parking lot the following day, he clearly noticed there'd
Speaker 2: been a struggle inside the truck, that one of Stacy's
Speaker 2: tennis shoes was still in in the truck, and that
Speaker 2: there was broken glass in there. And this was before
Speaker 2: he knew that only Jimmy and Stacy's DNA was in there.
Speaker 2: So he was trying to and still claiming that it
Speaker 2: was someone else involved in this struggle with Stacy. But
Speaker 2: where he really made an error was that he claims
Speaker 2: he called Jimmy, and Jimmy was at home and hadn't
Speaker 2: been woken during the night. How he knows that is
Speaker 2: anyone's guess. That he'd found and Stacy's truck that looked
Speaker 2: like there'd been a struggle. They'd found Stacy's body, and
Speaker 2: could Jimmy come to the truck and the truck was
Speaker 2: about thirty miles from Jimmy's house and Jimmy turned up.
Speaker 2: How the hell did Jimmy know where the truck was parked?
Speaker 2: So here was a police prosecutor, prosecution witness who made
Speaker 2: a huge error. He'd never told Jimmy where the truck was.
Speaker 2: His note shows that he never did. And this was
Speaker 2: something that ed Selmeller, who had arrived at the scene too,
Speaker 2: thought was very suspicious, and he'd wrote that in his book,
Speaker 2: in his little police book. But of course he'd be
Speaker 2: found dead. Now. When he was really questioned this David
Speaker 2: Board about his evidence, he was asked was he a
Speaker 2: member of a Facebook group of witnesses for the prosecution
Speaker 2: who were sharing him information together to make sure their
Speaker 2: stories were the same, And he said no, Well, we
Speaker 2: have accessed that Facebook group and there was a number
Speaker 2: of comments that he'd made he was a member of
Speaker 2: the group. In fact, he'd made comments that day in
Speaker 2: terms of the day he was called to give evidence
Speaker 2: in that Facebook group. So this is a clear violation
Speaker 2: of the court's rulings for witnesses not to have discussed
Speaker 2: the case. So what makes David Board very interesting is
Speaker 2: that he'd had it in for Rodney long before Rodney
Speaker 2: had ever even met Stacy. In fact, we know that
Speaker 2: David Board had tried to frame Rodney in the past.
Speaker 2: He'd done a photo ID of a lineup basically, so
Speaker 2: six photos on a piece of paper to show to
Speaker 2: a witness. One of those people was Rodney. Rodney couldn't
Speaker 2: have committed that crime. He was one hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: miles away. But David Board printed two copies, circled one
Speaker 2: to show the witness first, and then used the second
Speaker 2: one to have the witness ID Rodney. So this was
Speaker 2: a police officer who's been gunning for Rodney for the
Speaker 2: past thirty years, and here we had him lying on
Speaker 2: the stand that he wasn't part of a Facebook group.
Speaker 2: And there was also a number of the other prosecution
Speaker 2: witnesses who were part of this Facebook group who basically
Speaker 2: we allowed to give some evidence for a while and
Speaker 2: then confronted them with that another one, another person's name
Speaker 2: was Dianthea. Lee denied it on the stand again that
Speaker 2: she was a member, and then we produced print outs
Speaker 2: showing that she had in fact posted in that group
Speaker 2: and was a member. So a lot of the prosecution
Speaker 2: witnesses were tainted before they ever got on the stand.
Speaker 2: None of them had any new information of any kind.
Speaker 2: And again, you know, the fact they are colluding in
Speaker 2: a Facebook group doesn't say a lot about their evidence.
Speaker 4: So the other thing I was wondering, Martin, is how
Speaker 4: have Rodney's family been holding up, particularly his mother and
Speaker 4: his brother, but his whole family as they go through
Speaker 4: this process. I mean, there must be a lot of
Speaker 4: hope there, but also you know, they've been fighting for
Speaker 4: so long. How have they been coping through this whole hearing?
Speaker 2: It's been really difficult. I think one of the positives
Speaker 2: is that for the hearing, Rodney's been present every day,
Speaker 2: so they've been able to be in the same room
Speaker 2: as Rodney. Rodney was moved to the local prison so
Speaker 2: that he could be brought to the court each day.
Speaker 2: It's not possible when someone's on death row for them
Speaker 2: to be brought every day to the So it's been
Speaker 2: a good break in that sense for Rodney, and it's
Speaker 2: allowed his family to visit him more frequently, something they
Speaker 2: haven't had for the past twenty five years. But for
Speaker 2: his brother, Rodrick, who travels all over the country the
Speaker 2: United States, supporting others whose loved ones are wrongly convicted
Speaker 2: and who are on death row. I think when these
Speaker 2: prosecution witnesses were on the stand and it was clear
Speaker 2: that they'd all been colluding violating the court's rulings, he
Speaker 2: basically said to the prosecutors, I don't know how you
Speaker 2: sleep at night. And unfortunately for that, the judge banned
Speaker 2: Rodrick from the court for the rest of the hearing.
Speaker 2: But you can clearly understand Rodrick's frustration. You know, his
Speaker 2: brother's been wrongly on death row for twenty five years.
Speaker 2: Four times he's come within moments of being execs cuted.
Speaker 2: We finally had the chance to present all of this new, compelling,
Speaker 2: fresh evidence that we say shows Jimmy committed the crime,
Speaker 2: but at the very least casts enormous reasonable doubt as
Speaker 2: to the initial trial. And here he has to watch
Speaker 2: the prosecutors lie all over again, and their witnesses life.
Speaker 2: So I think in that moment it got the better
Speaker 2: of him. But look, they're amazing people, an amazing family.
Speaker 2: His mother remains really upbeat and really positive. And they've
Speaker 2: always said, just present the evidence, and this has been
Speaker 2: Rodney's thing. He's always said too, He's got nothing to hide,
Speaker 2: show everything that there is, and that the truth set
Speaker 2: him free. And two things that I think really lifted
Speaker 2: their spirits was that finally it was put to a
Speaker 2: court that in the months following Stacy's death, investigators asked
Speaker 2: Jimmy Farnell to take a polygraph test. They wanted to
Speaker 2: rule him out. I think they were looking to help
Speaker 2: their friend. He took one and he failed. He took
Speaker 2: a second one and he failed. So of course they
Speaker 2: never presented that to court, so this is now finally
Speaker 2: on the record. The other evidence is that I think
Speaker 2: is really was really a boost to the family with
Speaker 2: these beer cans that were found that we've spoken about
Speaker 2: that were found near Stacy's body, three beer cans, none
Speaker 2: of which had Rodney's DNA on them. So again, Rodney's
Speaker 2: DNA hasn't been found within coo EE of this crime scene.
Speaker 2: But the DNA from those beer cans were from ed Celmeller,
Speaker 2: one of those officers who was found dead, Stacy herself,
Speaker 2: and Jimmy's best friend David Hall, a police officer, and
Speaker 2: there is also some DNA evidence suggesting and that it
Speaker 2: can't rule out Jimmy fanew. So here we have Stacy's
Speaker 2: body in a ditch by the side of the road
Speaker 2: and three beer cans with three police officers DNA evidence
Speaker 2: on it, and that was confirmed finally by the Texas
Speaker 2: Department of Public Safeties head of the crime lab, doctor
Speaker 2: Allison Heard. So there's been this evidence that we've said
Speaker 2: shows Rodney's innocence, but it hadn't got to court before,
Speaker 2: and here for the first time it did. So the
Speaker 2: two polygraphs of Jimmy lying and the DNA on the
Speaker 2: beer cans, and again I think that was a great
Speaker 2: boost to Rodney and his family that this was just
Speaker 2: more modern forensic evidence showing that he had nothing to
Speaker 2: do with it and this was all Jimmy.
Speaker 1: So when is the judge to hand down his decision?
Speaker 2: Mardin the hearing went a little bit over time. We
Speaker 2: wanted to make sure that the forensic witnesses were able
Speaker 2: to give all of their evidence. It's quite complex, but
Speaker 2: because it all points to Jimmy Finel, it was really
Speaker 2: important to get it on the record. So we were
Speaker 2: hoping for a decision on the seventeenth of August. That's
Speaker 2: been pushed back. Now the final arguments will be heard
Speaker 2: before the seventeenth. Then the judge has until the thirty
Speaker 2: first to basically wrap up this evidentiary hearing should there
Speaker 2: be any new witnesses or any new evidence that needs
Speaker 2: to be presented. And then sometime after the thirty first
Speaker 2: of August, the judge, Judge Judge J. D. Langley, will
Speaker 2: hand down his decision again. That'll either be to exonerate Rodney,
Speaker 2: to set a new trial for Rodney where all this
Speaker 2: evidence can be heard, or for Rodney to still face
Speaker 2: the death pen and be executed. And as soon as
Speaker 2: we hear the results of that, we'll do a show
Speaker 2: and let all our listeners know, but it'll be some
Speaker 2: time after the thirty first of August. That was curtin
Speaker 2: the podcast.