Speaker 1: Just before nine o'clock last night, the jury returned guilty
Speaker 1: verdicts against all three defendants.
Speaker 2: It was absolute shambles, to tell you the truth, just
Speaker 2: absolutely really.
Speaker 3: Pamous blood on his clothing the day after the alleged.
Speaker 4: Attamp on a shallow mud bank and it fits Roy River. Basically.
Speaker 2: I think most of the people are used to me
Speaker 2: are good people.
Speaker 4: I think a really important question we need to ask
Speaker 4: is how many Indigenous prisoners in Australia are innocent.
Speaker 5: This is Curtain, a podcast where we pulled back the
Speaker 5: blinds to shine a light on the.
Speaker 2: Darkest parts of our justice system and ask who are
Speaker 2: the victims. I'm Amy Maguire.
Speaker 4: And I'm Martin Hodgson, a senior advocate for the Foreign
Speaker 4: Prisoner Support Service. And a warning, this series contains the
Speaker 4: names of deceased peoples and has distressing content that might
Speaker 4: upset some listeners.
Speaker 5: Now, if you've been listening to the podcast from the
Speaker 5: very beginning, you would remember the interview that got Martin
Speaker 5: interested in Kevin Henry's case.
Speaker 2: Martin joined me on the Aboriginal.
Speaker 5: Talkback program Let's Talk last year to discuss the case
Speaker 5: of Rodney Reid, who currently is on death row over
Speaker 5: in the United States, and it was through his investigation
Speaker 5: into Rodney's case in particular, that I began to realize
Speaker 5: that Martin might be able to help with Kevin Henry
Speaker 5: in my hometown of Rockampden.
Speaker 2: Now this episode, we're going to look.
Speaker 4: Back at Rodney.
Speaker 5: Reed's case in particular.
Speaker 2: Martin, are there any updates in Rodney's case.
Speaker 1: Yeah, We've actually had some really big developments in Rodney's
Speaker 1: case in the last week. But I'll give a little
Speaker 1: background of the case for those who didn't hear that
Speaker 1: interview we did more than a year ago. Rodney was
Speaker 1: sentenced to death for the murder of a woman named
Speaker 1: Stacy Stitz, and there was virtually no evidence again against Rodney.
Speaker 1: The only evidence they had at the time was a
Speaker 1: small bit of DNA evidence, and Rodney was able to
Speaker 1: easily explain that Rodney had been in a relationship with
Speaker 1: Mistites for about four to five months. Now, Rodney's an
Speaker 1: African American man in an almost exclusively white town in
Speaker 1: rural Texas, and many of the issues in terms of
Speaker 1: racism in the justice system that Aboriginal on Torres Strait
Speaker 1: Islander people face in Australia and in Kevin's case in Queensland,
Speaker 1: nearly identical to what African American people suffer, particularly in
Speaker 1: a state like Texas that still has the death penalty
Speaker 1: and has these towns where segregation almost still exists. So
Speaker 1: the mere fact that Mistites was a white woman and
Speaker 1: that mister Reed was a black man and they had
Speaker 1: been having a relationship was controversial. What made it more
Speaker 1: controversial Misdites was engaged to one of the town's police officers. Now,
Speaker 1: after a long investigation that was conducted by one of
Speaker 1: that police officer's best friends and his next door neighbor,
Speaker 1: also a police officer, Rodney was found guilty and sentenced
Speaker 1: to death. Now, twice the state of Texas have tried
Speaker 1: to execute Rodney, and twice we've been able to head
Speaker 1: that off at the last minute. And this is largely
Speaker 1: because there is basically no evidence against Rodney other than
Speaker 1: this small piece of DNA, and that piece of DNA
Speaker 1: is easily explainable because they were in a relationship. Now
Speaker 1: we also go to the issue of the police in
Speaker 1: vas instigation, and here it is very similar to the
Speaker 1: case of Kevin Henry. Kevin, like Rodney, there was no
Speaker 1: eyewitness that saw either Kevin nor Rodney involved in the
Speaker 1: murder of either Stacy or Linda in any way. In
Speaker 1: Kevin's case, there is no forensic evidence at all, and
Speaker 1: in Rodney's case, there's no blood or anything like that.
Speaker 1: There's no murder weapon, there's no evidence of Rodney at
Speaker 1: the murder scene. There's just the DNA that would match
Speaker 1: up with the fact that they had been in a relationship.
Speaker 1: And as we've talked about before, in Kevin's case, the
Speaker 1: police grabbed their man almost immediately, and once they'd fixated
Speaker 1: on Rodney, they didn't look anywhere else. And just like
Speaker 1: Kevin's case, there were problems with the way the evidence
Speaker 1: was handled, and we can go through some of those
Speaker 1: similarities throughout this episode. But now that you have a
Speaker 1: little idea of what happened in Rodney's case, this can
Speaker 1: help explain what we're dealing with in Kevin's at the moment,
Speaker 1: which is a very common question I get about both cases.
Speaker 1: Why is Kevin and Rodney still in jail when there's
Speaker 1: so much evidence they didn't commit the crime, And in
Speaker 1: both cases the answer is very similar. Despite the fact
Speaker 1: Rodney's in Texas and Kevin is in Queensland, and we're
Speaker 1: dealing with two very different legal systems, and that is,
Speaker 1: once your appeals are exhausted, just as Rodney's and Kevin's
Speaker 1: have been, the onus becomes not on you to prove
Speaker 1: that you are innocent, not only to prove that there
Speaker 1: was doubt in the initial trial, have to prove that
Speaker 1: not only did you not do it, but that someone
Speaker 1: else did and explain, in the case of Kevin to
Speaker 1: the Attorney General and the governor for a pardon, how
Speaker 1: the crime happened and who did it, and in the
Speaker 1: US case, through the courts. And you're largely restricted on
Speaker 1: the evidence that you can use to do that, because
Speaker 1: even if what happened at the initial trial is clearly
Speaker 1: flawed and faulty, much of that evidence is considered matters
Speaker 1: of fact, and that's how they refer it to it
Speaker 1: in Queensland and in Texas. So the latest development in
Speaker 1: Rodney's case is not all the new evidence we have
Speaker 1: uncovered that show Rodney did not commit the crime, and
Speaker 1: we can go into that evidence and it clearly shows
Speaker 1: he was not involved. The only thing we can do
Speaker 1: is show that the real killer lied to police, and
Speaker 1: so that is the latest in Rodney's case is that
Speaker 1: a judge has set a new hearing for October and
Speaker 1: that we'll be able to show that a witness at
Speaker 1: the time, a person who we believe killed misstites and
Speaker 1: is the real killer, lied to police. We won't actually
Speaker 1: be able to present any of the new evidence that
Speaker 1: clears Rodney's name. And it's very much the same in
Speaker 1: Kevin's case. That the State of Queensland considers the ruling
Speaker 1: made by the judge in Kevin Henry's trial that was
Speaker 1: reiterated by the appeals court judge to be a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, and even if we've got evidence to show
Speaker 1: that that's not the case, we actually have to come
Speaker 1: up with something completely different and completely new.
Speaker 2: So Marlin Ronnie read what evidence.
Speaker 5: Was that he was.
Speaker 1: The evidence is quite similar to Kevin's in that it
Speaker 1: deals with the forensic evidence as well as eyewitnesses. I'll
Speaker 1: deal with the forensics first. So obviously, in Kevin's case,
Speaker 1: there was no forensic evidence linking Kevin whatsoever to the crime.
Speaker 1: But what we've been able to do is show that
Speaker 1: there's forensic evidence to show Kevin couldn't have committed the crime,
Speaker 1: such as the fact that the body had to have
Speaker 1: been placed on the north side of the river, that
Speaker 1: there was no DNA evidence of any kind like blood
Speaker 1: that would have been present on Kevin the mud had
Speaker 1: he weighed in to the water, and in Rodney's it's
Speaker 1: quite similar. There's no DNA evidence at all that places
Speaker 1: Rodney read at the crime scene. But this is the
Speaker 1: evidence we discovered. There is evidence placing other people at
Speaker 1: the crime scene. There is evidence placing police at the
Speaker 1: crime scene. There is evidence placing the police who investigated
Speaker 1: the murder of Stacy Stites at the crime scene. And
Speaker 1: one of those police officers is mister Fanell Stacy Stites
Speaker 1: as fiance who had discovered his white fiancee was having
Speaker 1: an affair with a black man, and we've uncovered forensic
Speaker 1: evidence and DNA that places him at the scene where
Speaker 1: Stacy was murdered. And worse than any of that is
Speaker 1: that this scene, the house of misdits, a woman who
Speaker 1: was missing and then found murdered, was never looked at
Speaker 1: by a police. It was a house she shared with
Speaker 1: her police officer fiance, and the investigat was done by
Speaker 1: his neighbour and a best friend, who were both fellow
Speaker 1: police officers, and they never once went into the house.
Speaker 1: Had they done so, they would have found a large
Speaker 1: amount of blood, they would have found the murder weapon.
Speaker 1: And because of the stupidity of these police officers, they
Speaker 1: then left DNA evidence and forensic material where they placed
Speaker 1: Mistites's body. So it's quite similar to Kevin's case in
Speaker 1: that where the murder took place and where the body
Speaker 1: is found are two different places. Just like Kevin, Rodney
Speaker 1: had an alibi for ever being where the body was
Speaker 1: placed and had to be placed, and there is no
Speaker 1: forensic evidence linked whatsoever for either gentleman to the crime
Speaker 1: scene or being involved in the murder. And here in
Speaker 1: Rodney's case, we have evidence that implicates the fiance, a
Speaker 1: police officer of Mistites, and his colleagues at the murder
Speaker 1: scene and where the body was placed.
Speaker 2: So I'm just wondering, given thing that you've been working
Speaker 2: on this case for the past decade and uncovering a
Speaker 2: lot of this evidence, has this ever gone back to
Speaker 2: the police, They ever conducted their own investigations into whether
Speaker 2: the police were complicited.
Speaker 1: In sadly not, And I think this is a real problem,
Speaker 1: just as we've exposed in Kevin's case a large number
Speaker 1: of police failings. In Rodney's case, those failings are clearly
Speaker 1: much more egregious or or at least more obvious. There's
Speaker 1: no doubt that they litter Kevin's case too. But here
Speaker 1: you have the fiance of a police officer and they
Speaker 1: allow his best friend and his colleague to invest instigate
Speaker 1: her murder. Now, what makes this even worse and why
Speaker 1: Rodney's case should have been elevated up the hierarchy inside
Speaker 1: the police, is that the fiance of mistites the woman
Speaker 1: Rodney is supposed to have murdered. He was a police
Speaker 1: officer who had had other issues involving women that should
Speaker 1: have created an instant cloud over him. In fact, I
Speaker 1: can tell you he is currently in prison for kidnap
Speaker 1: and sexual misconduct in an unrelated case that took place
Speaker 1: ten years after his own fiancee was murdered. Now, how
Speaker 1: he was investigated and tipped off about that was that
Speaker 1: a very junior police officer who had once been in
Speaker 1: the police academy with this gentleman, told her superiors years
Speaker 1: earlier that she believed he was capable of killing his
Speaker 1: own girlfriend, and that he'd said to this fellow police
Speaker 1: officer a young woman that if he'd ever caught Mistite's cheating,
Speaker 1: he would strangle her and kill her, and that is
Speaker 1: exactly what happened to her. And yet, despite this information
Speaker 1: having been passed on by a fellow police officer, it
Speaker 1: took ten years for the police to investigate him. And
Speaker 1: they only did so because he was caught red handed
Speaker 1: kidnapping and sexually assaulting a person in his custody, and
Speaker 1: that took place in two thousand and seven. And yet,
Speaker 1: despite that, despite all the DNA evidence linking this man,
Speaker 1: who clearly now can be shown to have this despicable
Speaker 1: criminal attitude towards women who had admitted to doing what
Speaker 1: he would later do, who would be convicted of doing
Speaker 1: something very similar, the State of Texas would twice after
Speaker 1: that try and execute Rodney, and up until last week,
Speaker 1: when we won the chance to have a judge look
Speaker 1: at just a little bit of this new evidence, the
Speaker 1: State of Texas was planning on executing Rodney for a
Speaker 1: third time. So I think you can't get a more
Speaker 1: obvious case of where the police need to pass on
Speaker 1: an investigation either to another authority, or that that investigation
Speaker 1: of a fellow police officer be observed by an independent
Speaker 1: statutory authority, And in neither Kevin's case nor Rodney's case
Speaker 1: has that ever occurred. And what we're dealing with is
Speaker 1: police investigating each other. In Rodney's case, it was the
Speaker 1: person we will clim is the true murderer, his next
Speaker 1: door neighbor and his best friend doing the investigation. In
Speaker 1: Kevin's case, it was always police from the same small
Speaker 1: regional town of Rockhampton. I don't think anyone could say
Speaker 1: that this is in any way a credible way to
Speaker 1: get to the truth, let alone insure justice is done.
Speaker 1: If these police are so convinced of mister Reed's guilt,
Speaker 1: if they are so convinced of mister Henry's guilt, so
Speaker 1: convinced that, in Rodney's case, they want him dead, and
Speaker 1: in Kevin's case, they want to see him locked up
Speaker 1: for the rest of his life. Why would they not
Speaker 1: be willing to hand over that investigation to a third party,
Speaker 1: or be willing to at least have an independent party
Speaker 1: observe and analyze their own investigation. And the answer is clear,
Speaker 1: because they know their own investigations are flawed, so flawed
Speaker 1: because they covered up vital facts and they know deep
Speaker 1: in their heart they got the wrong person, and you
Speaker 1: know about.
Speaker 2: That piece of evidence being taken. That's pretty much how.
Speaker 3: How would you describe got a long fight just to
Speaker 3: get this most case, how long it has taken, and
Speaker 3: how you described the process.
Speaker 1: It's very exhausting. I think as people have heard listening
Speaker 1: to Kevin's case, you're talking about events that happened over
Speaker 1: twenty years ago, so finding witnesses who remember what happened,
Speaker 1: and of course, because you have this high threshold, you
Speaker 1: need to prove that. Not only do you have to
Speaker 1: prove your client innocent, you have to basically solve a
Speaker 1: murder that police either couldn't solve or deliberately painted. And
Speaker 1: so it's an enormous amount of work. It's thousands of hours.
Speaker 1: It's finding forensic and DNA evidence that was missed and
Speaker 1: that was one thing that we were able to do
Speaker 1: was find DNA evidence that was missed by the police
Speaker 1: in Rodney's case. And this whole time, both Rodney and
Speaker 1: Kevin can wait years at a time for new pieces
Speaker 1: of information. For Kevin, he's desperate to get out knowing
Speaker 1: he's an innocent man. For Rodney, he's watching a clock,
Speaker 1: looking at a calendar, knowing his execution date is fast approaching,
Speaker 1: and we haven't wrung them yet to say we've found
Speaker 1: the evidence that's going to get you off. So for
Speaker 1: both men it's enormously stressful. For those investigating what's gone on,
Speaker 1: you really have a countdown clock, and there's enormous amount
Speaker 1: of stress, and largely because the police are so uncooperative
Speaker 1: and often have done a really flawed case. It's virtually
Speaker 1: impossible to prove what you need to prove. But in
Speaker 1: each case, I'm confident that we have And it really
Speaker 1: comes down to how hard you're willing to work, how
Speaker 1: much you're willing to push, and the fact you're just
Speaker 1: not going to give up. And in Rodney's case, again twice,
Speaker 1: he's come within moments. You know, he's eaten his last meal,
Speaker 1: he's said his last prayer, and the State of Texas
Speaker 1: have been unsuccessful in their attempts to try and kill him.
Speaker 1: And that's purely because of the investigative work. And I
Speaker 1: should say that none of this is ever assisted by
Speaker 1: the courts or by police. It's not funded by anyone.
Speaker 1: This is all being done by a handful of people
Speaker 1: who believe in these two men's innocence, and who believe
Speaker 1: that these men are innocent and that the crime is
Speaker 1: being committed against them, and that there is a shocking
Speaker 1: crime committed against both women for whom there have been
Speaker 1: no justice. For twenty years. The families of Mistites and
Speaker 1: the family of Linda have not been able to sleep
Speaker 1: knowing the person who really killed their loved one is
Speaker 1: in prison. And it's for that that we just don't stop.
Speaker 2: Working on Kenvidan case for the past year and a half.
Speaker 2: But already we've said this one of the podcast we've
Speaker 2: covered keep witnessing at that place. Two are the men
Speaker 2: at the end of the crime that show how was
Speaker 2: transferred over the river and put it into.
Speaker 5: The water away.
Speaker 2: So it's actually relatively compared working on Rodney. I mean,
Speaker 2: we've actually shown that the people who most likely could
Speaker 2: it have.
Speaker 4: Done this time.
Speaker 5: And what does that say the Kevin O case.
Speaker 2: That that we have already found the evidence that shows
Speaker 2: the portray may.
Speaker 1: Have been Yeah, it's a really good question. It's a
Speaker 1: really good observation because it's considered fairly normal that these
Speaker 1: things take a very long time, and the ten year
Speaker 1: investigation and my involvement with Rodney's case. While it probably
Speaker 1: seems very slow to a lot of people, and it
Speaker 1: sure is slow for Rodney sitting on death row for
Speaker 1: that long twenty years in total, ten years, why we
Speaker 1: try and prove his innocence. Kevin's case, we've been able
Speaker 1: to investigate and find so many key facts so quickly.
Speaker 1: We've been able to find eye witnesses, of which there
Speaker 1: were none presented at the Troy. We've been able to
Speaker 1: find flaws in the forensic evidence, and new forensic evidence.
Speaker 1: We've been able to not only show Kevin had an alibi,
Speaker 1: but have eyewitnesses point the finger at two people who
Speaker 1: did commit the crime who don't have an alibi. We've
Speaker 1: also been able to show that the way these two
Speaker 1: men disposed of Linda's body matches with our own forensic
Speaker 1: investigation and actually matches with the police's initial forensic investigation.
Speaker 1: And all that has happened in around about a year's time,
Speaker 1: and so I think it shows two things. Kevin Henry
Speaker 1: is quite clearly an innocent man. In a year, we've
Speaker 1: uncovered with really just a very small team of us
Speaker 1: doing this work, that Kevin is innocent, and that two
Speaker 1: other people involved in the murder of Linda who have
Speaker 1: never faced justice, and we've been able to uncover more
Speaker 1: than what a much larger team in the United States
Speaker 1: has been able to uncover in a ten year period.
Speaker 1: I also think what it shows is the fact that
Speaker 1: we've been able to do it with no resources at all,
Speaker 1: doing at twenty something years after the crime took place.
Speaker 1: That clearly the police investigation was a disgrace. They had
Speaker 1: the resources available to them, the murder had just taken place,
Speaker 1: They had all the forensics, they had access to all
Speaker 1: the witnesses, and they had access to the full weight
Speaker 1: of the State of Queensland and its justice system. That
Speaker 1: means they could call in police experts from all over
Speaker 1: the state and they did it. Means they could have
Speaker 1: called in forensic experts from all over the state and
Speaker 1: they did.
Speaker 4: It.
Speaker 1: Meant they had access to experts on the river and
Speaker 1: its tidal movements. They had access to experts who should
Speaker 1: have been able to uncover Linda's cause of death and
Speaker 1: the fact that her body had been moved and where
Speaker 1: it had been placed. But either they were incompetent and couldn't,
Speaker 1: or the investigation was a farce. And a sham, and
Speaker 1: in the time they had and with all their resources,
Speaker 1: they got it so wrong. And we've shown twenty six
Speaker 1: years later they had absolutely no excuse for getting it
Speaker 1: so badly wrong. And I have to say, of all
Speaker 1: the cases I've worked on, largely on people on death
Speaker 1: row where investigations can take up to ten years to
Speaker 1: prove their innocence, to have uncovered this much to show
Speaker 1: Kevin Henry is innocent in just a year, facing all
Speaker 1: the obstacles we've had to overcome with the least resources
Speaker 1: I've ever had to work with, I think says everything
Speaker 1: about Kevin Henry's innocence and everything you need to know
Speaker 1: about how the Queensland Police conducted this investigation.
Speaker 2: That's the human that we've talked about in being a
Speaker 2: part of that within a statement that they passed away
Speaker 2: and the alleged perpetrator is in jail on charges of
Speaker 2: kidnapping and sexual assault, would that affect Kevin's.
Speaker 3: Passed away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a good point, although obviously we should explain
Speaker 1: that those people were still very much alive when Kevin
Speaker 1: and went to trial and could have been called as witnesses.
Speaker 1: They were known to police, but they weren't investigated. It
Speaker 1: does make it harder now because we don't have people
Speaker 1: to point to and say, these are the people that
Speaker 1: did it. They're still alive, they've never faced justice and
Speaker 1: perhaps even have them admit to their guilt, given the
Speaker 1: sheer weight of evidence we do have of their involvement
Speaker 1: in the crime, and not all of which have we
Speaker 1: revealed yet on this podcast. And as you say, in
Speaker 1: Rodney's case, you've got the extra evidence of the perpetrator
Speaker 1: being the fiance having confessed to a fellow female officer
Speaker 1: that if he'd caught his fiancee of achieating, he would
Speaker 1: strangle her and that is how Stacy was killed. And
Speaker 1: the fact he had such disregard for human life and
Speaker 1: particularly women, that he would go on to commit quite
Speaker 1: a similar crime and a very violent, horrific crime, even
Speaker 1: while being an officer, clearly is more evidence in Rodney's
Speaker 1: favor than we have in Kevin's. But I still think
Speaker 1: what we've got in both cases is overwhelming, and what
Speaker 1: should really concern people is in both cases it's not
Speaker 1: an issue of evidence. There is more than enough evidence
Speaker 1: to prove both men are innocent, that other people committed
Speaker 1: the crime and exactly how that crime was committed. The
Speaker 1: hold up is that everyone passes the buck. In Texas,
Speaker 1: the governor could have pardoned Rodney a long time ago.
Speaker 1: In Texas, the governor could have ordered an investigation into
Speaker 1: how the police were investigating their own friends, that the
Speaker 1: police were involved in this murder and helping their fellow
Speaker 1: officer cover up the killing of his fiance. In Kevin's case,
Speaker 1: the attorney general could have long looked, long ago looked
Speaker 1: into Kevin's case. And there's been requests by Kevin Henry
Speaker 1: himself from nineteen ninety three onwards for exactly that both
Speaker 1: men have always maintained their innocence. But no one in
Speaker 1: the government in Texas or in Queensland has been willing
Speaker 1: to lift up this scab on this wound that won't close,
Speaker 1: that hangs over both states' heads. And it's that they
Speaker 1: will lock up black men and take their lives away
Speaker 1: despite knowing they did not commit the crime for which
Speaker 1: they're accused. And so while it's quite clear that the
Speaker 1: police have a lot to answer for and that courts
Speaker 1: have made terrible mistakes, people in government have the power.
Speaker 1: The governor in Texas, any general in Queensland have the
Speaker 1: authority to reinvestigate these cases and to pardon both men,
Speaker 1: and they've refused to do that, and I don't think
Speaker 1: we should overlook that fact. You're elected to public office
Speaker 1: to make the tough decisions, and sometimes that means scrutinizing
Speaker 1: the people that work for you and if they've made
Speaker 1: a mistake, correcting it and making sure the right thing
Speaker 1: is done. I don't think anyone in society wants to
Speaker 1: see murders go unsolved because they are unsolved when you
Speaker 1: have the innocent in prison, To have two men losing
Speaker 1: their lives sitting in prison cells as we speak, for
Speaker 1: crimes they didn't commit, and to have people who have
Speaker 1: committed murder get off scot free, and I think overwhelmingly
Speaker 1: the public would find that disgraceful. And yet the public
Speaker 1: servants at the highest level, the governor and the Attorney
Speaker 1: rule of Texas and of Queensland, have refused to take
Speaker 1: any responsibility and intervene in these cases, when quite clearly
Speaker 1: they are entitled to do so.
Speaker 2: And that's why we have a precision and calling on
Speaker 2: the else an intervene in Kevin case. You can find
Speaker 2: facebook page by faasal thing incurred in the podcast or
Speaker 2: I don't know how, like in the podcast dot com.
Speaker 3: That was an episode early four of Curtain