48 Hours - Last Chance for Freedom

Episode Date: August 20, 2017

A Florida man has spent nearly three decades in prison for a murder he says he didn't commit.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to this podcast ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today. Even if you love the thrill of true crime stories as much as I do, there are times when you want to mix it up. And that's where Audible comes in, with all the genres you love and new ones to discover. Explore thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. Listening to Audible can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits,

and even your overall well-being. And you can enjoy Audible anytime, while doing household chores, exercising, commuting, you name it. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert

to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military. And when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. Real people, real crimes. Real life drama. There was no moon. You know the kind of a night you get where the stars are, you think you can reach up and touch them.

They're so vibrant, but it's like pitch black out there. They're so vibrant, but it's like pitch black out there. For more than 18 years, 48 Hours has investigated what many say is a case of injustice. That case began in the early morning hours of April 4th, 1989, when a young woman called 911 saying she thought her boyfriend had been shot. The problem was she was three miles away from the crime scene and she had trouble telling police how to get there. Something was not right. Why would somebody say there's something happening here and nothing's there? All we had was that he had been shot and that he was in the orange groves. I sent a deputy to pick her up because we absolutely would never have found him. We'd have been there all night looking.

I am Diane Clark. I was a patrol sergeant in Brevard County. When we got there, she wouldn't get out of the car. She remained in the vehicle out here and refused to walk down there you don't want to see him you don't want to know his condition there's something wrong with that it was a young white male laying on his side with his hands bound behind his back the male victim was chip flint he had a a bullet that was flawed on the right side of his chest. We have a gun on the ground that we don't know who it belongs to.

He was conscious? Yeah, speaking very clearly. Just said, get me out of here. Who shot you? Just take me home. God, get me out of here. Could you at least tell us which way he went? Who did this to you? He won't tell us. This is so not typical. It defies explanation.

My name is Mark Rixey. I was a road patrol deputy for the Brevard County Sheriff's Office. All of a sudden, his breathing got shallow. All of a sudden, you know, he deteriorated really quickly. He died before the ambulance got here. The woman who called 911 was Chip Flynn's former girlfriend, Kim Hallick. She said that she and Chip had been in his truck, this truck, when a black man with a gun hijacked and drove them to that remote grove,

she alone managed to get back into the truck and escape, driving those three miles to Chip's friend's home. They needed someone to put that murder on. And Crosley Green fit the bill. It's an example of race being a substitute for evidence. I didn't kill that young man. That guy got screwed. Today, 26 years after Crosley Green was sentenced to death for the murder of Chip Flynn. I did not kill that young man.

There is compelling new evidence that the wrong person may have been sent to prison. And the killer is still free. The first rule of homicide investigation is everybody who is at that scene is treated as a suspect until they're eliminated. That's not the way this happened. I'm Erin Moriarty. Tonight on 48 Hours, last chance for freedom.

In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn, and it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reach the age of 10 that would still have heard it. It just happens to all of us. I'm journalist Luke Jones and for almost two years I've been investigating a shocking story that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what

they can get away with. In the Pitcairn Trials, I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely Pacific island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly? Introducing The Best Idea Yet, a brand new podcast from Wondery and T-Boy about the surprising origin stories of the products you're obsessed with and the bolder risk-takers who brought

them to life. Like, did you know that Super Mario, the best-selling video game character of all time, only exists because Nintendo couldn't get the rights to Popeye? Or Jack, that the idea for the McDonald's Happy Meal first came from a mom in Guatemala? From Pez dispensers to Levi's 501s to Air Jordans, discover the surprising stories of the most viral products. Plus, we guarantee that after listening, you're going to dominate your next dinner party. So follow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen

to The Best Idea Yet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. It's just the best idea yet. Crosley's case is special because it cries out for justice. You can't stop thinking about what happened to this individual, the injustice that occurred. For me, I was offended. I was angry. Washington, D.C. attorneys Keith Harrison,

Bob Rode, and Gene Thomas typically counsel an elite corporate clientele. But they're working for no pay at all to win freedom for 59-year-old Crosley Green, incarcerated in Florida for almost 28 years. The main focus of the case was that there was a black guy who had done something. The old, the black guy did it.

They accused prosecutors of a rush to judgment in the murder of the young white man, Chip Flynn, found shot and dined in that remote Florida citrus grove in 1989. At the time, Chip had been living with his parents. They spoke with us in 1999. Rarely did you see him without a smile on his face. Just rarely. The Flins, now both deceased,

told us they were shocked to learn that Chip had been with Kim Halleck that night. Kim was an ex-girlfriend. Chip was happily seeing someone else. That's all he talked about. He didn't mention Kim anymore or anything. And Kim's story that a man had robbed and hijacked them seemed strange. Police recorded her statement just hours after the shooting. When was the first time that you saw Chip yesterday? About 10 o'clock at night he came over to my house. She said it began in the local baseball field, Holder Park. They were sitting in his truck when she first saw someone walk by. Told Chip there's a black guy on your side and he rolled up the window really quick. 20 minutes later, she says, Chip stepped out and she heard him say, hold on, man.

Chip had a gun in his glove box. I took the gun out of the glove box and stuck it under some jeans that were next to me. And then, she says, she saw the man again. Did you see that the black male was armed at that time? Yes, I did. She says the man tied Chip's hands with a shoelace, ordered her to hand over money from Chip's wallet. And then with everyone in this truck, she says the assailant drove them to the Orange Grove, steering, shifting gears, and somehow holding a gun on them all at the same time. Kim Hallock told police that when they got to the Grove, the man yanked her out of the truck and then Chip, his hands still tied, somehow managed to get a hold of his gun hidden on the

truck seat. Chip's hands were behind his back. He leaned out of the truck and somehow shot at the guy. And the guy stepped back, chipped him out of the truck. I jumped in the truck, and I heard about five or six gunshots. She said she then drove those three miles to Chip's friend's home to call for help. Wouldn't you stop at the first telephone that you came to, the first home that you came to, to call 911? Crosley Green's current attorneys say

a lot of Kim's story simply doesn't make sense. It's bizarre to be charitable. Chip, with the gun in his hands tied behind his back, opens the door of the truck and propels himself out of the truck, shooting at the black guy. Still, police seem to take him at her word, even though parts of her story changed, and she couldn't describe the assailant very well.

I really didn't need a real good look at him. I was really scared. The details she did give didn't really match the man detectives had in mind. Crosley Green, a small-time drug dealer recently released from jail. But later that night, they showed Kim this photo lineup. Kim chose number two, Crosley Green. That's a target with a bullseye for Crosley Green. What do you mean?

His picture is smaller and darker than the other pictures. Anybody involved in police investigation, the prosecution knows this. The position that your eyes are normally drawn to are right in the middle. It's a black spot. That's what you focus on, that black spot. Crosley Green, better known as Papa, became the father figure for his large family after his

parents died. He admits he was no angel, but he says he has never done anything violent. At the time Chip was killed, he says, he was with friends around two miles away. I kidnapped no one. I killed no one. I did none of those things. The task at hand was finding a black guy to pin this on. And unfortunately for Crossley, that's where their attention focused. So when a young white woman says a black man did it, nobody questioned it? I don't think nobody questioned that. Tim Curtis, a local body shop owner, was a friend man did it. Nobody questioned it? I don't think nobody questioned that.

Tim Curtis, a local body shop owner, was a friend of Chip's. He also knew the Green family and helped spread the word. Crosley did it. There was a lot of racial words being used. We're going to get him. We're going to get him. We're going to get him, you know. going to get him. We're going to get him, you know. Crosley-Green was arrested and charged with kidnapping, robbery, and murder. At trial, prosecutors pointed to what they said were the killer's shoe prints found in Holder Park. You've seen those shoe impressions. It wasn't just her and Chip out there. Assistant State's Attorney Christopher White, now retired,

told jurors that a police dog got the scent of those prints and tracked that scent to the vicinity of a house where Crosley Green sometimes stayed. The shoe impressions were followed from the site where the truck was parked. Supporting what Kim said about there being a third person there, a black male who abducted them and did these things. But White was never able to match those shoe prints to Crosley Green or anyone else. What's more, not a single fingerprint of Green's was found anywhere on the truck. And despite Kim's claim that Chip had fired his gun trying to save her,

no gunshot residue was found on Chip's hands. She's saying he fired the gun and there'd be no gunshot residue left on his fingers? Is that possible? It's highly improbable. Still, prosecutors found three witnesses with criminal pasts who claimed Crosley had actually confessed to them, most damning, his own sister, Sheila. Before the case went to the jury, Crosley Green was offered a deal. Admit guilt and get no more than 22 years. Why didn't you take it? get no more than 22 years.

Why didn't you take it? I didn't kill that young man, okay? I'm telling you, I keep telling you, I didn't kill that young man. So why should I take that play of your body? It took the all-white jury just three hours to convict Crosley Green. The judge sentenced him

to death. What's it like being here on death row? It's hell. It's hell to me because I'm here for a crime I didn't commit. Don't kill this guy. He didn't do it. He's innocent. Did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired

by an actual murder? Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, early and ad-free on Wondery Plus and the Wondery app. Hotshot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty? Representing some of the city's

most infamous gangland criminals. However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets, the most dangerous secret was her own. She's going to all the major groups within Melbourne's underworld, and she's informing on them all. I'm Marsha Clark, host of the new podcast, Informants Lawyer X. In my long career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I've seen some crazy cases, and this one belongs right at the top of the list. She was addicted to the game she had created. She just didn't know how to stop. Now, through dramatic interviews and access, I'll reveal the truth behind one of the world's

most shocking legal scandals. Listen to Informant's Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, and listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. How did you wear your hair that night? Tell me how your hair was. Can I look at the camera? Because I want to say this to the camera, man. Back in 1999, Crosley Green spoke about the obvious inconsistencies in the case against him.

The way I look now, it's the way I looked then. Kim Hallica told police her assailant had long hair that covered his ears. Was any of your hair over your ears? The way I look now is the way I looked then. When we first reported the case, a team of private detectives from around the country who believed in Crosley Green's innocence

were working pro bono to prove it. It's not every day you see this kind of injustice. Joe Mora, who was a 48 Hours consultant, found it difficult to believe that Crosley had confessed to three people. So Crosley ends up shooting somebody and he decides he's going to tell everybody in town, guess what? It was me. Not credible. It's not credible at all. So Mora tracked down those witnesses. Sheila Green told Maura that she had lied at trial. Even though she knew she could be dooming her brother, she said she had no choice.

Basically, they told me that this was my last chance to help myself because I was already convicted. At the time she testified, Sheila was facing sentencing on drug charges herself. What did they say would happen if you didn't testify against your brother? I would never see my kids again. And when Maura found the other two witnesses, they told him similar stories. Every witness recanted their story, and every one of them had reason to be afraid of the police. They were squeezed, and they were squeezed hard.

With Crosley's sister and his two friends all recanting, the private detectives focused on crime scene evidence. All right, we're shooting. Notably, those shoe prints in Holder Park that prosecutors said corroborated Kim's story. At trial, the prosecutor said, there's no question that those tracks, and he's referring to those tracks, are the tracks of the murder.

Would you agree with that statement? Absolutely not. Criminalist Lisa DeMeo, part of Crosley's team in 1999, says that although jurors were told that a dog tracked the shoe prints of Chip's killer, this police crime scene video actually contradicts that. The shoe prints after proceeding west will then continue on around just to the outside of this fence. If these were the tracks of an assailant, they should end where the

truck was reportedly parked. But in fact, DeMeo says those prints continue past the truck, along the fence, as you just heard, and appear to leave the park. But if these shoe prints are going out this way, how could they belong to the assailant if, in fact, he got in the truck back here? They couldn't. No, no, they couldn't. The original investigators may have worried about that, too. Take another look at that diagram shown at trial.

There should be some shoe prints that go from where the truck was to along the chain-link fence over here. But there aren't. This diagram supports Kim Hallock's story, but this diagram doesn't match the evidence at the scene? Correct. This was necessary to make her story fit. Here we have the victim's wallet.

Chip's wallet was found at Holder Park, but DeMeo says there are still troubling inconsistencies in Kim's story. Kim said both she and Chip had been barefoot and that Chip had been forced to kneel in the sand. There's no bare footprints. There are no knee prints. There's no shin prints, because if you're going to kneel, your shins are going to be on the ground, and the ground is not disturbed by all this activity and action. Kim also said that when she escaped and left Chip in that grove, she heard five to six gunshots as she drove away.

But investigators found no shell casings or bullets to support that. The only bullet found was the one that killed Chip. And why didn't Kim get help for Chip immediately? And I just drove off and I went to the nearest place to his best friend's house. But was it the nearest place? Kim passed several houses, a pay phone, and then turned off the highway just before a major hospital. You can second guess her all you want, but unless you've lived what she lived,

I don't think you're going to know how you're going to react in that situation after being traumatized like she was. Prosecutor Christopher White. A jury got to listen to all of the evidence, and they got to see all of the exhibits, and they made a determination as to what they believed happened. But the jury didn't hear everything that this man knew. Remember the local body shop owner, Tim Curtis, who was once

eager to see Crosley convicted? He's changed his mind. Now I'm starting to relive a lot of things just back and forth. And I'm like like none of it made sense none of it at all made sense as it turns out Curtis had sold chip Flynn that truck shortly before he died it wasn't an easy truck to drive it was hard to handle because it had a custom gear shift here's what any normal person would think they look they see a stick ship coming out of the floor. I'm going to put it in first gear and take off out of here, and that's where he would have made his first mistake.

What would have happened? He would have stalled the truck. And why is that relevant in this case? Well, because Crosley Green didn't have much experience driving a car, if any. He certainly couldn't have gotten into that truck on day one and taken off down the road. It just wasn't going to happen. According to what Kim Hallick told police, the assailant had no trouble, even while brandishing a gun.

Yet we learned that she told Chip's parents a different story. She was having to shift the gears for him. He would just smash a clutch and she would shift the gears. He was making her do that. Joe Mora and the other private detectives were convinced they'd found enough new evidence to get Crosley Green a new trial. We came into the picture 10 years late, and in 10 years we started turning things around very quickly, actually. Positive that they're going to get me out of here. There's no question about that. But the courts weren't convinced.

Crosley Green remained on death row. I told Chip there's a black guy. The black guy stepped out with a gun. I really didn't need a real good look at him. I was really scared. When I went to homicide school, they told us that this spot is the most likely that someone will pick a picture from. And where exactly is Crosley Green?

That's Crosley Green right in that spot. Anything that strikes you about this lineup? You can't see the guy in the top middle very well at all. Crosley Green's photo is the darkest. Christopher White, the prosecutor in the case, admits the photo lineup that led to Crosley Green's arrest was seriously flawed. Would you do this today? Well, no. No, ideally I would not. Could she have picked the wrong person?

I don't think she did, you know. Was she unduly influenced? Was she guessing more than she was sure? I couldn't tell you for sure. If you don't specifically know who you're looking for, then that's the spot you will pick. Nine times out of ten. who you're looking for, then that's the spot you will pick. Nine times out of ten.

But Mark Rixey, the Brevard County Deputy Sheriff first at the scene, says the investigation went off the rails before Kim Hallick was shown that lineup. There is no logical explanation I can think of for her to be eliminated as a suspect. Rixey and Diane Clark, both now retired, spoke publicly for the first time to 48 Hours. Mark and I stand out in the Orange Grove in the dark night. We're like, she's involved somehow. And to this day, I feel she's involved somehow. She said Chip got out of the truck, started shooting,

which allowed her to escape. What did you think when you heard that story? I thought it was totally preposterous. Rixie had been patrolling Holder Park at the time when Halleck said the hijacking first took place. I do remember going through the park with my spotlights on, but I never saw any vehicle there. And as you were driving through the park, did you see any black man? I didn't see anybody. And he didn't hear anything.

The black guy stepped out with a gun. Although Hallig said the assailant fired his gun while tying Flynn's hands. While he was tying up his arms, his gun went off. There was no projectile. There was no casing. There was no reports of a gunshot from Holder Park. But most troubling, they say, is Kim Hallick's inexplicable delay in calling for help for the young man she said she still loved. When you think of the time of the call and the time we were finally able to get him, you're looking at close to 40 minutes.

While waiting for an ambulance, Clark twice gave Flynn CPR, but she couldn't save him. I've saved a lot of lives over the years, and it really bothers me that he maybe could have survived that had he been taken care of sooner. that had he been taken care of sooner. To this day, they wonder why Brevard County detectives failed to do even a basic investigation of Halleck. That's Homicide 101. Anybody who is present at the scene of a shooting gets their hands tested for gunshot residue. That should have been the very first thing that was done.

That was never done. No GSR taken of her hands? Why not? I don't know if there was or wasn't at this point. There wasn't? Why weren't her clothes collected? Why weren't pictures taken of her hands, her arms, to see if she had any injuries? Well, those are all interesting questions.

I guess they could have done more examination. I'll give you that, okay? But today, as back then, you all get back in the truck. White insists Kim's story is plausible. Okay, what was he doing with the gun at the time? He had it at me. Was he holding it there while he was shifting too? How was he doing that? He had it in his hand while he was shift, for sure. How did he steer, shift, and hold a gun on her side? Well, I think it's possible. But it would be difficult. You would admit that.

You know, I think it would be a lot more difficult than having your hand free. Am I going to say it's impossible? No. And he continued to believe Halleck, even when four months after the shooting, both officers went to see the prosecutor. I had an interview with Chris White, Mark and I both. White's notes of that meeting revealed that both Rixey and Clark said they believed Halleck shot Flynn. You know, it's kind of like, OK, you can go now kind of thing. Why didn't you take their words seriously and investigate to see if, in fact, they were correct? I reviewed all the

evidence that we had with that hypothesis in mind. White says he simply wasn't troubled by the questions they raised. Do they give me cause to believe that Kim Halleck may have committed this murder? After looking at it all, my answer is no. Elected officials want to show numbers. Crosley Green just got out of prison. He's an easy mark. Do you believe that Crosley Green is the one who shot Chip Flynn? I don't think Crosley Green ever laid eyes on Chip Flynn.

Mark Rixey believes that Chip Flynn may have been killed with his own gun, but the bullet was too damaged to connect it to any firearm. There is just no evidence that there was any third party involved at all, let alone Crosley Green. Gene Thomas, Bob Rode, and Keith Harrison, Crosley's current attorneys, have tracked down new alibi witnesses who say Crosley wasn't at the Orange Grove. But Christopher White questions their credibility. Those people are not law-abiding, honest people that you can trust to tell the truth. I'm sorry, but that's the way I took it. Yet, if you remember, White used Green's sister and two of his friends to testify for the state at trial.

So Mr. White then, you're using people that you say have no credibility and you offer them deals, help them out if they would say that Crosley Green confessed. You say you used people that had no credibility. Mm-hmm. And we let the jury know that. I felt all we did was put them in a position where they were willing to tell the truth. That's what I thought. Crosley Green's attorneys won a major victory in 2009. Because the trial court erred in sentencing Crossley, he was taken off death row.

I felt real good at that time that that was over with, but I know I have another hundred yards to go. He's still in prison because a Florida state court ruled recanting witnesses can't be trusted. It upheld Crosley Green's conviction, but re-sentenced him to life. There were also DNA tests done post-trial on two tiny body hair fragments that were found in debris from Chip Flynn's truck. One of them, there was sufficient DNA there to obtain a result using MTA DNA. That DNA, known as mitochondrial DNA,

couldn't be matched to any one person. But Crosley Green couldn't be excluded either. It's not a match. The mitochondrial DNA test cannot definitively say this DNA is this individual's DNA. Crosley's maternal relatives, for example, would be in this group that is not excluded. And in fact, Crosley's brother O'Connor was in that truck. O'Connor had been in that truck several times.

Tim Curtis, who hung out with O'Connor, believes that hair was in the truck before he sold it to Chip Flynn and has told authorities that. You have that one hair that could have come from someone else, his brother. Uh-huh. Is there any other physical evidence, anything, that connects Crosley Green to this case?

I guess the simple answer to that is no. What is wrong with those crazy jurors? What is wrong with those crazy judges? Luckily, in this country, we have a judicial system. The system has worked. But that same judicial system in Brevard County put this innocent man behind bars for more than two decades. Crossley Green was convicted, even though he didn't match the original description of

an assailant. There were witnesses who later said they were coerced into testifying. Sound familiar? Very familiar. It's the same thing that happened to me in Brevard County. They put me away for 27 and a half years. Have you ever had a case where three witnesses that you asked to take the stand have recanted and lied? Have you ever had a case?

You know, I never have. I never have. Prosecutor Christopher White. That doesn't trouble you? Not coming from those people with those ties to the Green family, and the Green family being what it is, no, it doesn't trouble me a great deal. But it does trouble Crosley Green's attorneys. In court documents, they accuse the Brevard County State's Attorney's Office of pressuring witnesses. They coerced witnesses to lie, and it's really as though you see a deliberate pattern of the state creating evidence to achieve a result that they wanted to achieve, and that's what they got. They say that in the 1980s, Brevard County put away three men whose convictions have since been overturned.

Take the case of Bill Dillon. I kept thinking that I do not want to die in this graveyard prison with murder over my tombstone. Eight years before Crosley Green was arrested, Bill Dillon was charged with a murder he didn't commit. Bill Dillon's case was a travesty of justice from the very beginning to the end. It was a case of fabrication. Attorney Mike Pirallo helped win Dillon his freedom. Bill Dillon's life was stolen from him. In August 1981, Bill Dillon was a 20-year-old baseball prospect about to get a second tryout with the Detroit Tigers when the badly beaten body of a 40-year-old was

discovered at a local beach. The suspect in that case was described as around 5'10 and had a mustache. Which didn't match Dylan. And how tall are you? I'm 6'4, and I never, ever had a mustache. But as in the Crosley Green case, the fact that the description didn't fit didn't seem to matter.

There couldn't have been anything in their minds that made them think I did it other than my size. So they're getting me saying that because of my size that I fit the profile of beating a man to death. Prosecutors found witnesses near the beach who said they saw Dylan wearing a shirt that looked like a bloody yellow t-shirt connected to the killer. Exactly what they did to me is the kind of techniques they use. They use misidentification witnesses. They tell the people, we know it's him. We just need somebody to identify him. There was also John Presson, a dog handler, who was later discredited as a fraud

who had done the seemingly impossible. He tracked the crime scene after a hurricane had went through. Although Hurricane Dennis soaked the beach shortly after the murder, Presson claimed his dog was able to track Dylan's scent across a highway to the crime scene. Nobody seemed to think that that was incredible. Bill Dylan served more than half his life in prison before tests showed that DNA found on the yellow T-shirt belonged to someone else. I was released on November 18, 2008, at 5 o'clock in the evening. And how long had you spent in prison? I'd spent at that point 27 1⁄2 years.

I used to think while I was in prison, sitting there, what did I do or what went wrong? Then I realized, to me, it was like that some certain person had sort of turned a switch and just said, okay, convict him, it doesn't matter, we just need to get some people or him off the street. The two other cases in Brevard County that were overturned were both prosecuted by Christopher White. 25-year-old Juan Ramos was sentenced to death for rape and murder in 1983.

He won a new trial, was acquitted, and released four years later. But 20-year-old Wilton Dedge would spend 22 years in prison, even though he looked nothing like the rapists police were looking for. I mean, they're looking for a guy six foot tall, 200 pounds. I'm not even close. Dedge was 5'5 and weighed 125 pounds. Investigators explained away the difference. The height difference that I was actually wearing a pair of boots with six-inch heels on them. To make up the height, I kid you not. In the Dedge case, White also relied on that same discredited dog handler who helped convict Dylan. But two decades later, after DNA tests proved his innocence, Dej was finally released.

There was a lot of anger. The stuff I had to deal with in there, the people, the atmosphere, the guards, the confinement. I lost a lot. How do you feel about that? I feel that it's a terrible thing that an innocent person would be put behind bars and I don't like being a part of that if that occurred. But we presented the evidence, it laid out like it did and it went the way it did

and all I could do is tell him that I was sorry that it worked out the way it does. I think a blind eye was turned too many times. They were so consumed with the win, the conviction, that at the end of the day, it's, well, who's going to care about a Mr. Dillon or a Mr. Green. You've got to understand, it's kind of a small community here in Titusville. Kim Hallick lived in the area where I lived. Retired prosecutor Christopher White says he has no doubt that Kim Halleck told the truth about what happened to Chip Flynn in 1989.

I don't see how there's anything here concrete to tell anybody that Kim Halleck lied and it didn't happen the way that she says it happened. But he doesn't sound as sure about the man she identified as the assailant. That still leaves you with the issue whether or not it's Crosley. And you have arguments pro and con about that. But the one thing I'm sure of, based on the evidence in this case, it wasn't Kim Halleck. Okay. Did Christopher White put an innocent man on death row? When you look at this case, it is all circumstantial. I would love to have had a stronger case. As you sit here today, do you believe Crosley Green is the man who shot Chislin?

Yes, I do. Yes, I do. But private detective Joe Mora says there's no evidence to support that. I was determined that we actually were going to get this guy out of jail. I honestly, with all my heart, felt that it was very possible. I always felt like we could have probably done more, we should have done more. With Green's state appeals, nine of them now exhausted, his attorneys have one last hope, federal court. The first sentence of our petition is this is a case about innocence. In their petition, they say, quote, Mr. Green's conviction

is part of a distinct pattern and practice of government misconduct in Brevard County. pattern and practice of government misconduct in Brevard County. You, in your brief, said that prosecutorial misconduct in this case was rampant and pervasive. As a former prosecutor, it's incredibly difficult to write a brief that suggests prosecutorial misconduct. But the prosecution and the police seem to do the wrong thing again and again and again. At the heart of their case, those notes from White's meeting with officers Mark Rixey and Diane Clark.

White never revealed that information to the defense. It's probably the most important document in the entire case. The state has an obligation, a constitutional obligation, to turn over any materials that might help Crosley in his defense, and the prosecutor failed to turn them over. White points out that state courts sided with him.

It's been reviewed. It's been determined that, in fact, there was nothing wrong with what was disclosed and what wasn't disclosed. Those notes say Clark and Rixey think the girl did it. Why wouldn't you at least give the most minimal deference to what these first responders have suggested to you about who the perpetrator might be. And it is only 28 years later that White confronts another possibility, that the shooting could have been something other than murder.

Why couldn't the shooting have been an accident? You have two kids who are stoned. They were smoking marijuana. She never expected him to die, which is why she was not in a hurry to call 911. He never expected to die, which is why he never said what happened. Isn't that also a possible scenario? Anything is possible, but that's the first I've heard of that. What do you believe happened to Chip Flynn on April 4th, 1989.

None of us were there, so we can't say what happened. The evidence points in one direction. It doesn't point anywhere in the direction of Carlson Green. Kim Halleck, now a 47-year-old wife and mother, still lives in Titusville. She didn't respond to our request for an interview, but in a letter to 48 Hours in 1999, she wrote in part, the fact is there are only two surviving witnesses from that evening, myself and Crosley, and I'm sure deep down inside, Crosley knows that he is right where he deserves to be. For the past 28 years, Crosley Green has been a model inmate

and works in maintenance at a prison outside Sarasota. What do you want people to know about you? I'm human. I'm human like anyone else. I am grateful for a lot of things. I'm grateful to be here sitting in front of you again. Crosley's not a broken man. You know, he really has an extremely strong spirit.

And while some people can't understand why his own sister would help convict him, Crosley says he does. Her testimony, that wasn't her testimony. That was the state testimony. Does she feel a lot of guilt? Of course she do. But that's my sister. And I want her to know that I love her. No matter what, I'm not angry at her. Okay.

AMY GOODMAN- How long are you guys in for this? JOHN ROBERTS, JR.: As long as it takes. AMY GOODMAN- It's an uphill climb. JOHN ROBERTS, JR.: The odds are stacked against anyone who is trying to overturn their conviction. What makes this case different is the mountain of evidence that demonstrates that Crosley Green is actually innocent. Including those alibi witnesses, 10 of them, who put Crosley Green miles from the scene of the crime. And the fact that the prosecution's star witnesses all have recanted.

But in January 2016, Crosley Green's petition for a new trial was denied, this time for procedural reasons, for allegedly missing a deadline. Seth Miller runs the Innocence Project of Florida. People are alarmed to find out that the courts have no problem at all saying, you filed one day late. We're going to use that as a basis to keep you in prison for the rest of your life, notwithstanding the fact that you can prove a clear miscarriage of justice.

Something that simple, that trivial? That's what I'm saying, yes. That Crossley Green could stay in prison despite having clear evidence of innocence and clear evidence that he should not have been convicted in the first place because of a procedural technicality. And then, just this past June, a remarkable development. The 11th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals will allow Green's attorneys to argue in person why his case should not have been dismissed. If the three-judge panel agrees, Crosley Green will finally get

his case heard in federal court. The fact that these three judges are willing to both allow the appeal and have the oral arguments suggest that there's great interest in both the procedure and the substance of the case. And I think it makes it more likely that they're willing to send it back. Back to the federal court, which will decide whether to uphold Green's conviction or overturn it. After 28 years behind bars, Crosley Green still dreams of freedom. I want a new trial. I want the courts to look at my case.

It takes time. There's this old saying, it's easy to get in and it's hard to get out. And that's what I'm going through. Do you believe that there is a real miscarriage of justice here? Yeah, absolutely. We have to not be afraid to say we got it wrong and we have to do something about it. We shouldn't just preserve convictions for conviction's sake. This isn't about wins and losses. It's about the lives of real people.

Crossley Green's attorneys are expected to make their appeal in court in November 2017. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey.