48 Hours - The Case Against Michael Politte

Episode Date: November 27, 2022

At 14 he was accused and later convicted of murdering his mother. But he claims he knows who the real killer is and he's still out there. "48 Hours" correspondent Erin Moriarty reports.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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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. There's nothing in this world that anybody can ever do to me that's going to be worse than what I've seen. I received a call from the sheriff's Department that there had been a homicide. It was very devastating.

There wasn't a lot of murders in Washington County. Everyone knew everyone. They all knew Michael. They all went to school with him. Everyone knew Rita. I was really close to my mom. She was always at my football game, my baseball game. She's always had the camcorder out. She was recording me. This murder was as brutal as they come.

The first responders called this crime scene horrific. There's blood all over the room. Some sort of object was used to hit Rita at least once. Mike finds her body burning on the floor of her room. I was scared to death. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know who to call. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know who to call. I didn't know what to do. My name is Michael Polite.

And when I was 14 years old, I was arrested for the murder of my mother. Would either one of you ever, ever think, and be honest with me, that he might hurt your mother? No. I never thought he would hurt her mom, no. She was very close with Michael. You know, he was her baby.

Tell me about December 4th, 1998. Do you remember that evening? Vividly. I was home, and then I see headlights coming down the driveway, and it's my mom. And she comes into the house, and she said, I love you, good night, and I I see headlights coming down the driveway, and it's my mom. And she comes into the house, and she said, I love you, good night, and I'll see you in the morning. Is that the last thing your mom ever said to you?

That's the last thing she ever said to me. Next thing I remember, I woke up, and I see a light haze in my room. I opened my door. I could see her feet, and she was on fire from the waist up. And I could hear it. What could you hear? Cracking of a fire.

How soon did investigators focus on Michael? Immediately. Immediately. Immediately. He is a suspect from the moment they arrive at the scene. They said this kid didn't act the way they expected. He wasn't emotional enough. You look like a pretty good suspect. You were a person who loved to set fires.

You had had arguments with your mother. You were having trouble in school. But none of that suggests anything about murder. Were there any injuries on Michael, on your brother? None. Any blood found on him, on his clothing? No. And no weapon?

No. Let me ask you a question. What 14-year-old kid could commit a crime that violent and that vicious and not leave any forensic evidence behind whatsoever? That's not possible. Michael was convicted of murder in the second degree. He was sentenced to life. Michael, did you kill your mom?

No. Michael, did you kill your mom? No. And there's only one individual that I know that hates her that much to do that to her. 🎵🎵🎵 This is where the Polite family home once stood on December 5th, 1998, the day Michael Polite says he woke up to find his mother's body lying on her bedroom floor on fire. What I seen was hatred and evil. He was 14 years old. The individual that did that to my mother hated her with everything inside of him. Rita Pellete was just 40 when she died.

There's a lot of pictures of us and Mom. All these years later, Michael's older sisters, Crystal and Melanie, still have vivid memories. That's Crystal, that's Mom, and that's me. What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think about Rita? Her laugh. She's always laughing, smiling. Michael and his sisters grew up in the tiny rural community of Hopewell, Missouri. It's about 70 miles southwest of St. Louis.

We didn't lock our doors. We lived by all of our family. We rode bicycles and motorcycles. I was happy. Michael went by the nickname Bernie back then. His middle name is Bernard. It's short for Bernard. Their parents, Edward and Rita, got married as teens, and Crystal and Melanie say the couple had their struggles. He was very mentally abusive. He also cheated on her. A lot. But she loved him. Love, it outweighed any other feeling she ever had.

it outweighed any other feelings she ever had. Eventually, though, love wasn't enough. I witnessed violence between the two of them. There were allegations of domestic violence on both sides. The year before the murder, there was an incident where police were called. Michael told an officer that his dad pushed his mom to the floor and choked her. The couple ultimately divorced in the summer of 1998 after more than 20 years of marriage. The divorce decree cited Edwards' infidelity. My dad would try to pay me to come live with him.

I wouldn't. I wanted to live with Mom. Michael ended up having to split time between both parents. On December 4th, 1998, he was at his mom's. That night, she was out working at a local bar, and Michael was home alone. Probably seven, eight or so. I get bored. I ride my bicycle down to the general store. It's there that Michael says he met up with his friend, 15-year-old Josh Sonsisi, who he invited to sleep over. The two hung out for hours until Michael's mom got home around midnight. I asked him, I said, man, where do you want to sleep at?

You can sleep here in the living room on a fold-out couch, or you can just sleep in the floor in my room. He's like, I'll just crash on the floor. Michael says he slept through the night until just before 6.30 a.m. when he and Josh awoke and noticed smoke in the room. We ran out of the room. My mom's bedroom door is facing me, and I could see the glow, an orange glow, in that area. He says he called out to his mom, but there was no answer.

Michael, what are you feeling at this point? Panic. Fear. Michael says he went and grabbed a hose outside and then ran toward his mom's room. And what he saw, he'd never forget. I seen blood on her legs. And she was on fire from the waist up. And I turned the water hose on. I don't know how long I sat there. It could have been minutes.

It could have been seconds. I don't know. Josh ran to get help, but it was too late. Crystal would soon get a call from her brother with the news. I just sat on my bed and... I just kept saying, I don't want to go, I don't want to go. I don't want to go. Because, you know, then you know it's real.

Crystal picked Melanie up, and by the time they got to the scene, police cars and fire trucks were lining the driveway. Mike was in the front seat, passenger side of the police car. And we just ran up to the window, asked him what was, like, what happened. And he had soot on his face, and he had tear marks all down his face. And he said, I don't know. Mom's dead. You could smell the smoke. You could smell flesh. Tammy Nash worked for the Washington County Sheriff's Office back then and was one of the responding officers. It was clear that this was a murder.

Rita had suffered blunt force trauma to the head and blood was visible on her bedroom walls, indicating a struggle had occurred. A fire marshal quickly concluded that an accelerant was used to set her on fire. What was your job at that point? What was your assignment? To gather the evidence. We was looking for anything that she could have been struck with. We never found a weapon. While Tammy processed the scene, Michael and Josh were taken away to the sheriff's office for questioning. A police report indicates that on the way,

Michael asked an officer something that quickly put him under suspicion. He asked, what's going to happen to my mom's truck? Isn't that an odd thing to say after you just saw your mother on fire? I don't think so. When you lose someone, you want to hang on to things. To me, that's all it was, you know, and our mom loved that truck. But it did raise eyebrows. And at the sheriff's office, Michael was given a voice stress test.

And then they told me that I failed. Investigators also took Michael's shoes so that an accelerant-sniffing dog could examine them. They said the dog alerted my shoes to an accelerant. How would you describe the tone of the questioning after the dogs alerted on your shoes and after you failed this voice stress test? They wasn't questioning me no more. They were telling me that I did something. boy's stress test? They wasn't questioning me no more. They were telling me that I did something. Michael and Josh both insisted they didn't know what happened to Rita,

that they had stayed in Michael's room all night. But investigators told them they didn't believe them. The boys were questioned repeatedly. And two days after the murder, Josh gave a videotaped statement with an officer on each side and his mother present. That statement seemed to poke a hole in Michael's account. He said he woke up to a noise in the middle of the night. I heard a little thud. And I thought I heard like a woman's voice. Did Bernie wake up too, or did you see Bernie in the room at that time? No.

Bernie wasn't in bed? I didn't see him. Could you have seen him if he was? Is that yes or no? Yes. Okay. So there's no doubt he wasn't in bed? Okay.

And was he anywhere else in that bedroom? No. Shortly after Josh gave that statement on December 7, 1998, 14-year-old Michael Polite was arrested for his mother's murder. I always believed that I was going to be found innocent because it had nothing to do with what happened to my mother. Or was I in for a rude awakening? 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 avert 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 Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. 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. He looks like a really happy kid. He was always really happy.

When Melanie and Crystal learned that their 14-year-old brother had been arrested for their mother's murder, they say they couldn't believe it. How were they coming up with that conclusion? I just thought they were crazy. He didn't do it. No one even cleared. Chuck and Patsy Skiles are Michael's uncle and aunt. They live next door to where the crime took place. They also felt police had made a mistake.

You know, we was the first ones to see him. After it happened, he had no scratches, no nothing on him. He's always giving his mom a hug. He loved his mom. But while Michael's family believed in his innocence, the truth is Michael was hardly the model child, something that even he admits. You failed seventh grade three times? Yeah, I was on my third year because I became truant. I just wasn't going. Skipping school was one thing, but ten months before the murder,

things got so bad that Michael was hospitalized for behavioral issues after he threatened to kill his mother and himself. For whatever reason, I told her that I would put her six feet under just like her mom and dad. Did you mean that, Michael? No, I didn't. And it's the biggest regret of my life. Melody and Crystal blame Michael's misbehavior on their parents' divorce. Our dad would kind of put him in the middle. Michael was clearly an angry, troubled teenager.

Yeah, I think he was mad at our dad, for sure. Was he mad at your mom as well? No, I think... I mean, I know they didn't always get along perfectly. I don't think any parent and child does. Three years passed with Michael in custody awaiting trial. And then the prosecution came to him with a deal. Plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter and he'd spend a maximum of 15 years in prison. I rejected it.

You didn't think about it? Nope. Why not? Because I didn't murder my mother. In January 2002, Michael Polite, then 17 years old, went on trial. His life was on the line. The prosecutors and defense attorney who tried the case didn't respond to our calls. But Josh Hedgecorth, the current prosecutor of Washington County, where the murder took place,

was willing to talk about the case. What was the most important evidence? The scientific evidence, and that would start with the shoes that he was wearing at the sheriff's office. Not only had a dog detected an accelerant on Michael's shoes, according to the prosecution, later testing also confirmed the presence of gasoline on them. And there was testimony that an accelerant had been used to burn Rita's body. And so all of these components together, I think, solidified that he must have set the fire. But Michael had told police that gasoline found on his shoes meant nothing and that he and his friends would often set fires for fun. Well, we all did that. It was in the country. In fact, Michael told police that just hours before the murder, he and his friend Josh used gasoline to set a fire on the railroad tracks

near his house before Rita got home. It does show the persistence of fire. But the prosecution used that admission as another piece of evidence against Michael. See the heavy charring in it? They argued the burn pattern on the tracks matched the burn pattern on Rita. See the outlets showing nothing electrical that could have caused the fire. Linda Dickerson-Bell and Jonathan Peterson were jurors on the case. I'm like, it's not looking good for him.

What they were telling us was that Michael had a problem with burning and that he was the only person that could have done this. The jurors never heard about Michael's problems at school and that threat to his mother, but a witness testified about a disagreement that Michael had with his mother weeks before the murder. It was over money, and he sat flicking a lighter afterwards. It happened, but not in the way that the state portrayed it. I was flicking the wheel on the lighter. That's that. You weren't threatening your mother with that?

No. And there was something even more damaging. The prosecution claimed that Michael had actually confessed to the crime during a suicide attempt at a juvenile detention center exactly one month after the murder. Three witnesses who worked there wrote in reports that Michael said, I haven't cared since I killed my mom. But Michael says that's not what he said. When they asked you why you were trying to kill yourself, you say you said what?

I haven't cared since I killed my mom. It's the difference of one word. But that one word carried a lot of weight. And the jury would never hear from Michael because when it was the defense's turn, he didn't take the stand. Today's date is the 7th day of December, 1998. and leaving the jury with even more unanswered questions was the fact that they were told that josh the other boy in the house that night had been granted immunity i kept waiting thinking okay well if he's been given immunity then he's got to have something to offer but the jury never saw or heard from josh at all he wasn't called to the stand, and they were never shown his videotaped statement.

Michael's sisters also weren't called. I never really heard anybody in his defense say Michael didn't do this. Instead, the defense hinged its case on the lack of direct evidence. No murder weapon had been found. And despite the violence of the attack, Michael had no injuries and no blood on his clothing. After three days of testimony, the case went to the jury. To hold someone's life in your hand, have you ever done that? It's not a pleasant thing to do. I wanted to get it right. But Linda and Jonathan say they were left with so many questions, too many questions, and they felt pressured by other

members of the jury. I think everybody finally just got to me and just like, you know, we're ready to go home. And then I was like, yeah, but you're ready to go home and this kid's ready to go to prison. After more than four hours, the jury filed into the courtroom with their verdict. Guilty of second degree murder. I wept. Why? I wept. Why?

Because it was wrong. Michael was sentenced to life in prison. It was unbelievable. I never thought it would happen. Michael would spend years in a Missouri prison before a new team of lawyers would take his case and make it their mission to turn it around. The state essentially never really had any case against this kid, but the case that they even did have back at trial

has been indisputably proven false. What do you make of the evidence used to convict Michael? Chat now with the 48 Hours team on Facebook and Twitter. Hot shot 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 Marcia 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 Informants 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. 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 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. After Michael Polite was convicted and sentenced to life at the age of 18, he was sent to the Missouri State Penitentiary, once called the bloodiest 47 acres in America. Being so young, I was a target. I got in a fight my first day there.

They were trying to rape me. Michael says he became desperate for some sense of safety. You became a skinhead? Yeah, I joined a gang. That's where you got the tattoos? Yeah. It was something that I felt like I needed to do to survive. It's not the way that I feel.

It's not the way that Mom raised me. I just didn't fit in. Michael says he longed to prove his innocence and get out of prison. He needed to hire a lawyer, so he says he asked his dad for help. Did he? Nope. So how did you keep up any hope at all? I didn't for a few years.

I was a heroin addict. Anytime I left my cell, I was looking for drugs. I was just self-medicating. That's the way things were until Michael finally found something that gave him hope. Five years after his conviction, he wrote a letter to the Midwest Innocence Project, and they agreed to take his case. The organization worked on it for years, and eventually attorneys Tricia Bushnell, Megan Crane, and Mark Emerson became involved.

Mike was convicted because he was a kid, pure and simple. They said he wasn't emotional enough. Trauma doesn't look like what people think it should look like. Trisha, Megan, and Mark picked apart the case against Michael. They say it was based on bad science. You'll break his tree of glass. Starting with the prosecution's claim that an accelerant was used to set the fire that killed Rita.

When the fire investigator came to the scene, they immediately determined it was a fuel-fed fire based on just visual patterns, just based on looking at the scene, which at the time violated gold standards of fire investigation. There has to be lab testing. Control sample taken there. And lab testing was done on carpet samples from the crime scene.

No accelerant was detected. The prosecution explained that away by saying it could have burned up. But defense attorney Megan Crane says that suggestion isn't reasonable. There's no scientific basis for that being possible. Do you believe that the jury believed that in fact there was an accelerant used to set Rita on fire? Absolutely. The main case against Michael was that it was a gasoline fire. In order to attempt to tie Mike to the crime, the only physical evidence was the gasoline that the state alleged was on his shoes.

But Michael's new lawyers say that Michael's shoes didn't have gasoline on them either. They say a chemical used in the shoe manufacturing process was wrongly identified as gasoline at trial, and even the Missouri State Crime Lab agrees. In this 2020 letter, officials say it is now known that solvents found in footwear adhesives have similarities to gasoline, but that in the late 1990s, this knowledge was not widely known. Could the dogs have been alerting to the chemicals used in the shoes? Absolutely. The jurors cared about the gas on the shoes. They asked to see the shoes. It was the nail in the coffin.

But what about Michael's alleged confession at the juvenile detention center? Witnesses wrote that they heard him say, I haven't cared since I killed my mom. But Michael insists he said, I haven't cared since they killed my mom. In the same way we talk about tunnel vision, people can hear what they want to hear. We're talking about one word in a room where there's lots of activity happening. They have a kid in the detention center that they believe has probably committed this crime, right? And so that's their view of him. There is one big question that remains. What about Josh Sansisi?

Remember, the jury was told he got immunity. And there was that videotaped statement where he told police that he woke up in the middle of the night and Michael wasn't there. So there's no doubt he wasn't in bed. And was he anywhere else in that bedroom? No. Now, many years after the crime, Josh is speaking publicly for the first time about what he says really happened that night. I've spent the majority of my life just trying to forget about it.

I've done pretty good just moving on with it. But I mean, it's still, it's always there, you know. Josh Sansousi is now 39 years old. He says he's never been quite the same since he woke up from that sleepover at Michael's at the age of 15 and found himself in the middle of a murder investigation. 15 and found himself in the middle of a murder investigation. He says he was questioned by police repeatedly, four hours at a time.

Every time I'd tell them something, they would be like, no, that's not what happened. This is what happened. I remember telling my mom, I said, they keep saying that I'm lying. I said, I don't even know if I'm telling the truth, Josh says, is that nothing out of the ordinary happened on that night in question. But what about that videotaped statement where Josh told police that he woke up in the middle of the night and Michael wasn't there. So there's no doubt he wasn't in bed. Okay. And was he anywhere else in that bedroom? No. I don't remember ever saying that. And I feel like if I said that, then it was maybe at a weak point or something. Michael's attorneys say they've seen this all too often

in interrogations. What we see in Josh's interrogation is the result of hours and hours of interrogation. And every other time he has never, ever said that that was what happened. In a deposition right before Michael went on trial, Josh said that he never sat up from where he was sleeping on the floor and that it's not that I did not see him in his bed. It's I couldn't see him in his bed. There's no way I could see anything that's on top of the bed. So why did Josh take that immunity deal? I just wanted it because I knew they was going to try to pin it on me or Bernie.

I was like, well, if they give me immunity, then maybe I don't have anything to worry about, you know? Michael's lawyers say the prosecution was likely trying to get Josh to flip on Michael. And the fact they didn't even put Josh on the stand says it all. They didn't call him because it wasn't going to go well for them. He had nothing helpful to say for the state. Why didn't the defense call Josh? That's a great question, Erin. And there's a lot of great questions about what the defense didn't do and who they didn't call.

Michael's trial attorney was a public defender back then. In a court affidavit, he admits that Michael's case was the first homicide case that he had tried on his own and that today he would handle his representation of Michael differently. Michael's new legal team was committed to getting him out of prison. They filed court documents suggesting an alternative suspect, Michael's father, Edward Polite. I believe he is responsible for what happened to my mother. If that's true, that means Michael's own father stood by and let his son take the fall for a murder that he was behind. Michael's sisters say their father was furious over the financial terms of the divorce.

A judge had finalized them just four days before the murder. She got half of his retirement. Maintenance. Maintenance, child support. Child support. He actually... Alimony. And the one thing that I remember about growing up with our dad is, you don't mess with his money.

You just don't do it. He had an outburst in the court. He said, you'll never live to see a dime of that money. Police did interview Edward Polite after the murder. He had an alibi. He was home more than 80 miles away at the time of the murder. But Michael's defense team says investigators didn't look hard enough. They didn't at all investigate the possibility that perhaps Ed did this with someone else. And Michael says he believes his dad did arrange the murder and had help. I think he hired Johnny to murder my mother.

Johnny is Johnny Pellet, Edward's cousin. Michael's legal team identified witnesses who placed Johnny near the crime scene on the morning of the murder, just as first responders were arriving. Well, I'd heard sirens, and as I'm coming up the road and I'm approaching the railroad tracks, Johnny Polite was walking down railroad tracks. Larry Lee is one of those witnesses.

He's known Johnny for years. As he's walking up to my truck, he asked me if I heard about Rita. He said, somebody killed her. And I'm like, knew what? You said somebody killed her. I'm like, knew what? About a week later, Larry's wife Carolyn says Johnny came to their door. And it was like 6 o'clock in the morning.

He said, I need to know what you know about Rita's death. He said, me and Edward are doing our own investigation, and we heard you were up at the store talking about it. And I said, Johnny, I don't know nothing. No, we need to know what you know, he said. And I said, you know, I think it's time for you to go. Were you scared? A little bit.

Did the two of you talk to investigators about this? No. We think back now, and we wish we would have. And I ain't saying he had anything to do with anything either. I don't know. But, you know. Another man places Johnny Pellete's truck near the same spot that Larry Lee says he ran into Johnny on the morning of the murder. In an affidavit filed by Michael's team, the man says he saw the truck just as emergency vehicles were coming down the road. Former investigator Tammy Nash says she doesn't remember hearing that Johnny Polite had been seen that morning, but she does recall something that happened in the days

after the murder, once the crime scene had been released. Somebody came in to the sheriff's department and said that they had found a tire iron or tire tool or something in the closet. Whose closet? Michael's closet. Whose closet? Michael's closet. Police records show the person who found that tire tool was Johnny Polite. Could you have missed that in your first search?

No. Are you absolutely sure? I am positive. I did not miss that. If it wasn't there when you searched, what does that mean? That somebody placed it there. Tammy went and retrieved the tire tool from Michael's closet. It was later ruled out as the murder weapon. Do you believe that tire iron was put in your closet to set you up?

I do. Johnny and Edward Polite didn't respond to our request for an interview. Neither has been charged in the case. It's been years since Michael and his sisters have spoken to their father. But they say they did ask him whether he had anything to do with their mother's murder, and he denied it. It's not our job and it's not our focus to say who did commit this crime, but what we do know is it was not Michael Polite. And while Michael's lawyers were trying to prove that,

the case would take a turn. Best day in the world. I never thought this day would come. It's amazing. Take an in-depth look at the case at 48hours.com. It's hard. It's real hard here in Missouri to get these convictions overturned. It's a battle.

I don't know why they don't want to have a jury. Michael's legal team was shut down by appeals courts at every turn. It is a constant fight with, you know, Goliath, really, is what it feels like. Despite the letdowns, Michael and his sisters kept up hope that one day he would be freed. And in 2021, there was an unexpected development. A bill passed in Missouri giving juvenile offenders convicted of serious crimes a second chance. It gave me an immediate parole hearing. Michael went before the parole board asking for his release. I told him I was innocent and I told him this is why I'm innocent. This is why you should believe I'm innocent. It worked. On April 22nd, 2022, Melanie and Crystal brought friends and family and a change of clothes to the Jefferson City Correctional Center.

It was a really great day. It was a dream come true, really. On that day, Michael Polite walked out of prison. Yay! I love you. I love you. I love you. Incarcerated at just 14 years old, I love you guys, man.

he was now 38. Where's my lawyers? It's overwhelming to see all the love and all the nights sitting in my cell wondering what it would be like to be out here and have this moment and have it finally come true. It's awesome. Yeah, it finally come through. It's awesome.

Yeah, it's finally here. I'm free. How you doing? Can I have a hug? Michael says he felt his mom's presence when a bird flew by overhead. Hey, Mom. She's always in my thoughts. She's always in my mind. And everything I do and everything that I process through the day is guided by her. Michael left prison that day doing one of the things he enjoyed most before he went in. We're going to take a bike ride from the parking lot to the railroad tracks.

You ready to go, man? I'm leaving here the same way that I came in here, riding a bicycle. Justice for Rita. Let's go, man. Yay! Justice for Rita. Let's go. Let's go, man. Yay! Woo!

This felt good. Best bike ride in the world. Welcome home, Mike. This is it. Welcome home. Following his release, Michael moved in with his sister, Melanie. You ready? Drum roll.

Hey, Zoom team. He started getting those reminders of prison, his tattoos, covered up with this new art. He also found a job as a carpenter and got his driver's license. You're now out. Is that enough? No, it ain't enough. Because as you sit right now, you are a convicted felon on parole. Yep. You have a criminal record that says you killed your mother.

Yep. Michael wants to clear his name, and it just might happen because Josh Hedgecorth, the current prosecutor in the county where the murder took place, has filed a motion asking for Michael's conviction to be overturned. To me, it always comes back to the science. Hedgecorth agrees with Michael's attorneys that the scientific evidence used to convict Michael is problematic. So I don't believe that Michael received a fair trial. I can't say that the prosecutor at the time knew what he was putting on was false. It just shouldn't have been presented. Could you retry Michael Polite

for the murder of his mother based on the evidence you have today? On the evidence I have today, I don't believe I would file this case. But while the local prosecutor believes Michael's conviction should be thrown out, another public official, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmidt, is fighting it. In every exoneration in Missouri, the Attorney General Eric Schmidt, is fighting it. In every exoneration in Missouri, the Attorney General fights it because they say we have to respect, honor, and protect the verdict of these jurors. Well, that goes out the window when the jurors themselves want this verdict overturned. In sworn affidavits, five jurors have questioned whether Michael got a fair trial, including Jonathan Peterson and Linda Dickerson-Bell. I do not believe that Michael Polite killed his mother, but I don't know how to fix it.

The Attorney General's office didn't reply to our request for comment. But in a court filing, they say that Michael cannot meet the standard for actual innocence. And the AG has argued that the evidence against Johnny and Edward Polite would have been inadmissible at trial. Michael hopes that a judge will hear the case and decide to overturn his conviction. But in the meantime, Prosecutor Josh Hedgecorth has revealed to us that the local sheriff's department has reopened the investigation into Rita's murder. We want to do the right thing. If someone else did this, we want to know that. Even if it's new evidence, that it was Michael.

Neither Hedgecorth nor the local sheriff would comment on the specifics of the investigation, including whether Johnny Polite or Edward Polite are persons of interest. I feel bad for Bernie and his family. I mean, everything they had to go through. Bernie lost his whole childhood. Josh Sansasi hasn't seen Michael Polite since they were kids, but they hope to one day reunite. The night of that sleepover and its aftermath

has haunted Josh all these years. What would you say to him? I'm sorry. And that, you know, he didn't do anything wrong. In Potosi, Missouri, not far from where the murder took place, Rita's truck has sat all these years. It's going to need new tires. It's so much smaller than I remember.

Her family says they held on to it because it's one of the only things they have left of her. That's her truck. You know, that's a part of hers. That belongs to her. They hope to fix it up and get it running again. We're going to get justice for her. I believe that one day.

We're reading. I saw the whole crime scene right then and there as a 12-year-old kid. We wanted to kill our mom. Was she killed by someone they trusted? You can't lose your mom no worse than we lost our mom. So I've been carrying a killer's picture in my house this whole time and never had a clue. Saturday on CBS and streaming

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