Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 333: Suspect Convictions with Scott Reeder

Episode Date: December 22, 2016

We interview Scott about his latest project "Suspect Convictions"   The show will be available in early January.

This episode of Cognitive Dissonance is brought to you by our patrons. You fucking rock. Be advised that this show is not for children, the faint of heart, or the easily offended. The explicit tag is there for a reason. so before tom introduces the show i wanted to talk a little bit about what we recorded here. We had a gentleman by the name of Scott Reeder came in. He is starting a new podcast called Suspect Convictions. We were contacted by him and he came in to talk to us. And initially we started talking a little bit about the news, but we mostly talked about his podcast and it was so fascinating.

We just kept the whole interview. Just so you know, this interview, it talks about a murder that he reported on 26 years ago. That's most of what the interview is going to be about. There's a couple of pretty graphic depictions of what he saw at the crime scene. So if it makes you squeamish, you might want to skip it. It's a little departure from what we normally do, but we thought it was worthwhile, so we're releasing it as a Thursday show. We hope you enjoy it. We'll be back on Monday with another full show.

Recording live from Glory Hole Studios in Chicago, this is Cognitive Dissonance. Every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way. We bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence to any topic that makes the news, makes it big, or makes us mad. It's skeptical, it's political, and there is no welcome mat. This is episode 333 of Cognitive Dissonance. In this episode, we are joined by Scott Reeder.

Now, Scott, you are a journalist. You've been a journalist for 30 years. You're starting a new program called Suspect Convictions. It's going to begin on January the 9th. You're actually here in our studio. This is our fourth or fifth in-studio guest. Yeah, I know. We don't get a lot of these. I know.

We can't usually get people to actually arrive at the glory hole. We put out a lot of ads. A lot of ads. We're really hoping. Craigslist arrive at the glory hole. We put out a lot of ads. We're really hoping. Craigslist ad has not been... It's a lot of denials. I'm just saying it's a lot of people. There's more interest than you would think. But it's not as many that actually show up. So welcome, Scott.

Thank you so much for coming down to the studio. We're up to the studio because you're up from Springfield. That's right. It's great to be here. Man, it's cold though. It's terrible, isn't it. That's right. It's great to be here. Man, it's cold, though. It's terrible, isn't it? It's awful. It's literally awful. It's just like, you know, I just can't get over how cold it is.

But it's just like this in Springfield, too. It's awful. But, you know, I've lived a lot of different places. I still like Illinois probably the best. Nobody's ever said that. That's the first time that's ever been uttered. Well, I like the people. I feel like this is suspect right now. Nobody's ever said that. That's the first time that's ever been uttered. I like the people. I feel like this is suspect right now.

There you go. Well, you know, I'm a suspect convictions guy. That's the name of my podcast. That was a softball to you, Scott. That's a softball. We'll throw a lot of those out tonight. That's really all we got pretty much. So tell us a little.

Obviously, you've been a journalist for a long time. Now you're moving into the podcasting world. Yes. You are partnered with NPR. Tell me about your new project. 26 years ago as a night cop reporter in Davenport, Iowa, and I got dispatched at 9 o'clock at night to a small fire at a school playground. And I thought, why the hell is the editor sending me this?

I just thought the city editor was a moron. I'll be honest with you. I still think the city editor at the time is a moron. So the I just thought the city editor was a moron. I'll be honest with you. I still think the city editor at the time is a moron. So the editor of the Davenport is a moron. Okay, he's long gone, you know, had some very good editors since then. So Scott killed him. But anyway, I'm driving up there.

I get there at the same time as the first police officer, and I pull up behind the squad car, and the two of us get out and you could see both of our reactions like where are we going to cover a trash fire I mean what is this this thing you know so the two of us are walking over and we can see some smoke coming up from some tall weeds on the edge of the playground and you know we're just walking over there, no big deal. I get about as close as I am to you, Tom, and I'm about three or four feet away, and I look down, and instead of being a trash fire,

it's a nine-year-old child that's been doused with gasoline and set on fire. No, no, no. I would like my humanity back, please. There's a part of me that is not feeling good right now, which is all of me. That's terrible. And it's like, what the fuck? I mean, how? This is the last thing in the world I was expecting

to find here. I mean, it's like, you know, I'm just getting sick to my stomach. I'm just like, good God. And so, make a long story short, this is in the days before cell phones. There actually was such a days, guys. And we carried around these... Yeah, there was beepers.

Yes, but my newsroom was too cheap to have beepers. What we had was a great big walkie-talkie. I mean, it was like this size, maybe like nine inches tall that that we had to carry with us along with the police scanner. And that's how we communicated back with the newsroom. So I had to stand there and radio back to the city editor information from the scene. And basically, I knew they were going to bring up the crime scene tape immediately as soon as the detectives got there.

So I planted my ass right there and did not move. I mean, I'm standing there two, three feet away from the body, radioing information in, and the detectives are showing up, the fire department's showing up, they've extinguished the flames on this poor child. I'm interviewing the medical examiner. He's there. Things are starting to come together.

I mean, I'm looking at this body and the body is just covered with melted plastic garbage bags. And it's just horrible, horrible. And I can't tell if it's a boy or a girl. I mean just looking at it. And the medical examiner goes over and says, well, I think it's a 12-year-old girl. And that's my estimate on it. And so we're just like there all night. And then the media circus comes, the TV reporters.

And they find her at 9 o'clock at night. Of course, they have a 10 o'clock news broadcast. All three stations set up their tripods and their cameras about eight, nine feet from the body. Zoom in on it and do live shots. I've never seen that before or since. Live shots? I'm sorry, live shots of the short body of a nine-year-old? Live shots of a smoldering child's body going to every living room in the community.

God, if that's your kid, sorry, I'm sorry. Exactly. I mean, people are really... It's horrifying. It's horrifying. I mean, I've never seen anything that irresponsible before. And, you know, one station still uses clips from it whenever the story comes up.

It's like, it just, anyway. So this is what's going on. It's just a zoo. And the other thing that was kind of, there were people were tromping all over this crime scene, left and right, all the reporters and everybody else. It was just a total disarray. And we're all like, who is this kid? How did she end up here? What's going on here? And as the night goes on, a rumor starts spreading on the scene. There's a child missing in Rock Island, Illinois.

Of course, Rock Island and Davenport are sister cities. They're in different states, but the school playground is like three miles from where this girl lived in Rock Island, Illinois. She was a child born into some very unfortunate circumstances, was apparently kidnapped from Rock Island. And we later found out she'd been sexually assaulted and strangled and dumped in the playground and set on fire. I mean, so it's like what kind of monster does something like this? I mean, it's beyond me. So about three days later, they arrest an African-American man. Now, I don't normally talk about race, but in this case, race is a sore spot in this country right now.

And what's interesting here is the victim, this little girl, was white. The person accused in the crime was African-American. He had just been released from prison in Parchment, Mississippi, where he had served time for armed robbery. And the amount of evidence that was against him at the time was almost nonexistent. I mean, somebody had seen the two of them together talking, which seems perfectly reasonable because, you know, he was a friend of the family. He was a friend of the family. Actually, he was – the courtroom testimony seems to indicate that he was providing cocaine to the parents to sell on the west end of Rock Island. That's what –

So I mean – I like that that's friend of the family. Yeah. Well, I mean – My Coke dealer is a friend of the family. Well, but he hung out. It's just our family gatherings were a little different. Yeah, I know. I hear you.

But he hung out. I'm not judgy. But he hung out at the house. our family gatherings were a little different. I know. I hear you. But he hung out. I'm not judgy. But he hung out at the house. No, I got you. So he's not a nice guy. Okay. I'll be the first to tell you that. But the evidence against him is pretty light.

I mean, somebody saw him talking the day before the murder. Like she was on her bicycle and he was in his car, and they were chatting. So the evidence is really thin. And the police bring him in, and they bring the parents in, and they run them all through polygraphs. Now, we're a show of skeptics. There's a lot of questions as. There's not a lot. There's a lot of questions as to the validity of polygraph. Absolutely.

Okay. Two parents pass the polygraph. This guy apparently fails the polygraph. Okay. So they focus the entire investigation on him. Now, it also, I think, provided reassurance to the prosecutors in the case. Well, you know,

this must be the guy that did it. We don't have a lot of evidence at this point. But, you know, he failed the polygraph. And so it became like tunnel vision. And so they start looking. And they decide to charge him.

And it's like, okay. But they have no physical evidence. No, in fact, they searched the room where he was living. He lived in a hotel room. Found no evidence of the little girl there. They searched the car that he was driving. Found no evidence of her having been in the car. At the scene, they took all kinds of samples and evidence, didn't find any evidence of

him being there. In fact, altogether, they had something like 10,000, 10,000 forensic samples taken from the place this guy lived, the car he was driving, and the crime scene where the body was found. They found absolutely nothing linking him to this crime or her to him. And obviously, just to speak to that, you said she was sexually assaulted. Yes. I would presume DNA was – They said they did not find any DNA. Okay. Gotcha.

So that could mean – what's the term? Secreter. Secreter, correct. Or it could mean the fire may have destroyed DNA. There's a lot of things. So there's essentially no forensic evidence linking these two, which is troubling. I mean, you know, I know we're in a CSI world now where we expect everything to be perfect. But even 26 years ago, that raised some red flags.

And this is – they actually charged this guy. And a lot of it you've got to remember is a murder this horrific in a community of 250,000, the community is in absolute, utter, complete panic. Oh, sure. I mean, they've all looked on their television sets. This is back when everybody watched the evening news, local evening news, and saw this horrible thing. It's probably the most horrible thing that they've ever seen in their lives. I can tell you, having been at the scene, I've been all over the world. I've done a lot of different stories. I was in Bosnia right after the conflict. I've done a lot of things. This is the most horrible thing I have ever seen in my life. And I pray it's the most horrible thing I ever will see. I

mean, this is just, but everybody in the community got to see this. I mean, it was brought right into their living rooms. And so the community's in a panic. And the prosecutor in the case, he goes, he pulls his office and says, do you think we have enough to charge him with? Everyone in the office said, almost everyone in the office said no. There's not enough here to charge him. And he said, you know, I'm not answerable to the people in this office. I'm answerable to the voters, and we need to get this guy off the streets. This is something on the record.

Wow. So he's told me this. We got him on tape talking about this. And so they arrest this guy. And they have a news conference. And the detective that's in charge of it, he goes out and he says, calls the man an animal. I mean, think about this.

That's poisoning the pool, right? That's poisoning the pool. I mean, the whole community is just upset. pool. I mean, the whole community is just upset. And then, lo and behold, three days later, they have a witness come

forward. And the witness was in a house about two blocks from the school playground, and she said she just happened to look out the window, and she saw taillights near the fire. And she thought, wow, that's interesting, and didn't think anything of it.

And then suddenly after she hears about the murder down there, she comes forward. And flash forward to the trial. They bring in, this woman becomes a star witness. Star witness who's seen taillights. Seen taillights, yes. They bring her in. When that's your star witness. That's your star witness.

Wow. All right. She's seen taillights. They literally unveil in front of the jury the back half of the car in the courtroom. And the woman sitting there on the witness stand, they turn the lights off in the courtroom. They use a motorcycle battery to turn on the tail lights. What?

Yes. This is theater. This is theater. It's theater. It's theater. Courtroom theater. Theater. And she says, I'd recognize those taillights anywhere.

What the fuck? Are you kidding me? I would recognize those taillights? And mind you, when she saw them from two blocks away, when she saw them from two blocks away, she didn't know she was looking at a murderer. She didn't know. She just saw taillights in a car. So,'t know. She just had tail lights in her car.

So, yeah, it's like, but she became the star in this case. I mean, and then the other big witness against this guy was, what is the defense supposed to do, bring in a different car and be like, is this your car? That's the lineup of cars. In all seriousness, I talked to an expert on eyewitness testimony, and she said, well, that's what they should have done, is had an array of taillights on photos of them and showed them to her

and had her pick out what taillights she thought she saw or something. I mean, but they didn't do that. No, I do have a question. The suspect in question, was he the only one that had ever purchased this particular automobile in all of time and history? In fairness... It's not DNA here, right?

I have a Mazda, and they sell a lot of those. In fairness, it was a Peugeot, and it was in the Rust Belt in 1990. It's almost like DNA. It's almost like DNA. It's almost like DNA. There weren't a whole lot of Peugeots. It was an AMC Gremlin.

It's like, okay, fine, fuck me then. I guess that's it. An AMC Gremlin would have been a lot more common in this community than a Peugeot, but still. Yeah, I hear you. Who the fuck started a Peugeot? So anyway, so this woman became the star witness. The other big witness in the case was the cellmate in the county jail with this guy.

He says he testified. Yeah, he admitted to doing the crime. Okay. Now, flash forward 20 years. Now, flash forward 20 years. What we find out is the star witness had been an undercover police informant. What the what? Okay.

All right. And we found that she'd gotten vouchers paid to her over a five-year period. Outrageous. And according to the appellate court briefs, the vouchers had been signed by the same detective that was in charge of this investigation. So she was basically doing undercover drug buys and other things. But this never was disclosed to anyone. Yeah, that she has a financial interest in helping this case, right?

Yes. And a relationship with the detective. Exactly. I mean, and it's a little bit unclear whether her relationship began before this case or after this case. I mean, from reading the courtroom stuff, it's a little unclear. But anyway, regardless, 26 years pass. I do a lot of different things.

I move up through the ladder in the journalism. I end up being a reporter in Las Vegas. Then I come back to the Midwest. I run a statehouse bureau for a chain of newspapers for 10 years. Then I'm recruited by a national nonprofit to start a national news service. It was the founding managing editor who did that for three years.

Then I went on and started a statewide news service affiliated with another nonprofit. Did that for four years. We're going through restructuring back in the spring, and they're moving me into a different position. You know, same pay, but it wasn't a job I really wanted to do. And I was talking to my wife.

I said, you know, I want to do something that I'm really passionate about. And she said, what have you always wanted to write? What have you always wanted to do? And I said, I've always wanted to write a book about this murder case. It's always fascinated me. I think there's so many things about this

that just don't make any sense. Sure, okay. Well, do it. It's like God bless the woman. It's like, hey, she's given me a green light to go and pursue a dream. So I start writing a book and I start doggedly going out and just hunting down all the witnesses in the case. And they're scattered all over the U.S. And I'm interviewing them.

So I decide I'm going to go and hunt down this woman. Sure. And I locate her. By her taillights? No. Just otherwise. So there's other ways to identify? There you go.

Sorry, I'm a little slow. There you go. Did she drive a Peugeot? No go. Did she drive a Peugeot? No, she didn't drive a Peugeot. But she's sitting on the front porch of her house, and there's somebody out mowing the yard, and I'm just showing up. And I sit down with her on the front porch, and I introduce myself and turn on a tape recorder, and we just start talking.

And I said, you know, did you know anybody at the police department before this? Nope, didn't know anybody down there. Well, did you have a relationship with the police? Nope, didn't have any relationship with the police. Well, tell me what you saw. So she repeats the story. And I'm like, okay, this doesn't make any sense. And then as I questioned her a little bit more,

she got a little more agitated. And then finally she kicked me off her porch and said, you know, I'm asking you to leave. Anyway, so that's part of the course. It also disproves the old joke. How do you get a person with a journalism degree to leave your front porch? Oh. Pay for the pizza.

I like it. I like it. It's good. But anyway. So I'm like, but this doesn't make any sense. Even the prosecution in the appellate briefs admits that she was a police informant. Right. in the appellate briefs, admits that she was a police informant.

Right. Everybody is agreeing and singing off the same song sheet today that she was a police informant, except for her. Think about that. Right. It's like...

She didn't know to get on the page. She's still denying stuff. Exactly. And we have this guy who's a cellmate, and he's a career criminal. And, you know, he's a... That's a hard way to make a living. It is a very hard way to make a living.

Off-insurance sucks. I know. The 401K on that is just – there's no matchy-matchy on that. But they do provide free lodging. So he'd just gotten released from prison in Nebraska, and he spent like, I don't know, 27, 30 years in prison. I mean, he's just in and out. He could turn right around.

He turned around. And so I managed to trace him to Sioux City, Iowa. And I'm thinking, okay, you know, I'm just going to drive to Sioux City, you know, which is a fairly good sized city, and see if I can find him. And so I drive out there, and I have an address for his brother. Knock on the door, and his brother comes to the door. And I said, hey, I'm looking for Frank Rising. And I'm just wondering if you could tell me where I could find him. We don't know anybody named Frank Rising. And I'm looking in.

It's his wife at the door, and I'm looking in at the couch, and I said, sorry, I looked on Facebook. You look just like him. You're his brother. You're his brother. And I said, this is really important in what I'm working on, and he invites me in

and said, yeah, I'm his brother, and we get to talking. I like that. You can't bullshit me. I've got Facebook. Yeah, exactly. Who are you crapping? So, I'm his brother, and we get to talking. I like that. You can't bullshit me. I've got Facebook. Yeah, exactly. Who are you crapping? So I talk him into calling his brother. His brother's on a construction site. He'd just gotten out.

He hands me the phone, and I'm talking to him. No, I don't want to talk to you. And I go. And we're going back and forth. And I said, you know, I've driven eight hours to Sioux City, Iowa. You know, I mean, come on, guy, at least give me 15 minutes. And he goes, no, no, I don't want to talk to you. And we're going back and forth. And finally, I said to him, okay, guy, you know, I've driven eight hours out here. My wife is going to freaking kill me if I don't come back with an interview. She's going to be mad at me for driving eight hours out here and eight hours back and not

having anything and taking that time away from the family. Can't you at least give me a break? I don't want to have to put up with that for my wife. Okay. I love that you appealed to his better nature. And he's a career criminal. He's just like, well, look, man, we've all been in it with our wives. Am I right, guys? Yes.

Nobody wants to be in the doghouse. Spent a lot of time in the big house. So I go out. He's this guy to the construction site. And it's like, oh, at this point, it's like 8 o'clock at 8, 8.30 at night. And he's traveling concrete. And he sees me and so we go over into the parking lot and we do the interview and we're talking back and forth and

he's he's an interesting guy i mean um he's he's tough looking i mean he you could tell he's done really hard time and and he's talking about his time in Fort Madison. The first time I stabbed a guy. And I'm like, the first time you stabbed a guy? You never forget your first time. You give a little kiss like, was it special for you? So we're talking about it. And he's like, okay, okay. Well, tell me

how on earth did you came to testify for this against him? And he goes, well well i figured that they were trying to force something because they took me out of my cell and they put me in a cell with this guy and it's like why are they putting me in a cell with this guy and you know the other thing that's an undercurrent here is Rising is white, the defendant's black. They both have done hard time in really tough prisons. I mean, Parchment

where the defendant Stanley Liggins was at is what they based Cool Hand Luke on, that movie, I don't know, came back in the 70s. It's a tough place. Rising had done time at Fort Madison, which is a really rough prison, too.

So they're in this cell, and he goes, we wouldn't speak to each other. I'm like, I don't know how that works. You're in a tiny little cell, and you sit next to each other for weeks on end, and you don't talk to each other? But apparently they did. And he said, they were watching TV one day,

and the news comes on, and it's this case. and he goes, hey, that's you. And supposedly the defendant, Stanley Ligon, says, yeah, but they'll never get me for it. Now, if they didn't say that,

I think you can interpret that a lot of different ways. That's supposed to be the big confession? That's the big confession. That's the big confession. That combined with the taillights. It's very compelling. Now he says, according

to Rising, that the sheriff's department had a bug in the cell. And when they heard that, they brought him out and they said, if you don't testify against this guy, we're going to charge you as an accessory to murder.

Oh, shit. And he said, and then they showed him the horrible pictures from the scene. He says, you know, this is the grossest thing I've ever seen. And they convinced him that this is the guy who did it and we need his testimony. And this is according to him. This is me talking to him. this testimony, and this is according to him. This is me talking to him.

And he goes, and he said, I'm just, I felt like I had to testify because they were going to charge me as an accessory after the fact, saying they charged me with murder. And, of course, I've talked to defense attorneys since then. They said, absolute nonsense. They couldn't have done that. But one thing that never made much sense to me is the U.S. Supreme Court said police officers can lie

in interrogations. And they can lie about what consequences somebody faces if they don't provide testimony and other things. So, you know, this is not a particularly well-educated person, and he's like, gosh, you know, what's going to happen?

Oh, yeah, scare the shit out of him, I'm sure. Yeah, I mean, you know. He felt over a barrel, right? So I'm talking to him. If what he's saying is true. If what he's saying is true, you know. And take everything with a grain of salt, because these are career criminals we're talking about. And so I said, well, you testified in the trial that you hadn't been offered anything in exchange for your testimony.

He goes, yeah, that's true. And I said, well, I noticed that you got sent instead to Rockwell City for a prison rather than to Fort Madison or Anamosa, which are like Shawshank Redemption prisons, really like hell on earth sort of places. No good. You've got to read a Hayworth poster. Yeah, there you go. He ended, though, with Raquel Welch, which was a much better poster, by the way. No good. You've got to read a Hayworth poster. Yeah, there you go. He ended, though, with Raquel

Welch, which was a much better poster, by the way. Agreed. Well, I said, you've got to send to Rockwell City instead of to Fort Madison. And Fort Madison's the kind of place where rapes are routine, stabbings are routine in that era.

I mean, it was just really nasty, dangerous place. Rockwell City, on the other hand, is kind of like, it's a modern prison that's been built. You're not dealing with the long rows of cell blocks and the walls.

It's a much more safer place, humane place to be. So it was a big deal to get sent there. And he goes, yeah, they did offer to send me to Rockwell City instead of to one of these other places. But then he adds, but, you know,

Fort Madison, it's got cable TV. And I go, yeah, it has Daily Rapes, but hey, it has cable TV. Daily Rapes, but cable TV. I don't know why I'd trade that. Do you want to get showtime? Because Old Man is fucking rock solid this season. So I go back and I talk to the prosecutor.

I go, well, this doesn't make any sense. He says he was threatened. That's not true. He's just making up a reason for why he became a snitch. And it's like, okay, but if he's lying now, how do we know he wasn't lying then? I mean, things just don't add up. So anyway, all this. As an aside, I love the idea that he's not believable.

He's believable when he says X. But he's not believable when he says Y. So it's just, look, can we just all agree that the believability of this character is just generally in question, right? Yeah, exactly. And then we'll stop there, and then we'll call that a doubt. Yeah. But, I mean, essentially these are the two pillars that this conviction is sitting on. Now, the Iowa Appellate Court had reviewed this case.

They said, you know, there's some problems here, you think? said, you know, there's some problems here, you think? And they decided they're going to grant a new trial, which is coming up in May, folks. So I've been traveling around, and one of the other things that happened was the police allegedly happened. What the appellate court found, I should phrase it this way, is there were 78 police reports that were not turned over to the defense during discovery. It's only six and a half dozen, though. There you go. And they apparently contained exculpatory evidence.

That's a fancy lawyer way of saying they had evidence pointing to somebody else doing it. And in there was a report that said, and I stress, this is not verified. This is just something in a police report that's been cited in an appellate court brief. It doesn't mean it's true. But somebody had come forward and said, this guy was a cocaine customer of the father, stepfather in the case. And the person said that she didn't have enough money to buy cocaine that week. So she went to her drug dealer and said, hey, can I give you my video camera? Now, this is 1990 when video cameras were really valuable. Sure. And said, can I use it as collateral?

And when I have enough money, I will give you the rest. I'll gladly give you my video camera today for some cocaine on Tuesday. Yeah, I mean, apparently she wanted cocaine right now. Funny that cocaine does that. No, wait. I'll wait. I'm good. So anyway.

I'm full. I'm full of coke. I had coke for lunch. So anyway. So she's like, okay. So this is the week, apparently the week before the murder. The day the body is found and identified, before any evidence, anything is really presented to the public, before any of the autopsy results or anything else, before they know there's a sexual assault,

before they know anything about this case, people who this woman knew, and she later confirmed this, came forward and said, well, you know, when I offered him the camera, he said, you know, I could use that to shoot porn flicks with my daughter, stepdaughter. Oh. This is what's according to. Jesus. Who just says that? I don't know. Even if you're thinking, like, hold on a second.

Even if you're thinking that. Maybe that's your head. that's your internal dialogue. There should be a filter. That should not make it past that filter. Wow. Jesus. He actually said something a little more explicit than that, but I'm not going to go there even on this show. I'm sorry.

Don't be sorry. I don't need to hear that. Allegedly said. I should add. Allegedly said. This is something that is. Okay, allegedly said, I should add. Allegedly said, yeah. This is something that is according to the appellate court briefs. Jesus Christ. This was one of the police reports that was withheld.

I'm talking to the prosecutor that handled the case, and he goes, that guy's a bullshitter. He just likes to tell stories. He's harmless. And it's like, who tells a story like that about their kid? Monsters. Monsters do that. That's who does that. I mean, so in the years since, this guy has disappeared, the stepfather.

And I hired a private investigator, which I've never done before in my 30 years in the business, to see if we could find him. We traced him as far as New Orleans to a homeless shelter. Actually, I got an address in New Orleans. So back in the spring, I drove down there. I'm so smart, I'm just going to show up like I did at this other person's house and knock on their door and get them to tell me what's going on. And I show up. It's an apartment building.

I think, oh, that's kind of interesting. So I knock on the door. up. It's an apartment building. I think, oh, that's kind of interesting. So I knock on the door. It's a homeless shelter for drug addicts and other people with addictions. And I go, oh, okay. And they wouldn't tell me if he was

there or not. And I'm thinking, but the address I got from the investigator says he was here, and this seemed to fit. Flash forward six months. Two weeks ago, I went back down there with my nephew and hunting for him because we figured he's homeless somewhere in New Orleans. And I take out a photo of him that was from one of his police mugshots. This guy has a lot of priors.

And I'm showing it around. And they go, oh, yeah, I know that guy. He panhandles over here. Oh, I know that guy. He's hereles over here. Oh, I know that guy. He's here. I went to some shelters. They pulled him up on his computer. Yeah, he's been here in this state, this state. So we looked and looked for him. We didn't find him.

But we know that he has at some point been homeless in New Orleans. We don't know where he is today or what's going on with him. That's kind of an aside on this. So you have this case coming up. So one of the things that, since this is a show about skeptical thinking, I thought, you know, where was the skeptical thinking in this case? Who kind of people served on the jury that convicted him? So I started calling jurors, which is always a lot of fun, people who sat on the jury.

I would imagine there would be a lot of animosity there. As an aside, if I were a juror, and I sent someone to prison for their life, and you came to me and said, here's some details, or talk to me about the case, or what have you. And I felt like, because you want that to be the right decision, right? You've got a vested emotional interest in having made the right decision. I would imagine that there's a lot of confirmation bias that would go into that to prove to yourself that you just didn't send a man to prison against, you know, that was wrongful, you know? You would think it would be like that, guys.

You know, but my situation, my experience with interviewing jurors in big cases like this is exactly the opposite. Really? This is one of the highlights of their lives. You take very ordinary people who maybe spend their day working on an assembly line in a factory or working behind a counter in a grocery store, and suddenly they get to make a life or death decision. Get to get, I mean, a lot of people, this is,

I know, but I'm just like, there's a lot of people that this is a big deal. This is a highlight of their life. They, they're important. They're making a momentous decision on somebody's life. I mean,

this is a big deal and they remember the details of the case because it's such a big deal. Um, so there's this one juror. I never could figure out how he got on the jury. I'll be honest with you. He was – Did he know a guy?

Well, he drives a Peugeot. Now, mind you, this is the early 90s. He was a white South African who had immigrated to Iowa because he wanted to get away from Nelson Mandela. Now, I don't claim to be F. Lee Bailey, but if I'm picking somebody to be on this jury, and you're defending a black man who's accused of killing a white girl in a very overwhelmingly white community. Take him from a country with systemic racism. That works. So he's kind of raised some issues, but you know, hey,

you can't judge always be right. So I thought I'd talk to this guy and see what his thoughts were. I love America. These hoods I get to wear over my head. So I'm talking to this guy and he's got this thick South African accent and we're chatting and he's talking about the trial and how much he remembers it.

And I'm like, oh, this is kind of cool. Because like I said, it's a highlight of a lot of folks' lives. I mean, really, one of the highlights is remembering being an important person, making an important decision. This is a big deal. a big deal. And I said, you know, I'm going to ask, you know, because, you know, you are from South Africa and, you know, this is a black man on trial and, you know, this white victim. I mean, are you, do you feel you're racist? And he goes, no, I'm not racist. And I'm, oh, okay. Okay. He said, you know, I think black folks have really had a bad, bad deal. And then he explains, and this is a paraphrase, but I think it's pretty close.

You see, we all originated from Africa. And people who immigrated to Europe, their skin became lighter and their brains became bigger. Yeah, but I'm not racist at all. Yeah, and then he starts – I'm not racist at all. I'm just saying that my brain – Jesus. And then I said, well – and I'm like, okay, how do you respond to this?

Okay. So he's explaining this to me and I'm going, okay. And I go, well, did you – were you skeptical of – would it change your idea on that woman's testimony if you knew that now today that she was a police informant. And he said, well, you know, I think black people scheme against white people. They don't scheme against each other. But I am not racist at all.

That's just not, yeah, right. That's a paraphrase. Yeah, sure. I'm sure it was a lot more subtle. Yes. And I just don't have the testimony right in front of me. Yeah, right. That's a paraphrase. Yeah, sure. I'm sure it was a lot more subtle. Yes. And I just don't have the testimony right in front of me. But this is like, okay.

So I'm like, okay. So then I thought, well, you know, I should talk to some other jurors. You have these jurors, and they're the finders of fact. They're the ones that are supposed to be the bullshit detectors in that courtroom. Seeing if the witness is looking over to the lawyer for a tip, how to testify, or looking at how are people responding, all these things. So I'm thinking, maybe it's lost on this whole issue of the informant would make a difference to other jurors. So I call up this one juror, and we're talking, nice guy, salt of the earth. And, you know, he was the holdout juror.

There was actually two trials originally. First trial, I won't go into all that, but there were two trials. This guy's in the next trial, and he goes, he was kind of a holdout juror. He was one of the last to vote for guilty. And he goes, you know, I said, would it have changed your view on things if you knew that this woman had been a police informant? He goes, oh, no. It would mean to me that she's more reliable because that means that she had a relationship with the police and they know she always told the truth. That's a weird thing to come to.

Yeah, but I mean, you're brought up in a society where we're taught from K through 12 not to question authority. I mean, it's unfortunate, but we have a system that breeds conformity. And critical thinking is not something that's really valued a lot. So we have this, you know, so we're talking to jurors,

and I'm like, is anybody thinking about this? Like, you know, in a critical sense? Like, you know, so yeah, we have this. I mean, there's just a lot of things that have come up as we've dug into this that just don't add up. So anyway, I'm doing all this investigating for the book, and I'll be really honest with you. I've never really been a podcast person. I mean, I occasionally will listen to them here and there, but not a big deal. And I heard about this podcast called Serial.

And my wife and I were on a road trip, and I said, well, let's listen to this. I mean, I think it'd be kind of an interesting case to hear. So we listened to it, and it's the Anon story, and the Baltimore guy who's serving time for murder of his girlfriend, and there's questions about his guilt, and we're listening to it, and I said to my wife, my murder is so much more interesting than this.

And we get to talk it, and I go, you know, I'm writing a book on it, but I bet I could do a podcast. I don't have the technical expertise. Neither do I. It didn't stop me. Yeah, so as soon as we get back from our road trip, I call a friend of mine who's at an NPR station. And I say, hey, I got this case, and I think it's so interesting. And I'd like to meet with your general manager and talk about it and see if there's some interest here.

And so I tell him about it and make an appointment. I get up there, and it's like, this is fabulous. And before I had hardly said a thing. And he goes, I'm going to give you a producer to work with you for four months. Oh, wow. That's great. And we'll do this together. So I'm obviously a very experienced reporter who knows very little about broadcasting, and she's a very young, very talented producer who knows an awful lot about production.

And I started hauling all my files up and all these 50, 60 interviews I have on tape. I call it tape. It's really audio, whatever we call recordings now. I don on tape. I call it tape. It's really audio, what do you call it, whatever we call recordings now. I don't know, just go with recording. Yeah, I bring all these recordings and we start going through them and the transcripts we have of them

and we start putting things together. And listening, I'll be honest with you, it's freaking awesome, the stuff we have. We have people sharing things that you never thought they'd share. We have – and I know you think you've heard all this – the highlights of the story. There's a lot of really twists and turns in here that I have just glossed over. But we're finding out stuff in this.

It just blows your mind. So we're launching with five episodes January 9th, and we're really excited about it. I think the production quality is excellent. I guess I'll go out on a limb and say I think the reporting on this is really thorough, too. I mean, we're asking a lot of questions that nobody has really asked in this case before. And we're really getting to the heart of things. So we're excited about that. Suspectconvictions.com.

And so it's coming together really well. And it's a story, I think, that's very compelling. But the thing from a storytelling point of view that's really cool about this, unlike Serial, which is a really compelling story as well, we have an event on the horizon here. He's coming up with a trial in May. We're going to know how the story's going to end

in May. Yeah, so you can follow it right up to the point. Yeah, so people can start when January rolls around, they can listen to, you know. And the other thing that makes this story a little bit distinct, too, is we didn't just focus on the accused. We looked at the life of this little girl. Because I think that's one of the things that gives me pause on the serial series and some others, One of the things that gives me pause on the serial series and some others is it focused exclusively on the accused, but didn't really tell much about the victim. Hey, we don't know much about her other than she was a Korean-American and from a very conservative home.

But we really don't know what did she like to do? What would she do for fun? Who was she? Who was she? do? What would she do for fun? Who was she? Who was she? So we spent – we have a whole episode just set aside looking at the life of this nine-year-old girl. So how many episodes do you think this show is going to have? You have five that drop in January and then – do you have a run for this or are you just going to kind of take it through? We have five dropping in January. February, I think we're going to have an episode looking specifically at race and race relations and how it plays into this case.

And then we're going to look – then we have the preliminary motions being taken for four days in February. And we're going to look at the legal strategies that are going to be going. legal strategies that are going to be going. But then we're going to really dig deep and look as we approach the May trial. I'm thinking we're probably looking at at least a dozen, maybe 15 episodes, looking at the case, and we're trying to look at all angles of it as it leads up to it. Now, I got a question. to look at all angles of it as it leads up to it. Now, I got a question. So you've got this plan to have what sounds to be a very interesting, very cool investigative

journalist podcast. Now, second season, we're looking at 26 years from now, you'll have a second season you could do. Well, you know what? One of the reasons we picked a title that's not specific to this case is we want I'm going to be looking at other cases. Oh, very cool. And, you know,

they may be in other parts of the country, they may be here in Illinois, but we're going to be looking at other cases and just kind of making this into a series of cases like this. So it's like a continuous process. Sure. I see this as something that has enormous potential. Do you think that – so we see the popularity of the podcast serial, and the popularity of that podcast caused Adnan to get a second trial based on this.

Do you think that – and I know that there's a lot of different nonprofit groups out there that try to overturn wrongful convictions and do this sort of work. Do you think this is another tool that people can sort of turn to to try to get the story out about people who they think are truly innocent? Yes, but I don't think it's a particularly startling new tool. I mean, you go back to Clarence Darrow. He was an expert at using the media to try to get acquittals for his client. I mean, prosecutors for years have used the media to taint the jury pool to try to get a conviction. The media has always been an integral part of the justice system. I mean, heck, in the U.S. Constitution, one of the things that's guaranteed is a public trial. That's because, you know, the news media is a part of the mix. I mean, you know, it always has been.

So, yeah, I think podcasts could be a part of it, but I think that media has always been a part of it in some mix or another. Yeah, that's true. What I think is interesting is I think in a lot of ways this may be the future of journalism. I mean, I've done a lot of different things, obviously, in the business. I've worked with nonprofits for the last seven years. And these nonprofits that I worked with were ideological nonprofits. They were free market think tanks. But we did, you know, they didn't interfere with the editorial product at all, but we looked at different things.

Everybody's funded by somebody, whether it's the car dealer down the street or whether it's by a think tank or whether it's funded by somebody. What's interesting about the podcast is it creates a potential for an individual journalist or a small group of journalists to self-fund. I mean, to be funded by, to operate independently. It used to be, when I got out of journalism school, you want to start your own publication, huh? Can you afford a $30 million printing press? Didn't think so. That was it. I mean, your ability to printing press? Didn't think so. That was it. I mean, your ability to access the masses was pretty limited unless you wanted to try doing a mimeograph machine. I mean, there were a few underground, they called them underground newspapers that did that back then. But other than that, you know, I mean, now the potential for an individual to do good journalism on their own is so much greater.

You got the internet, you can have so much greater. You've got the internet. You can have so many opportunities and things you can do there. And the threshold for getting on the internet is so low, which is wonderful in one sense for good journalism, but also, as we talked about earlier, creates some real perils too as far as false news stories and other things out there.

But then podcasts, it's such a fantastic medium. It's so portable. I mean, it used to be with broadcast journalism, if you'd missed the news story on the radio, you were out of luck. Now you can carry it around with you in your pocket and listen to it whenever you want to. I mean, that is so compelling. So a lot of things about podcasts, about Internet journalism in general, is just exciting.

I mean, it's got the potential to just absolutely revolutionize how news is conveyed to people. And it also gives a greater opportunity for experimentation about how we do things. I mean, you know, I mean, this is a whole new medium. There's no paradigm to stick within. Like you do in a newsroom. Like I can't tell you how many times in newsrooms, we don't do that because we don't do that. We always have done it this way. We can do it whatever way we want to do it.

So it's exciting. Yeah, I think this has got enormous potential. I mean, yeah, I'm excited about it. So if people were going to find this podcast, this is your chance. Where would they look? Well, our website is suspectconvictions.com. Of course, it'll be available on iTunes. It'll be available on other places where you can get a download podcast. We're very

excited about it. Again, it's Suspect Convictions. Thanks so much for joining us, Scott. This was a lot of fun. This was interesting. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate you guys having me. We want to thank Scott Reeder for joining us this episode. You can check out Suspect Convictions at SuspectConvictions.com. Thanks, Scott, for joining us today. We're going to leave you like we always do with the Skeptic's Creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno-Babylon bullshit. Couched in scientician, double bubble bubble toil and trouble pseudo quasi alternative

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Bloody, evidential, conclusive. Doubt even this. The opinions and information provided on this podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. All opinions are solely that of Glory Hole Studios, LLC. Cognitive dissonance makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information and will not be liable for any errors damages or butthurt arising from consumption all information is provided on an as-is basis no refunds produced in association with the local dairy council and viewers like you We'll see you next time.