Criminal - Melinda and Clarence

Episode Date: November 4, 2016

SPOILER WARNING: Please listen to Episode 53: Melinda and Judy before you listen to this one. Melinda Dawson found out on the same day in 1998 that her adoptive mother had been killed and that her own husband Clarence Elkins was being charged with the murder. He was convicted in 1999 and given two life sentences. Left alone with her two sons, no money, and no experience, Melinda set out to try and prove that he was innocent. She started with a suspect list of people who looked like her husband and chased them down, one by one. Special thanks to David Massar, who is currently working on a film about Melinda's life story, Miss America. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop.  Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for Criminal comes from Apple Podcasts. Each month, Apple Podcasts highlights one series worth your attention, and they call these series essentials. This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story, a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home. His investigation takes him on a journey involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums,

and leads him to a dark secret about his own family. Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts. Botox Cosmetic, Adabotulinum Toxin A, FDA approved for over 20 years. So, talk to your specialist to see if Botox Cosmetic is right for you. For full prescribing information, including boxed warning, visit BotoxCosmetic.com or call 877-351-0300. Remember to ask for Botox Cosmetic by name. To see for yourself and learn more, visit BotoxCosmetic.com.

That's BotoxCosmetic.com. That's BotoxCosmetic.com. Hi, this is the second part of our very first two-part episode. In order for this one to make sense, you should first listen to episode 53. It's called Melinda and Judy. We should also say this episode contains material that may not be appropriate for all listeners. Please use discretion. I vowed on the day that we buried my mom that I would find out who did this to her and you know I lost my entire family

because I was saying Clarence did not do this and I had no support. It was just me and our two sons. And so I decided, I'm going to find out who did this. This is Melinda Dawson. We left her in our last episode at the sentencing of her husband, Clarence,

who had been convicted of killing her mother and raping and assaulting her six-year-old niece. Clarence received two life sentences, and Melinda didn't believe that he could have committed any of the crimes he was sent to prison for. But she wasn't able to convince anyone else in her family. They wouldn't even speak to her. You know, I had no one for emotional support.

I had no one for, to bounce anything off of, definitely. Her mother was dead. Her niece had been assaulted. Her husband was in prison. Melinda thought that the only way she would convince anyone that Clarence had not committed these crimes

was to find out who did. And that's exactly what she decided to do. She started by making a list of suspects and then looking into them one by one. She had no training, no money, and absolutely nothing to lose. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. Melinda combed through area newspapers looking for people who had been convicted of sex crimes in the area, and she kept adding to her list. After I, you know, put their name on the suspect list, then I started looking where they lived, what kind of charges they've ever had I got a lot of information from the same county that I was fighting. And they had pictures and they had charges and dockets, court dockets, that I pulled together on these people. So the Hicks adoption stuff went on the back burner, obviously. A few years before her mother's murder, Melinda learned that she was one of at least 200 babies who had been illegally adopted from a small clinic in Georgia.

They called themselves the Hicks babies because the doctor who'd sold them to their parents was Dr. Thomas Hicks. The group had started searching for their biological relatives with DNA. The idea was to create a database of DNA samples from both the grown Hicks babies and anyone from the area in Georgia where they had been born. We were doing DNA to see if we could find any matches. I had learned from that experience what DNA can show. I learned from watching crime shows and forensic files and just knowing that DNA is the answer to a lot of rapes and murders, and it's unrefutable.

The police had collected lots of evidence from the crime scene at Melinda's mother's home, but only a couple strands of hair had been tested for DNA. And Clarence was not a match. There was no physical evidence whatsoever placing him at the crime scene. But somehow, that wasn't compelling to the jury. But Melinda knew that because only those hairs had been tested, there were more things to test, and that gave her an idea. Melinda set out to secretly collect DNA samples from each person on her list of suspects. The first person on my suspect list, I found out where he was hanging out

and right around, you know, during the weekend. So I went on a Friday night to one of the local bars in Barberton. I was dressed kind of not like I normally dress. I'll put it that way. I was, you know, a little sleazy looking. And I went in, kind of checked out the area, and kind of sat down by myself and was watching, you know, him a little bit.

And then he got up to play pool. And I put my quarters on the pool table. And he won against the other person. And so I was up next. And so we were playing pool. And I was kind of flirting with him and, you know, just talking, and my ultimate goal was to get a cigarette. But, however, the barmaid kept coming over and dumping the ashtray. Like, every time somebody would put a butt out, she would dump it. And so, okay, I'm thinking, it's the beer bottle I got to get, I guess. And he went to the bathroom, and I had a baggie, and I put that beer bottle inside the baggie and left before he got out.

And believe me, when I got to my car and locked the doors and was trying, you know, to get out of the parking lot as fast as possible, I was literally terrified and thinking to myself, what are you doing? But once she had that first sample, she kept going down the list. Once they either went to the bathroom or, you know, went to talk to someone else. I got either their cigarette butt or their beer glass or a beer bottle and secured it and got the heck out of there. At one point, she even followed a man to a strip club and sort of flirted with him, just so she could pull some hair right out of his head. You know, where the girls dance and the guys put dollar bills in their garter or whatever,

and I had never really experienced anything we were talking and I just kind of nonchalantly put my hand on the back of his head and kind of raked my fingers down a little bit and got his hair. That's such a bold move. Yeah. Looking back on it now, yes, that is. Baggies of hair and bottles and cigarette butts were piling up in Melinda's refrigerator and freezer. I tried to keep some of the things that I was doing away from my sons. You know, they were 15 and 12 at the time and very, very intelligent. And so I decided I needed to tell them what I was doing because I was storing this DNA evidence in my freezer, in my refrigerator. And I made sure that they, you know, did not handle it or disturb it at all.

And that's how they found out what their mom was doing. When you were secretly pulling out hair on people's heads and swiping cigarette butts, did anyone in your life say, you know, Melinda, I love you. I'm with you. I want, you know, I understand this has been traumatizing. But this is nutty stuff. You know, you are not a detective. No.

Simply because there was no one to tell me that. I mean, it was literally my sons and myself. You know, I had no one to bounce any ideas off of. So yeah, the things that I was doing were out of, you know, out of the world. But somebody had to do something. So I did what I could. While she was doing her own investigation, she was also working with new attorneys to appeal Clarence's conviction. They made a number of arguments about problems with the trial, admission of hearsay, ineffective counsel, inflammatory remarks by the prosecution. When their appeal was denied, they tried to take it to the Ohio Supreme Court, which didn't work either. The attorneys were out of ideas, and the baggies in Melinda's freezer were just sitting there. She didn't know how or

where to get them tested. She needed some help. So she contacted Centurion Ministries, which, in spite of the name, is a secular wrongful convictions organization. They suggested she contact a private investigator named Martin Yant. Melinda wrote him an email with the subject line, curious, and asked if he would speak with her. My life was never the same after that point. You know, he was pretty intelligent in the way he handled this case. Martin told Melinda about something called a post-conviction action, which uses new information that surfaces after a trial. This is information that could reasonably cause a jury to reach a different verdict.

And in order to get some new information, Martin suggested that Melinda try to go talk to her sister. They hadn't spoken in more than three years. When Melinda got to the house, her sister answered the door and immediately turned away. But then she came back. After, you know, that little reunion that we had and, you know, my niece was now 10 years old, we were a family again, you know, and my sister was listening to me, and I'm hearing things from her that I wasn't privy to regarding the case, and she was hearing things that she wasn't privy to.

So together we were trying to figure this out. They started spending time together, talking about their mother, and for the first time, grieving together. One day, the whole family was at Melinda's house. And my son Brandon had, in the garage, had pictures of his dad up on the walls, sort of like a shrine, you know, pictures of my mom and pictures of his dad up on the walls, sort of like a shrine, pictures of my mom and pictures of his dad. And my niece had noticed the pictures, and I told Brandon maybe we should take those down. And she said, you know, I don't think that his eyes were blue, and Clarence's eyes were blue. Didn't she say that she had only seen the back of his head originally? Yes. Originally, during the trial and before the trial, she had said it looked like him.

It looked like her Uncle Clarence, but it was dark, and she'd just seen the back of his head, and one time when he went to punch her. And that must have been when, you know, I've got to say this is so hard to, I mean, there's scenes going through my head right now, but it must have been when, right before she went unconscious, she saw a face in the dark. This eyewitness testimony had been the primary evidence against Clarence during his trial. And now, three and a half years later, his niece was saying she didn't think it was him. Melinda brought the investigator, Martin Yant, to hear what her niece had to say. And then my niece had said that it was not Clarence that was there that night. She was just saying what everybody was telling her to say,

what everybody was expecting her to say. Do you think it was Uncle Clarence? At first, yeah. At first, yeah. But do you think so today? No. This is the audio from a deposition in May of 2002, in which Melinda's niece formally recanted her testimony. Clarence's lawyers submitted a motion for a new trial. They also submitted a 20-point affidavit describing the pressure Melinda's niece says she'd felt to stick with her initial identification of her uncle. But the prosecution argued that Melinda's niece had only changed her story because she'd been coached. The judge said basically, along with the prosecutors, that I was the one coercing her to say this,

and so there was no grounds for a new trial at this point. Melinda was furious, especially because she was the one being accused of coaching her niece. But she says that somehow, each roadblock was sort of like a catapult, pushing her to think even harder about who could have committed these crimes. And there was a man on her suspect list she was interested in. She'd already collected his hair, and she also had him on video acting strangely around her mother, on an old family wedding video. A young guy, dark hair around the same height as Clarence,

the mustache, the build. But what really stood out was the fact that he was constantly asking my mom to dance and wanting to stand by her. And so I said to this friend of my mom's, I said, who is that guy? And why is he acting like that? And from that point on, she said, this person was very obsessed with your mom. And your mom said to him, I'm old enough to be your mom. I can't date you. And so my thought was that maybe because of her rejection, he looked like a viable suspect. After some digging, Melinda found more reason to be suspicious of this man, including the fact that he'd been evicted after he was caught

molesting his landlord's 10-year-old daughter. He had a rape conviction. He'd come to Judy's funeral, and people commented that he was acting strangely. When approached by Melinda's investigator, he admitted that he'd been in Judy's neighborhood the night of the murder, and so the police questioned him, and he volunteered to give a DNA sample. All of this was interesting to the judge. He agreed to test this man's DNA against not only the hairs initially collected at the crime scene, but also against all of the previously untested evidence from Melinda's mother's house. This was a huge victory in Melinda's investigation. She was about to have so much more information, but there was a catch.

Melinda was going to have to pay for these tests herself. So Melinda and her son started a website, FreeClarence.com. They ended up raising $40,000. You know, that $40,000 is what allowed us to test just about everything that was included in the crime scene evidence DNA. She sent this previously untested evidence to a lab, a pair of underwear, material found under her mother's fingernails. The results were tested against DNA from that man in the video. Not a match. However, the results were also tested against Clarence's DNA. And for the second

time, Clarence's DNA was not a match. But the judge said it didn't matter. The case had never hinged on DNA. It was about eyewitness testimony. I just couldn't believe it. I was livid. I was just, I was in a state of, what is going on? By now, Clarence had been in prison for six years. And on my way to work one morning, I picked up an Akron Beacon Journal, and on the very front page, this name jumped out at me. And it was the name of the woman who lived next door where my niece had went that morning for help. And so I thought, that raised some red flags for me. Why were they on the front page? Well, after her name jumped out at me, I started, you know, I looked at the headline and they were, her and her common law husband, Earl Mann, were being charged with child rape of their own children.

And I said, I had never heard Earl Mann's name before. Didn't know that she had a common-law husband, but I knew right at that moment that it was him. Earl Mann was a convicted rapist and had gone missing from the halfway house where he was staying in June of 1998, just five days before Melinda's mother's murder. When you get that information, you've been searching for so long and hitting these roadblocks. Do you just go screaming? I mean, I feel like I would just go rushing to the nearest police station and say, I've got him.

How do you control yourself? That's the hardest part. You know, the police wasn't going to help me. The prosecutors definitely was not going to help. And so I started tracking Earl Mann, and it just so happened that I found him at Mansfield Correctional, the same prison that Clarence was being housed. Support for Criminal comes from Apple Podcasts. Each month, Apple Podcasts highlights one series worth your attention, and they call these series essentials. This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story,

a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home. His investigation takes him on a journey involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums, and leads him to a dark secret about his own family. Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts. Hey, it's Scott Galloway, and on our podcast, Pivot, we are bringing you a special series about the basics of artificial intelligence. We're answering all your questions.

What should you use it for? What tools are right for you? And what privacy issues should you ultimately watch out for? And to help us out, we are joined by Kylie Robeson, the senior AI reporter for The Verge, to give you a primer on how to integrate AI into your life. So, tune into AI Basics, How and When to Use AI, a special series from Pivot sponsored by AWS, wherever you get your life. So, tune into AI Basics, How and When to Use AI, a special series from Pivot sponsored by AWS, wherever you get your podcasts. Melinda didn't tell her husband that he was incarcerated with the man she now believed had committed the crimes he was serving time for.

I started writing Earl Mann letters as a fictitious pen pal and, you know, wanting him to send me a letter back so that I would have his DNA on that envelope from, you know, licking the envelope to shut it. I wrote in a total of about five letters. Just kind of saying hi, I heard about your. I mean, what did the first letter say? Something like, hi, my name is, I used a synonym from the attorney at the time, you know, she was, her and I were trying to concoct this letter. And I told him that I was like five foot tall and long dark hair. And I saw a picture of him on the offenders search. And I just wanted, you know, thought he was attractive. And I wanted to talk to him and, you know, send him money if he needed any money. So this is kind of like, this was in a completely above board letter. This is a little, this

is flirting. Yeah. And the lawyer helped you draft it? Yep. That must have been so uncomfortable to write. It was. I mean, at this point, I guess who cares? You'd do anything. Oh, absolutely. I mean, I knew what was in my heart.

She never got a response to any of the five letters. And then, while visiting Clarence at Mansfield Prison, she asked if he knew a guy named Earl Mann. And he said, as a matter of fact, he's sitting right over there behind you. And the first thought I thought was, I need to go to the vending machine because I had to walk across where he was sitting. And I thought, if I go to the vending machine and come back, I can get a good look at him. And when I did that, and he looked at me, and I looked at him, the coldest chill went down my spine. And the only thing that I could think to do was smile at him, because I did not want him

to know that I was onto him. You know, he knew who I was from, you know, being on the news and being on the shows. So I smiled at him and just went on. And that's when I said, Clarence, you're going to have to get

some DNA from him. What did Clarence say to you? You know, at this point— He probably said what I would have said. It was like, how do I do that? You were the expert at this point. Yeah, well, he's like, I got to—you know, what am I supposed to do? I said, a cigarette butt is the best thing.

Very easy to conceal. Get a cigarette butt. You know, after I asked him, does he smoke? Yeah, he smokes okay so that's you know and so Clarence was having a moral I guess epiphany he was thinking you know is it morally right for me to take something from this guy if we don't even know he's actually, you know, the person who did it? And I said, look, he is the person that did it. Just get the DNA.

For a few weeks, Clarence tried to figure out how to do it. It was risky. He could get caught by the prison guards or by Earl Mann. But one day, he walked into a common area, and there was Earl Mann smoking a cigarette. And Earl Mann had an empty ashtray and put his cigarette butt out in it. And as soon as he walked away, Clarence picked it up with a tissue, a clean tissue, put it in a baggie, and then hid it in his Bible for two weeks to help flatten it. And then he wrapped it in paper and sent it out to his attorney as a letter.

The day after Clarence got the cigarette butt, Earl Mann attacked another inmate with a lock inside of a sock and was moved to another prison. And so had Clarence not gotten that cigarette butt that day, that opportunity would have been lost. Clarence's attorneys sent the cigarette butt to the same lab that had tested the crime scene DNA. It was a private lab, so anybody could send material for testing. And Earl Mann's cigarette butt was a private lab, so anybody could send material for testing. An Earl Mann cigarette butt was a perfect match. And I was thinking, we have an ace in our pocket.

And then the reality that this was actually the person who put their hands on my mom and my niece and did what he did, now I had a face. And it was hard. It was very hard. Next, Melinda sought the assistance of the Ohio Innocence Project, and together, they presented the case to the Ohio Attorney General, Jim Petro. Petro looked at the case to the Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro. Petro looked at the case and decided to speak out in defense of Clarence, a convicted murderer. The Attorney General's office ordered an official DNA test using more specific DNA markers and those results confirmed the DNA from the crime scene matched the DNA of Earl Mann. And so, ultimately, on December 15, 2005, we were armed with this new evidence, this new DNA testing that also matched Earl Mann.

And Jim Petro and I were getting ready to do a press conference at his office in Columbus. And we got word that the Summit County Prosecutor's Office were holding their own press conference. And what they said at this press conference was they were immediately dropping all charges against Clarence Elkins and calling for his release from the prison immediately. And that charges were forthcoming on Earl Mann. And it was just like the biggest one-ton brick came off of me immediately. It was like I could breathe again. I cried, and I was so happy for Clarence, and I was so happy for my sons. You know, this was so hard on them to have lost their grandmother, and then their

dad was being, you know, called a murderer and a rapist, and I was so happy. Melinda and her whole family, including her sister and her niece, picked Clarence up that very day, December 15, 2005. It had been seven and a half years. Earl Mann later pled guilty to Judy Johnson's murder and the rape, assault, and attempted murder of Melinda's niece. He took a plea deal and was sentenced to 55 years in prison. He won't be eligible for parole until he's 92. Today, Melinda continues to be outspoken about wrongful convictions. She was instrumental in getting Ohio Senate Bill 262 passed,

which makes provisions for DNA to be tested even after a conviction. Since his exoneration in 2005, Clarence and Melinda have gotten divorced. Melinda told us simply, it's a lot to come back from. I have three grandchildren, and both of my sons are married, and we have a new grandbaby on the way this month. And so life goes on, right? And we miss everything about my mom. And I'm working so hard to make sure that nobody forgets her because she was an awesome, awesome mother.

Melinda is finally resuming the search for her biological mother that she started more than 20 years ago. In 2014, she organized a group of Hicks babies to travel together to Ducktown, Tennessee to have their cheeks swabbed. They weren't far from McKaysville, Georgia, where the Hicks Community Clinic was, and the part of the country where many of their birth mothers lived, and maybe still do. They tried to get as many people from the area as possible to submit their own DNA for testing. And Melinda tells us that she just got word, 18 years after losing one mother, there's

a chance she's about to meet her other one. I have dreamed about this ever since I was told at the age of seven. And adopted kids have this grandiose thought about their long-lost family. And then you grow up and you kind of get out of that fantasy world. And so for me, this is like a full circle coming together for my life. I have lived with so many loose ends and in limbo for so long that, yes, of course, this is the greatest that I could ever ask for. And on the other hand, you know, no one will ever take the place of my mother,

my mother who raised me. No one would ever take her place, and I know that no one would ever try. What do you think your mother would say if she could see you now? You know, really, all I want her to say is, thank you, you know, good job. Not, you know, praise me and just, I want her to be able to be in peace. And that was, you know, my main objective.

I just felt like she was not at rest. And if she could say, I'm good now, that'd be worth it. Criminal is produced by Lauren Spohr, Nadia Wilson, and me. Audio mix by Rob Byers. Alice Wilder is our intern. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at our website, thisiscriminal.com. And learn

all about our fall tour, which we're right in the middle of. And we're still headed to Minneapolis, Iowa City, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and Toronto. We'll have all new stories told live and some surprises. We'd love to see you. Criminal is recorded in the studios of North Carolina Public Radio, WUNC.

We're a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collection of the best podcasts around. Radiotopia from PRX is supported by the Knight Foundation and MailChimp, celebrating creativity, chaos, and teamwork. And thanks to AdCirc for providing their ad-serving platform to Radiotopia. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. Radiotopia. From PRX.

The number one selling product of its kind with over 20 years of research and innovation. Botox Cosmetic, Adabotulinum Toxin A, is a prescription medicine used to temporarily make moderate to severe frown lines, crow's feet, and forehead lines look better in adults. Effects of Botox Cosmetic may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness may be a sign of a life-threatening condition. Thank you. asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Tell your doctor about medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis, or Lambert-Eaton syndrome in medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. For full safety information, visit BotoxCosmetic.com or call 877-351-0300. See for yourself at BotoxCosmetic.com. Your own weight loss journey is personal. Everyone's diet is different. Everyone's detoxcosmetic.com. The Noom Program helps you understand the science behind your eating choices and helps you build new habits for a healthier lifestyle.

Stay focused on what's important to you with Noom's psychology and biology-based approach. Sign up for your free trial today at Noom.com.