Criminology - Listen Now: Suspect "Five Shots in the Dark"

Episode Date: July 19, 2023

Leon Benson spent 24 years in an Indiana state prison for the 1998 murder of a young man named Kasey Schoen. His conviction hinged on the testimony of two eyewitnesses – but what if their memories turned out to be wrong? And what if the people who knew what really happened had never been allowed to speak? Suspect Season 3: Five Shots in the Dark is the story of two victims: one murdered, one sentenced to life. Follow host Matt Shaer and attorney Lara Bazelon as they investigate how the justice system failed both Leon and Kasey, and who the real killer might be. Join this unprecedented look inside the attempt to overturn a wrongful conviction and find out if justice will finally be served. Listen to Suspect wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge Suspect ad-free on Wondery Plus. Find Wondery Plus in the Wondery App or on Apple Podcasts: Wondery.fm/Suspect_S3_Criminology Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi listeners, I want to tell you about a podcast that we think you'll enjoy called Suspect, Five Shots in the Dark. This latest season looks at a case with two victims, one murdered in cold blood and one in prison for a crime he didn't commit. It follows Leon Benson's story, a man who spent more than half of his life, a total of 24 years in an Indiana state prison for the murder of Casey Shane, a man he never met. Casey was murdered in the middle of an August night, shot point blank while idling in his Dodge pickup truck in North Indianapolis. There was no physical evidence, no known motive, and no one coming forward with information. Except one woman who swears to this day, she saw Leon Detroit Benson pull the trigger. He was sentenced to 60 years in prison, all because one person swore they saw something. But what if she was wrong?

From Wondry and Campside Media come season three of the hit podcast suspect. This is a story of a botched police investigation, the dangers of shaky eyewitness testimony, and a community who feared law enforcement with good reason. I'm about to play a clip from Suspect, Five Shots in the Dark. While you're listening, follow Suspect wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge suspect ad free on Wondry Plus. Find Wondry Plus in the Wondry app. or on Apple Podcasts.

A long time ago, I remember watching an episode of Oprah about eyewitness testimony. Actually, I haven't been able to find the episode in question online. This would have been like three decades ago when I was a kid, home from school, watching TV. It's entirely possible I imagine parts of it. But in my memory, Oprah, without telling anyone, has this guy run on stage and snatch up a purse belonging to one of the panelists. And then afterwards, Oprah asks everyone to identify the thief, but no one can. Each person Oprah asks, they've got a different answer as to what the guy looked like. I don't remember how the show ended.

I probably went off and played some duck hunt. But it lodged in my head as I got older, started working in journalism, and writing about the criminal justice system, it would periodically pop back into my head. A reminder of just how fallible, the human eye. memory can be. So wait, let me just back up. Okay, tell me when you first noticed the truck. Probably like, it was maybe a block and a half north of there.

But it was just driving down Pennsylvania past where I was out of my vehicle. Do you think it stopped and then went around again? Or do you think it just went by you, went around, and came back around? The Oprah segment came to mind the first time I heard this tape, which was recorded near Indianapolis. in 2022. The details aren't really important, not yet. For now, all you need to know is that the first voice belongs to Lara Bazelon.

She's a law professor. The second voice belongs to a woman named Christy Schmidt. And yeah, those are wind chimes in the background. Nice, right? Okay, so car stops, you don't think about it. You hear something that sounds like firecrackers that turns out to be gunshots.

You look up and what's the first thing you remember seeing when you looked up? Just the gentleman outside the truck. On the sidewalk. Yeah, on the sidewalk on the passenger side. Can you describe whatever you remember him looking like? You know, I really couldn't, you know. Like anything that you remember?

I would say all I can really remember, probably black male, and I remember, I believe it's black pants with white stripes on him. This black male was about 150 feet from Christy. It was early morning, dark, and misty. Still, later, Christy goes to a police station and picks a face out of a photo array. There's the shooter, she says. Do you remember how you felt when you were looking at the pictures and what kind of a situation that was? How are you feeling?

Well, you know, I guess, for lack of better, I don't know, nervous, uneasy. But, you know, I don't, and have never in 24 years have I. even thought that I could have identified it wrong. And what makes you confident? You know, I have to say that was one time, that face literally jumped off that paper at me. I mean,

it was, basically went right back to that night. And I don't doubt one bit that I made a false accusation about it or anything else. What Christy's saying here, it sounds so

unambiguous, so certain. certain enough that it would lead to an arrest, an indictment, a guilty verdict, and a sentence of 60 years. But here's the thing. It was almost certainly wrong. What interests me most about that wrongness is not its rarity, but its commonness. Dig deep enough into any questionable conviction, and you'll inevitably find small errors that, over time, have accrued their own terrible power. Like a pellet of ice to be. becomes a snowball, it becomes an avalanche. This is a story about one of those cases,

but it's also a story about how difficult, how nearly impossible it can be to dig a person out again, even when nearly everyone involved believes it's the right thing to do. Binge suspect ad-free on Wondry Plus, find Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.