Murder in the Orange Grove: The Troubled Case Against Crosley Green - The Other Men: 6

Episode Date: October 23, 2024

After Crosley Green's lawyers helped him get off death row, they went on to suggest he may have been the victim of a racially motivated hoax. New witnesses came forward to corroborate his whereabouts the night of Chip Flynn's murder, but would their accounts make a difference? Meanwhile, Erin uncovered a disturbing pattern of wrongful convictions in Brevard County while reporting on Crosley's case.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

48Hours Plus and Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to new episodes of Murder in the Orange Grove, The Troubled Case Against Crosley Green, one week early and ad-free right now. Join 48Hours Plus on Apple Podcasts or Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. What's the first step to growing your business? Getting people to notice you. But how do you do that? Two words. Constant contact. Your struggle with expensive, slow, and unmeasurable approaches to marketing your business is over. With constant contact, get email marketing that helps you create and send the perfect email to every customer. Connect with over

two billion people on social media with an all-in-one tool for posting and sharing, and create, promote, and manage your events with ease, all in one place. Join the millions of small businesses that trust Constant Contact with their marketing success. So get going and growing with Constant Contact today. Ready, set, grow. Go to constantcontact.ca and start your free trial today. Go to constantcontact.ca for your free trial. Constantcontact.ca. When Crossley Green was released from death row in 2009, it was a major victory.

But it didn't erase almost two decades of trauma. Death Row had taken a toll on Crosley's mental health. When I say I was a mess, I was a mess. I got bad nerves behind it. I got the shakes behind it, because that wasn't no joke. That wasn't no joke. That wasn't no joke. It affected his relationships with the family members he had left behind.

I missed him so much. Not being there to see him grow up, you know? And having him to see me in that position at times was painful to me, it was painful. Still behind bars with a life sentence, he spent a lot of time thinking about his situation and said his case was not unique. What I mean is that there have been cases where innocent people have been accused of crimes that they didn't commit.

All of the evidence points to the fact that there was no third person at the scene of the crime. That's one of Crosley's lawyers, Gene Thomas. To the contrary, it suggests that these two teenagers were alone. They were ex-boyfriend and girlfriend. There was an accident, it would be fair to conclude, and she made up a story after the fact. Remember that Kim and Chip were exes, and Chip had a new girlfriend. Kim testified that she and Chip discussed Chip's relationship with that new girlfriend the night of the murder, and that the relationship made her upset. Here's Crosley's other lawyer, Keith Harrison.

This is not just a simple case of mistaken identity, that the wrong person got picked out of a lineup. This is a case, it's unfortunately a classic case, of what is often referred to as a racial hoax which is a black guy did it. I'm 48 Hours correspondent Erin Moriarty. This is Murder in the Orange Grove, the troubled case against Crosley Green, episode 6, The Other Men.

Crosley, you were in court when Kim looked at you in that courtroom, pointed her finger at you and said, this is the man who robbed and kidnapped me. What was your reaction? She points to you. What was my reaction? Was that, why? Who told her to say something like this? And that ain't true. Why would she get up there and say it the way she said it? And it's not true. Our society is really guilty of this perception that just because a white female says a black man has

committed a crime, we take that as gospel. This is Bill Geary, the president of the North Brevard County branch of the NAACP. We introduced him to you in episode four. I asked him about the possibility that Crosley could be a victim of a racial hoax. I think you can go back and look at any number of situations where that was the circumstances and what happened to those persons there. I mean, I could go down the line of different cases. A racial hoax is when a person is accused of a crime, often falsely, because of the person's race.

One of the best known examples, the case of 14-year-old Emmett Till, who in 1955 was lynched after being accused of wolf whistling at a white woman. Her claims in 1955 led to Till's kidnapping, his murder, and really became a pivotal moment in the modern civil rights movement. And Susan Smith up in South Carolina who claimed that a black man had hijacked her car. In a tragic ending to a nine-day ordeal, authorities pulled Susan Smith's car and the bodies of her two small children out of a nearby lake bed. And now officials have confirmed

that Susan has perpetrated a cruel and tragic hoax. The situation in New York, when the man was in the park birdwatching. There is an African-American man. I am in second park. He is recording me threatening myself and my dog. I'm sorry I can't hear you either. I'm being threatened by a man in the Rambo. Police send the cops immediately. If you are poor and black or brown, you are much more likely to be caught up in that justice system and not receive justice. So could have Crosley ended up behind bars

as a result of a Rachel hoax? It certainly appears that Mr. Green has been, one, falsely accused, and two, is that the criminal justice system has not been fair to him. It certainly seems that there is an amount of mean-spiritedness that has permeated that case from beginning to present day. Bill's not just talking about racial hoaxes now, but specific issues with the state attorney's office in Brevard County. Remember, Bill has lived in Brevard County for 50 years. He's actively involved in community nonprofits and is not just familiar with Crosley's case,

but many of the cases that have passed through the state attorney's office. Go back in the history of prosecutions and cases here in Brevard County, and I think it becomes apparent that there's been questionable methods used to exact convictions in many cases. Questionable methods also played a big role in the wrongful convictions of three other Brevard County men, Juan Ramos, Bill Dillon, and Wilton Dej. In 1983, Juan Ramos was convicted of a rape and murder in Brevard County. Ramos was prosecuted by Christopher White, the same assistant state attorney who prosecuted Crosley

Green. Ramos was also sentenced to death for the crimes, based in part on testimony from a jailhouse informant who offered his testimony in exchange for a lighter sentence on a series of crimes he had been accused of. There was also evidence from a dog handler who was later discredited as a fraud, although this was not the same dog handler used in Crosley's case. Ramos's conviction was reversed in 1986, and he was acquitted in a retrial less than a year later.

Bill Dillon had a similar story. It was a nightmare. It was horrifying. And I don't use that word lightly, it was horrifying. In 1981, eight years before Crosley was arrested, Dylan was a 20-year-old athlete whose biggest concern was trying to land a spot on the Detroit Tigers, a professional baseball team. But before he was able to go on his second tryout, he was accused of murdering a man in a wooded area near Canova Beach in Brevard County.

The killer in that case was described by witnesses as around 5'10", with a mustache. And how tall are you? I'm 6'4", and I never ever had a mustache. When I met Bill Dillon, I couldn't help but feel there was a deep sadness in him, almost like he couldn't believe or accept what had happened to him. Once a rising star in baseball, maybe even a contender for the major leagues, his murder conviction irreparably damaged him and completely changed the trajectory of his life. I also couldn't help but notice that a pattern seemed to be emerging here.

The same discredited dog handler who testified in Ramos' trial also testified at Dillon's, claiming that his dog was able to track Dillon sent across the highway to the crime scene, even after a hurricane had come through the area. And like in Crosley's case, prosecutors found witnesses who said they saw Dylan wearing clothes that matched those worn by the killer, a bloody yellow t-shirt. And again, like in Crosley's case, close to Dillon testified against him at trial. For Dillon, it was an ex-girlfriend. Donna Parrish eventually came to my trial and said that she saw me standing over the

body putting on a pair of pants. I guess because some reason the killer had supposed to be had long pants or something or whatever. I'm not sure. How devastating was that testimony? It was really, to me in my mind, it was very, very devastating. When she dropped that bombshell on me in that courtroom, I was highly upset. I'll tell you that right now. First of all, she was lying. And second of all, my lawyer didn't seem to see what was coming there, which really irritated me to a point. And what I really couldn't understand, Aaron, was how were they able to just lie like that

and just get away with it? Donna Parrish recanted her testimony less than a month after the trial. She said that she had been pressured to lie in her own mind because she had been threatened with 25 years for murder, accessory to murder. But Dillon still served more than 27 years in prison before tests showed that DNA found on that bloody yellow shirt belonged to someone else. He was released on November 18, 2008. I used to think when I was in prison sitting sitting there, what did I do, or what went wrong,

or who tried to cross me up in this? And then I realized it was like a program. To me it was like that some certain person had sort of turned a switch and just said, okay, convict him, it doesn't matter, we just need to get some people or him off the street, no matter whether I was innocent or guilty. And then there's the case of Wilton Dej. In 1982, 20-year-old Dej was convicted of committing a brutal rape in Brevard County, despite the fact that the victim described her attacker as six feet tall. Dej was only five foot five.

That same discredited dog handler claimed that his dog detected Dej's scent in the victim's home. And Christopher White prosecuted that case. They got me and they started building a case around me. They pull off the dog off the shelf. Well, we really don't have any evidence. Let's bring in this guy. He'll make the evidence for us. You know, and it seems they've become a habit of doing it.

And it really needs to stop. And again, it was DNA evidence that finally proved Dej's innocence over two decades later. He was released from prison in August of 2004. It was a lot of anger. I mean, and then the stuff I had to deal with in there, the people, the atmosphere, the guards, the confinement.

I lost a lot. I lost a lot. Of course hindsight is 20-20, but it seemed peculiar to me that so many cases in a relatively small county would later be overturned for problematic evidence. I feel that it's a terrible thing that an innocent person would be put behind bars. In 2015, I asked former prosecutor Christopher White how he felt about helping to put Wilton Dej behind bars for years, only to find out later that he was the wrong man. And I don't like being a part of that if that occurred. But we presented the evidence, it laid out like it did, and it went the way it did, and all I could do is tell him that I was sorry

that it worked out the way it does. I pressed white further. Well, what about the fact that Wilton's Edge didn't even fit the original description of the assailant? Are we gonna talk about Wilton's Edge? Because if we are, I'm gonna leave. I mean, this is about, I thought it was cross-liquor. It is, but you do know that the Innocence Project of Florida

has accused Brevard County and your office, the office you worked in, of creating a culture of corruption, including- They have probably accused most every office in the United States of something similar. Wilton Dedge, Bill Dillon, and Juan Ramos were all wrongfully convicted and exonerated years later. But all three men also have another thing in common. They were not black. This is Bill Gary again. They were not black. This is Bill Geary again.

They were wrongly accused and prosecuted. And thankfully, they were able to get the kind of legal representation that they needed to prove their innocence. But many black men have not been able to do that. And that continues today. have not been able to do that and that continues today. When 60 Minutes premiered in September 1968, there was nothing like it. This is 60 Minutes.

It's a kind of a magazine for television. Very few have been given access to the treasures in our archives. You rolling? But that's all about to change. Like none of this stuff gets looked at. That's what's incredible. I'm Seth Doan of CBS News.

Listen to 60 Minutes, A Second Look, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Erin Moriarty of 48 Hours, and of all the cases I've covered, this is the one that troubles me most. A bizarre and maddening tale involving an eyewitness account the world. In June of 2009, Crosley's new lawyers from the DC firm Kroll & Mooring retained a private investigator to go down to Brevard County and do some digging on Crosley's case. The investigator tracked down two new witnesses who claimed to have seen Crosley the night of the murder

and backed up his alibi that he was at the house of his ex-girlfriend, Lori Rains. His lawyers argued that Crosley was entitled to a new trial based on newly discovered evidence, including those two new alibi witnesses. Okay, is everybody ready to go? Yes, Your Honor, we're ready to proceed. On May 27, 2011, Crosley and his lawyers arrived at a Brevard County courthouse for an evidentiary

hearing. Now 53 years old, Crosley appeared thin and frail. In this hearing, the judge would not be looking at the case in its entirety, just the new evidence raised by Crosley's lawyers. Up first to testify, 36-year-old Brandon Wright. Good morning, Mr. Wright. If you you come right over here to be sworn. That's good. Brandon was currently serving over 21 years on a drug conviction and wore

shackles around his wrists and ankles as he gave his testimony on the stand. But back in 1989, Brandon Wright was just a 14-year-old boy living in Mims. Keith Harrison questioned him about seeing Crosley at Lori Rains' house the night of the murder. Beginning approximately what time did you see Mr. Green at Lori Rains' house on the evening of April 3rd, 1989? I think it was about 11, 1115. Brandon corroborated what Laurie Rains had always said. That Crosley could not have committed the murder of Chip Flynn

because he was at her house at the time it took place. What were you doing at Laurie Rains' house at around 11, 1115 on the evening of April 3rd? Well, I was at Lori Rains' house because that's where we sell drugs from. Now, were you selling drugs that evening? Yes, sir, I was. He testified that he saw Crosley leave Lori's house a few times that night, but only to walk back and forth to his cousin Carlene's house, which was close by.

This was new and important information. No witness at Crosley's original trial had shared that he was walking back and forth between the two houses. So yeah, I've seen him constantly throughout the night, you know, being there because it's a straight shot. You can see Colleen back door from Lori's front door. So, you know. Can you describe for the court approximately how far the distance is from Lori Ranges' house to Carlin Brothers' house? Just approximately. I'll say about 50, 60 yards. So they're in very close proximity?

Yes. Harrison wanted to emphasize that even with Crosley walking back and forth between the two houses, Brandon had eyes on Crosley for most of the night. He was never out of my sight for that long to go to the Hoda Park, let alone kidnap somebody and kill them. Brandon testified that the last time he saw Crosley was at 3 a.m. and that just a few hours later, he had seen police in the neighborhood with a sketch that they were saying matched Papa Green

and were asking where to find him. Like, ain't nobody back then would really just even talk to the police because that's just how it was, you know what I mean? The police wasn't there to help, they was there to, you know, to hurt. In his cross-examination, Christopher White asked Brandon about his history with selling drugs. How was it that you, at the age of of 14 could run a drug business? How did that work?

I mean, to be in the streets and sell drugs is not hard. It sells itself. And he pushed Brandon on why he didn't come forward back in 1989 with his information. Well, that day when the police came, the day after the murder, the police came, of course, you were scared of the police, so you didn't help them find Crosley. You didn't tell them anything about knowing anything about Crosley, right? No, they never asked. Right.

And you saw them there, and you knew what they were doing, but you weren't about to go volunteer any information. They never asked me. Brandon said the police never asked him about Crosley Green, so he never told them what he had witnessed. The second new alibi witnessed to testify was 39-year-old Reginald Peters. Like Brandon, Reginald had been convicted of multiple felonies

in his lifetime. He was currently in the custody of the Brevard County Jail. Lori Rains was his aunt and he had been living with her in the spring of 1989. Keith Harrison's colleague Robert Rode questioned Reginald about the night of Chip Flynn's murder. When did you first see Mr. Green that evening? Approximately what time did you say? Probably 11, 11 at night. 11? 10 or 11.

10 or 11 p.m. Reginald testified that he was also walking between Lori Rains and Carleen Brothers' houses the night of Chip Flynn's murder, and that he saw Crosley at both locations between 10 or 11 at night and 4.30 a.m. the next morning. Was Mr. Green there that entire time period? When I say there, I'm referring to either Ms. Rains' home, Ms. Brothers' home, or in the field in between.

Yes, sir. Like Brandon, Reginald didn't share what he had witnessed with police back in 1989, because he said he was never questioned. The state also called a witness, James Scrag, a former police chief who was currently employed with the state attorney's office. James testified that he and Christopher White had met up just a few weeks earlier to establish timings between key locations

from the night of the murder. We spent the morning in the Mems Tidesville area. We drove approximately eight routes, and I kept times for those routes. James said that he and Christopher White drove several routes, including the distance from the ball field at Holder Park and I kept times for those routes. James said that he and Christopher White drove several routes, including the distance from the ball field at Holder Park

to Crosley's sister Tina's house. How long did it take for us to drive that? Approximately one minute. They also drove from Tina's house to the intersection near the Orange Grove where Chip Flynn was shot. White asked Skrag about how long the drive took. The elapsed time was five minutes and 27 seconds.

White was highlighting that these key locations, Holder Park, Tina's house, the Orange Grove, and Lori Reign's home were only a few minutes drive apart. But in his cross-examination, Keith Harrison pointed out a key detail. You don't know whether Mr. Green even owns a vehicle, do you? No, sir. Now, in your work with Mr. White, did you ever walk any of these distances?

No, sir. Why wouldn't they walk any of the routes? Even if the assailant had arrived at Holder Park in a car, Kim said that they, the assailant, Kim and Chip, had all driven to the Orange Grove together in Chip's pickup truck, which Kim then drove off to escape. At the very least, the assailant would have had no choice but to walk out of the Orange Grove. And, but you don't know how long it would have taken him to walk any of the distances

in any of the exhibits that, um, that you've prepared for us today? No sir, I would have no idea. About a month after the final session, after reviewing all the evidence, as well as an affidavit submitted by Crosley's lawyers from a third new alibi witness, Randy Brown, who also said he saw Crosley the night of the murder, the judge made his ruling.

Crosley Green would not be granted a new trial. Here's some of what Christopher White later told me about why the judge reached that decision. What he said was that the testimonies of Wright, Peters, and Brown do not establish the defendant was somewhere else when Flynn was murdered. The defendant could have committed the offenses in the above-styled case and still been seen by Wright, Peters, and Brown at Lori Brown's house. He meant Lori Reigns. Given the proximity of the crime scene to the Mems housing project, the testimonies

of Wright, Peters and Brown arguably even further support the state's case because they place the defendant near the crime scene around the time the crimes were committed. Just a few weeks after that ruling, Christopher White retired. He was quoted in a press release from the state attorney's office as saying, I enjoy a challenge and this work has certainly been that, but more than that, I've had the privilege of seeking justice for people who were wronged. With Audible, there's more to imagine when you listen. Whether you listen to stories, motivation, expert advice, any genre you love, you can be inspired to imagine new worlds,

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Find what piques your imagination. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca to sign up. and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca to sign up. Listen to the 48 Hours podcast for shocking murder cases and compelling real life dramas

from one of television's most watched true crime shows. Go behind the scenes of each episode with award winning CBS News correspondents and producers in Postmortem, a weekly deep dive. Listen to 48 hours wherever you get your podcasts. Keith Harrison had always planned to take his case to the federal level if unsuccessful in state courts in Florida. So in November 2011, Harrison went to federal court and filed what is called a petition for habeas corpus, seeking to get Crosley's conviction overturned. If you haven't realized it by now, appealing a conviction is a tedious, frustrating, time-consuming

process. The federal court dismissed Crosley's federal petition as premature because at the time he was still in the midst of state court proceedings. So Crosley's attorneys had to wait another three years until the state filings and motions were complete before refiling the habeas petition in 2014. Here's attorney Jean Thomas about why she felt so strongly about Crosley's case. The first sentence of our petition is,

this is a case about innocence. And what we really want the court to do is to have the judge roll up his sleeves and read into this case and take a hard look at the evidence and make a decision that there were dramatic constitutional violations here and order a new trial for Crosley. As a former prosecutor, it's incredibly difficult to write a brief that suggests prosecutorial misconduct.

It's the last thing that really I or any of us wanted to do. The problem with this case is that whether you view it in isolation, just the facts of this case, or put it in the broader context of the Ramos, Dinsch, and Dillon cases, it's hard to ignore the pattern. The prosecution and the police seem to do the wrong thing again and again and again. At the heart of the habeas petition, those notes taken by Christopher White at his meeting with officers Mark Rixie and Diane Clark, notes that he never turned over to Crosley's original defense. Those notes came up in our last episode in an appeal at the state level. That appeal was denied, but now there was

hope that the federal appeal would have a different outcome. What was your reaction when you first read those notes? I was shocked. My jaw dropped. I really couldn't believe it. I knew immediately that this was a game changer. I mean, there are a lot of things wrong with this case,

but the notes really stood out to us right from the start as something that it would be hard for a court to ignore. The state has an obligation, a constitutional obligation, to turn over any materials that might be considered exculpatory, that might help Crosley in his defense. Those notes certainly are considered exculpatory material and the prosecutor failed to turn them over. Again, Crosley's attorneys are referring to that requirement established by the U.S. Supreme Court, the prosecutor's handover, quote, exculpatory material to the defense, evidence that showed Crawsley was not guilty of the crime.

It's probably the most important document in the entire case because it's a document that points the finger at someone other than Crosley as being the person who committed this heinous crime. Instead, it was buried, it was withheld, and it was only came July 20 years later. Crosley's attorneys argued that by withholding crucial evidence, those notes, Christopher White had committed a Brady violation.

But while their habeas petition might sound promising, Crosley's lawyers were quick to tell me that it was no golden ticket out of prison. It's a huge uphill climb, and we've told Crosley this and he recognizes it. But the overwhelming majority of habeas petitions are denied. Many of them are denied, you know, just out of hand. But the odds are stacked against anyone who is trying to overturn their conviction. So why is that? Because appeals court judges don't go back and look at the entire case. They only look at whether the trial judge or the prosecutors did something that denied Crosley a fair trial.

It's a very high bar to meet and there are many hurdles to clear along the way. There's this old saying, it's easy to get in and it's hard to get out. You understand? And that's what I'm going through. It was easy to get in, but look how hard it is for me to get out. I met with Crosley for a second time back in 2015, this time at Hardy Correctional Institution. He had been a model inmate at Hardy since being transferred there over five years earlier and had picked up a job in maintenance. We had written to each other over the years, but it had now been over 15 years since our

last face-to-face meeting on death row. It was also now 25 years since his murder conviction. Crosley was 57 years old with gray hair and a closely cropped beard. Did you think we'd forget you? No, I knew you'd forget me. All right, come on, have a seat over here. We were preparing a second broadcast on Crosley's story.

As a reporter, I try not to get too close to anyone. I want to be able to view the information with a clear and impartial lens, but I admit that this was the interview I was most looking forward to. I was finally back in Florida to see Crosley. I showed him some old pictures of his family. They don't look that way now, they're full of brain.

I bet, I bet. Well, we've all gotten older. Crosley, I hate to say. There was a notable difference in Crosley this time around. A lightness. Well, it's interesting. You know, when I saw you 15 years ago, you said to me you were really angry. Yes.

How do you feel now? How do I feel now? I'm joyful. I'm now? I'm joyful. I'm hopeful. I'm happy. I'm not sad. I'm nothing like that. How do you explain that?

My family. My sisters. My brother. A few people's rights mean Christian, Christian people, or none. Could you hear what he said clearly? Crosley's lawyers and family were no longer the only ones in contact with him. Crosley was hearing from a lot of people, including other Christians. He attributed the change I saw in him to his faith.

That's what carried me through a lot of this. By me accepting God at an early time, real hard, and I just changed at that time, you know, and that change has been ever since then until now. On May 30, 2015, the second 48 Hours broadcast on the Crosley Green case aired, telling a new generation of viewers about his story. I'm Erin Moriarty. Tonight on 48 Hours, Last Chance for freedom. The broadcast also featured Crosley's latest hope for his case,

that habeas petition filed in federal court. The federal court could uphold Crosley Green's conviction, overturn it, or decline to review it. It's his last chance for freedom. And all Crosley Green can do now is wait. That broadcast made more people aware and invested in Crosley's case. I began receiving mail, and more importantly, so did Crosley. And finally, on January 22, 2016, more than a year and a half after the habeas corpus petition was filed,

U.S. District Judge Roy Dalton Jr. made his ruling. He denied the appeal on a technicality. He said the petition was filed too late, that it should have been submitted back in 2011, which if you remember was when Keith Harrison originally filed the petition but was told then it was premature. Too early and then too late, Crosley's case was stuck in an aggravating legal quagmire of red tape and technicalities. Crosley's lawyers fought the judge's decision for almost a year, finally arguing in front of a federal court of appeals that the petition was properly filed.

After so many disappointments, I feared this hearing would not go any differently for Crosley. So you can imagine my shock when I read that the appeals court, this time, reversed the lower court's ruling, opening the door for Crosley's appeal to finally move forward. In 2018, Crosley was finally able to file a case in federal court, a victory in itself, although the odds that a judge would overturn Crosley's conviction were still slim. Well, it's extremely rare. There are thousands of petitions filed

by people seeking to overturn their convictions every year. And it's only a very small percentage that ever get granted. But against all odds, Crosley's petition was one of them. Denial after denial, one loss after another. Crosley Green's murder conviction was finally overturned. We had a federal judge rule that Crosley Green had been wrongfully and unconstitutionally convicted over 30 years ago. It was a miracle that finally there was a court that actually looked not at the procedural

hurdles but actually looked at the merits of Crosley's case and what went wrong in the trial court and said, yes, his constitutional rights were violated. You're right, this evidence was critical to the defense. It should not have been withheld from the defense team. It should not have been withheld from the jury. And that in light of all of that, he's entitled to a new trial. Crosley's lawyers called him in prison to tell him the news. I was choked up. It was through a phone call and I was choked up.

I couldn't believe it really and I was at loss of words. I finally won a point of getting a trial. That's what you've always really wanted, isn't it? That's all I really wanted. A new trial? Yes, ma'am. Why? That's what you've always really wanted, isn't it? That's all I really wanted. A new trial? Yes, ma'am. Why?

I just wanted the truth to come out. Okay? I just wanted the truth to come out. I had seen many versions of Crosley over the years. On death row, he had been an angry man. During his decades in prison, he had aged and become a man of faith. And now, at 60 years old. I'm the real cross of the green. The one that's very humble and loves people, loves

being around people, you know. A person that can get along with anyone. The state had 90 days to either appeal this decision or retry Crosley. If it didn't either, Crosley could finally be released from prison. Justice and freedom, it seemed, were right around the corner. Every day since I've had that ruling from the judge, I've been thinking about going

home, paying my family. I'm just hoping and praying that they come soon. In the next episode of Murder in the Orange Grove, the troubled case against Crosley Green. I called his brother, O'Connor, who couldn't even speak. He was crying. And we let the family know. They hit the road.

They had to drive all the way across the state about five hours. And then Gene and I decided, well, you know, there's one chance, one flight that might get us there in time. So we rushed to make that flight, and it was really surreal. Murder in the Orange Grove was reported by me, Erin Moriarty, alongside producers Alan Pang, Annie Cronenberg, and Allison Bailey. Kiara Norbitz is our coordinating producer, and Florence Burrow-Adams is our story editor.

Additional production support from Dylan Gordon, Marlon Policarp, Caroline Casey, and Christine Driscoll. Judy Tigart is the executive producer of 48 Hours, Gail Zimmerman, Asena Basak, Mark Goldbaum, Charlotte Fuller, Judy Rybak and Stephen McCain produced the original 48 Hours episodes. Associate producers were Michael Loftus and Shaheen Toki. Patty Aronofsky was the senior producer. Special thanks to Megan Marcus, Jamie Benson,

Nick Poser, and Gail Spruill. of the troubled case against Crosley Green, you can listen to the next episode one week early and ad free by joining 48 hours plus on Apple podcasts or Wondry Plus in the Wondry app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondry.com slash survey. In 2014, Laura Hevelin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter Erin Corwin was missing.

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