RedHanded - Episode 14 - The Three Trials of Timothy Hennis

Episode Date: September 30, 2017

It's 1985 in North Carolina and a crying baby is found alone in her home surrounded by the dead bodies of her family. With only one clear suspect in this brutal massacre, the police bring in Staff Sergeant Timothy Hennis. But do they have enough? This is the story of an unprecedented side stepping of double jeopardy...   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Saruti.

I'm Hannah. And welcome to Red Handed. Today we're going to be talking about the case of Timothy Hennis. It's the summer of 1985 and Bob Seafeld is starting to feel uneasy. The newspapers outside the front door of his neighbor's house, the Eastburns, were starting to pile up. And he starts to wonder, when was the last time he saw Katie Eastburn or any of her children? It had been days. Where were they? Were they away? But their red station wagon parked in their driveway made him think not.

So Bob approaches the house, just to check things out. And when he knocks, he hears the cries of a baby. But but there's no answer so he and his wife call the sheriff and when the sheriff's department arrive they cut through the screen window and enter the house only to be met with the undeniable smell of death. Everyone in the house was dead except 22 month old baby Jana who was found screaming in her crib. What had happened here? How long would you leave it if you sort of noticed that your next door neighbours, you hadn't seen them in a while? That's a good question. How many days would that be for you? That is a good question. I think it also would vary like from community to community, like how much you would do anything. I think on

our street, we don't really speak to anybody so I don't think I'd even notice if I hadn't seen anybody. I don't speak to anyone in my building because I live in London. Exactly exactly. But like our neighbours have moved out because they've moved all the council tenants out and I noticed that the windows were open yesterday and no one's lived there for months. Unless they came around to air them out because they're gonna knock them down. I mean I don't know it doesn't make any sense unless there's squatters in there maybe you've got squatters next door we've definitely got squatters downstairs definitely i've seen them there you go that's you've seen

them then window into my life ladies and gentlemen well apparently it didn't take bob more than three days before he needed to call the sheriff as we're going to find out it was definitely the right decision to find out what happened we have to go back to the 7th of May, 1985, when Timothy Hennis, a 27-year-old army sergeant in Fayetteville, North Carolina, saw an ad in a local paper. The Beeline Grab Brag. What a name for a newspaper. That is absolutely fucking hilarious.

It's like the newspaper that serves the local army community that work out of Fraught Brag. Can I just be their editor-in-chief, please? I feel like that's my calling. I can't even say it. Try say that three times really quickly. Beeline Grab... I want to say like Grab Bag. Yeah, you can't say it, can you? Basically, he saw in this newspaper a personal ad from a woman trying to sell a dog. And according to his story, Hennis drove across town to see the dog and around 9 p.m that night he arrived at 367 Summerhill Road in his white chevette. Katie Eastburn the lady trying to sell the dog welcomed him in. She was petite with short dark hair and

six foot six Hennis would have absolutely towered over her. Katie's husband Gary was an air force captain away in Alabama and the family, so Katie, Gary and their three children were planning to move to England so Gary could take a job with the Royal Air Force. Do you not have to be a British national to be in the armed forces or have I made that up? I think that's made up. Okay cool just checking. The family had sadly decided to give their dog Dixie away because of the move hence the ad I would never sell my dog she is the love of my life I know I think in the interviews that I saw in the articles that I read they were basically they just felt they had to give Dixie away because um they didn't

think that she would tolerate and cope with the quarantine that would have been necessary to move a dog from the US to the UK. And it is sad though. It was like a family dog, but I think they were just doing what they thought was right for Dixie. Okay. Hennis liked Dixie and wanted to take him home to see if he got along with the dog he already had. Katie agreed.

And so Hennis left taking the dog with him. Four days later on the 11th of May, Gary rings home to speak with his family, as was their Saturday tradition, whenever he was out of town. But Katie doesn't answer. And there was no answer all day. It was the next day, which happened to be Mother's Day, thanks to the suspicions of Bob Seafeld, that the horrific crime would be discovered. When the sheriff entered the house, the smell hit him.

And stepping into the hallway, he found the dead bodies of Katie, Cara and Erin. Robert Bittle and Jack Watts, homicide detectives from Cumberland's County Sheriff's Department, arrived just after 1pm. They inspected the house one room at a time. With the warm May weather, Bittle said it was the smell he'd never forget. In the living room, they found a pair of ladies' jeans, two buttons that had been ripped off a blouse, and a pair of torn-up ladies' knickers. As they continued through the house, next they found the body of five-year-old Kara. She was curled up under a Star Wars blanket. She looked almost asleep, but she'd been stabbed multiple times in the chest. Moving into the master bedroom, they then found the body of three-year-old Erin. She had been bludgeoned about the back and chest. And on the other side of the bed, in the same room, they found the body of Katie Eastburn. She was stripped naked from the waist

down and had been stabbed 15 times. Katie, it appeared, had also been raped. All three of the Eastburns, savaged in this brutal attack, had had their throats slit as well. Gary was called at his base in Alabama and told to come home immediately. On his return to Fayetteville, the detectives pressed Gary for leads, but he said he didn't know anything. The only thing he could say was that Katie had sold their dog to a random man. Meanwhile, back at the house, the scene of crime officers had found fingerprints, hair and blood smears on the walls of the master bedroom,

only visible with luminol, so someone had tried to scrub them off. They had no leads, and while there was evidence at the scene, they had no suspects yet to compare anything to, until that night a man, Patrick Cohn, a local man who worked as a janitor, sought out the detectives. He told them that on a Friday morning at 3.30am, whilst he was on his way to work, he had seen a man, a tall white man, dressed in jeans, a black members-only jacket and a beanie leaving the Eastburns driveway with a bin bag over his shoulder and the car he was driving? A white Chevette. So by this point the police knew that the family had been killed on Thursday night because Katie had been seen by neighbours earlier that evening. And the newspapers on the front step had only begun piling up on Friday morning.

So they were keen to identify the man that Mr. Cone was claiming to have seen. So a sketch artist was brought in and Cone was able to work with him to create a composite sketch of the man. And whilst the face of their now key suspect was coming together, Gary led detectives through his home to identify if anything was missing. An envelope of cash, Katie's ATM card with the ATM password were all gone. This seems like opportunistic stealing. I mean, he got in, raped Katie, killed everyone. And the stealing just feels like an afterthought doesn't it oh totally and it just shows how cold-blooded this killer was he comes in he rapes and kills and then he stays in

the house long enough to make some like cursory attempts to clean up and also to steal cash cards and even take time to find the password all this time just leaving a crying baby to die alone in a house full of dead people the stealing the envelope of cash and the debit card, that seems like a smash and grab, but trying to find, knowing that they've written down the passwords somewhere is weird, why would you know that? And being able to find it seems very, that seems to me like he knew where it was.

It's weird, but then maybe she just like had it out on the, what do you call it? That where you keep your phone and the table that you keep your phone on back when you had like a landline. I feel like that's where Katie probably kept this ATM password. My grandma used to keep her PIN number on a post-it on the back of her debit card. I was like, grandma, you can't do that. Exactly. But think about this. This was back in the 80s. I feel like that could have been a real thing. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So this sketch,

even though the police had the sketch of the mystery man Patrick Cohn had seen, who was he? He, I feel like every composite sketch just looks like a generic white man. Like, they all look similar to me. I've seen it. It looks very generic. So this wasn't too much of a lead. So they decide that they need to find the man who bought the dog. They release a statement to the press announcing that they are looking to find a man who drove a white Chevette who had picked up an English setter called Dixie from 367 Summerhill Road the previous week.

Hennis is at home having lunch with his wife Angela and sees the news broadcast. Surprised, Angela immediately says, that's you. So Hennis, Angela and their baby daughter Christina all drive down to the police station in Fayetteville. Because imagine if Angela hadn't been in the room when he'd seen the news report

do you think he'd have gone in no it's because Angela was like that's you we need to go and he's like fuck and then that's why they're going yeah I see what you mean I think he would have let that slide if he'd just seen it on his own for sure he's going because Angela's like hey that's you that's this dog we've now got we need to go to the police yeah and she's obviously just like oh my god what a horrible misunderstanding let's go down to the police station and sort it out definitely and originally when the police announced this as well they as they always do say that this person could help them in their inquiries this person isn't a suspect we need them to come forward and help us with our inquiries when he arrived what sees hennis and says in an interview my mouth fell open it

was the man from the sketch they were almost identical we've both seen them we'll put them on the instagram it could definitely be him but i am hesitant with i always wonder with composite sketches how useful they really are unless it's someone with like an incredibly defining characteristic like a banana shaped scar or something like that do you know what I mean I think I know but in this there was something weird in that Hennis had a slightly lazy eye and in the picture the composite sketch guy has a slightly lazy eye didn't the guy see him at night though? How is he going to see a lazy eye at night?

Exactly, exactly. He said he saw him at like fucking 3am in the morning. How was he seeing that he had a lazy eye? That, I mean, we'll come on to that later, but that's a bit, that's a bit too specific. But it's like, no one can ever win with us. That's like, that's so vague. He looks like a generic white guy.

Oh, he's got a lazy eye and the suspect has a lazy eye? Well, isn't that just perfect? Like, but we'll come on to that. So they take Hennis in to be questioned about his whereabouts and movements on the Thursday night. Hennis tells the police that he dropped his wife Angela and their daughter at his in-laws, then returned home, only stopping for gas. Just quickly, always keep your receipts. Yes.

Because he would be able to prove that he'd stopped for gas. Keep your receipts, ladies and gentlemen. Definitely. Live your life like you're constantly on expenses. Keep receipts for everything. If you're a dodgy person, probably. Especially if you're planning on murdering. Well, you know, if you find planning on murdering well you know if you

find yourself in a situation like this receipts are useful i sound so anally retentive i'm not an accountant i swear great advice you do just work in a room full of accountants yes i do my entire floor is accounted that's why my mom's partner isrounded by it. Anyway, so Hennis spoke impatiently, and Watts found him to be very arrogant. Deeply arrogant, in fact. But Hennis did stay there for hours, answering questions. He also gave hair, blood, and saliva samples, and fingerprints, without objection.

And when the detectives asked him about Katie Eastburn, Hennis admitted that he had picked up the dog on Tuesday, but said he never saw the woman again. He said that he didn't even know her name. That's bollocks. That's bollocks. Because surely in the ad, it will be like, come and buy my dog.

Thanks, Katie. This is my address. That's dumb. I don't believe that. But he said that Katie had called him on the Thursday night to see how Dixie was getting on with his other dog and he had told her that the dogs were getting on fine and he was happy to keep Dixie and he said that was that that was all he knew exactly and now he's also saying oh I didn't know her name she even called you

two days later who did she introduce herself as if you didn't know her name hi it's the dog lady but there are some things that we do need to know about hennis at this point firstly he was not a dumb man he scored 128 on an army general aptitude test this placed him in the 97th percentile his intelligence and yeah his intelligence and arrogance made him tough to interrogate and the detectives knew that if he was guilty, and that if he was hiding something, that he wouldn't slip up on his own. So they had Cohn look at a photo line up. They put 10 photos up of like really similar looking guys.

But Cohn immediately almost identified Hennis as the man that he had seen. But at this point, the police just didn't have a warrant. So Timothy Hennis was released and he went home. But later that same evening have a warrant. So Timothy Hennis was released and he went home. But later that same evening, a warrant was granted and the police blitzed Hennis' home. Hennis remained calm even when the police stormed past him into his home, only saying, I hope you guys know what you're doing. And when the police arrested him on three counts of murder, his only comment was, looks like I'm going to get to wear one of those little orange

jumpsuits as he sneered at watts what the fuck what a weird thing to say is he's such a weird guy it's just the arrogance isn't it he just thinks they've got nothing on me because the police had a strong case against hennis they had several eyewitnesses who remembered seeing a white chevette on summer hill Road on the evening of the murders and Hennis's alibi that he had just dropped his wife off as in-laws and then returned home was smashed when an ex-girlfriend of Hennis's Nancy Mesa came forward with a very different story. She told the police that on Thursday the 9th of May, the night of the murders, Hennis, knowing that her husband was away on duty in Germany, just turned up at her house. Nancy said that she had let him in and they talked.

She said Hennis told her his wife had left him and she felt he was looking for romance, but she turned him down so he just left. This would definitely have left Hennis frustrated. I think that's a fair assumption. And Bittle surmised that having faced rejection with Nancy, he had gone looking for another attractive woman he knew would be alone. Katie Spurn. Bittle hypothesises here a bit, saying perhaps he goes to the house of a woman, a woman he only knows because she sold her dog to him, and he goes and asks for sex. And obviously, again, she turns him down

and the frustration builds, and perhaps he just explodes and goes totally out of control. Hennis was known in the area to have a violent streak. He used to supplement his income by working in a bar. He used to get in scuffles all the time and like bar brawls with the people he worked with, people used to come there. He had a real reputation in the area for being quite violent. So what's the evidence against Hennis to back this theory?

Well, Friday morning, so the morning after the murders, Hennis had taken a black members-only jacket to be dry cleaned. Oh, how convenient. On Saturday, Hennis's neighbour saw Hennis stoking a bonfire in his garden for hours. What was he doing? Burning evidence? But when challenged with the fact that Hennis had played ball with the police after he had come in voluntarily and given them all the samples they'd asked for, answered all of their questions, he just happened to be rude while doing it. Bittle would say, this was a tactic regularly employed by a certain class of criminal. Hennis's attitude screams, you can't get me. I'm smarter than you are. I think it's such a bullshit defense, isn't it? It's like, well, it couldn't have been me

because I was totally cooperative. That doesn't mean anything. Exactly. So the police, they have the eyewitness testimony. They have their conjecture. They have their theories. And they have some circumstantial evidence, like the members-only jacket being dry-cleaned, the bonfire. But what else do they have? In 1985, forensic science in the US was inexact. It had never before at this point been used in law enforcement. But Bittle knew Scotland Yard had already begun experimenting with DNA testing. He reached out to London, requesting assistance, but he was turned down.

They didn't want to get involved with this case. I think maybe they didn't, it was still in its infancy here, it was just a bit further along than it was in the States. I think maybe Scotland Yard just didn't feel ready to take on such a high profile international case themselves. Oh yeah, totally. Like if you haven't even seen it through with one case on your own soil, you don't want to put it into the international public eye. So they just turned it down. So they were left in the States with this case. Bittle and Watts were left without any forensics really on this case. But both Bittle and Watts were convinced that Hennis was their man

and they pushed through with their investigation. And then a month before the trial, another eyewitness came forward. Now remember the ATM card that was stolen along with the password? Well the police knew exactly when and where the stolen cards had been used. It had been used on firstly the 10th of May at 10.54pm, then again on the 11th of may at 8 56 a.m both times the maximum amount allowed to be withdrawn of 150 was taken out guess who was late on his 300 rent that month it was hennis fucking hell i wish my rent was 300 where is he living i mean this he's living in 1985 in Fayetteville. My friends live there, actually. Wherever that is.

Oh, well, there you go. Big up Hayley and Matt. So 150, 150, he's now paid off his rent. Well, that's very convenient. If he's this super smart guy, why is he doing these things? I think it's smart, but then also very arrogant. I got away with the perfect crime because as far as he's concerned at this point yes he tried to wipe things down if DNA isn't a thing that's being

used by law enforcement why would it be in the mind of someone we can't we call him criminally unsophisticated by today's standards by then he wasn't criminally unsophisticated necessarily just because he left samples there because there was no way but they had bank records hey they were a thing no that's that's fair so this witness who had used the atm just three minutes after katie's stolen card was used on the saturday was tracked down and she told the police that she had seen a tall man with blonde hair wearing camouflage trousers and getting into a small, light-coloured car. This was a slam dunk for the police. Okay, so

firstly though, they are living in a very military-heavy area. They are literally living in the surroundings of Fort Bragg. Everyone there, by the sound of it, is in the military. She just saw a tall white guy in camouflage. That's so true. In an army area. I mean, what? That could literally be anybody and three

minutes after the card was used what's he done hanging around for three minutes around an atm after you've used a stolen card bit suspect i don't know maybe he had to like pay for his parking ticket find his keys maybe maybe so before the case is taken to trial hennis is offered a plea bargain but he refused stating i'm not pleading guilty to something i didn't do so with hennis pleading not guilty the case goes to trial in the summer of 1986 the whole trial was extremely dramatic so van story who is the lead prosecutor told jurors what happened in that house was utter madness. It's one of the most tragic things that ever happened in this country. He also showed the jury dozens of incredibly gruesome photographs from the crime scene. Patrick Cohn, who was the

first eyewitness, took the stand and identified Hennis as the man he saw on the morning of May the 10th. Van Story pressed him in court. Is there any doubt in your mind? And Cohn told the court, no sir. Van Story was on a roll but he saved his most emotional language for his closing argument. There's your baby killer, he told the jury. He's the one responsible for the deaths of these kids And their mother The man responsible for taking their lives Is sitting in this courtroom Breathing the same air as you are And hopefully it won't be for much longer I don't think you'd be allowed to do that in this country

I think there's a rule against it It's very very emotive I don't think you're allowed to use extremely emotive language In a court here The thing is as we'll find out later This happened but now this court case is cited as a precedent for a lot of this kind of behavior to not be allowed to happen anywhere so even in the states so this case did become quite precedent setting so following this

emotional closing statement the jury returned a guilty verdict on all counts so three counts of first degree murder and one rape after just 10 hours of deliberation this amounts to capital murder so just three days later hennis was sentenced to death i was also really interested i feel really stupid that i only just found out what capital murder means and what the difference between capital murder and regular murder is and how in lots of states as soon as it's capital murder it's death penalty basically is murder but in conjunction with another felony oh i didn't know that either yeah so it's like when you commit murder and you commit rape at the same time the murder plus the rape equals capital murder so say if you took did another felony like a massive drug

deal plus murder that's capital murder which which is interesting. That's very interesting. Well, it's like three strikes and you're out, isn't it? Like, it doesn't matter if your final crime is like shoplifting a lipstick, you're going to prison for life. That's the stupidest system in the world. We don't have time. We can't do it.

We don't. We don't have time. But yes, that's what capital murder is. Perhaps lots of you knew that, but we were interested to find out. So get this. The Ontario Liberals elected Bonnie Crombie as their new leader. Bonnie who?

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Here he receives a note, and this is when things get really weird. This note that he receives at the facility was postmarked July 8th, the date of his sentencing, and it read, Dear Mr. Hennis, I did the crime. I murdered the Eastburns.

Sorry you're doing the time. I'll be safely out of North Carolina when you read this. Thanks, Mr. X. What the fuck? And authorities never determine Mr. X's identity, even though the sheriff's office also received a very similar note from Mr. X. I don't know, it's so difficult because you always see stuff like this with high profile cases, like people will write loads, I mean it happened with Zodiac, it happened with so many, I think

it's so difficult, I mean I wouldn't put it past Hennis getting someone on the outside to send it, I wouldn't I think, I wouldn't put it past him setting it up. But it's just, it's so creepy that it was like sent, postmarked the day of the sentencing, like it's immediate. As soon as he's sentenced to death, someone sends that. It's creepy. I mean, nothing really comes of it because like I said, they never identify Mr. X.

So whilst all this is happening, Gary Eastburn, struggling to cope with the loss of his wife and his two children, moved with his one surviving daughter, Jana to England, as the family had originally planned. Gary was forced to return to North Carolina after the sentencing of Hennis to appear at his appeal. Hennis' lawyer argued that the graphic nature of the many crime scene photos the jury were shown had unduly influenced them. The judges ruled 5-2 in favour of Hennis, and he was granted a retrial. The ruling, as we mentioned before, is still now used by defence

attorneys who want to limit the presentation of photos that could unfairly prejudice jurors. That's a funny thing, isn't it? Because obviously they need to see the crime scene photos to understand. So it's funny where you draw that line of like, what's too much, what's inflammatory, and what's factual. It is interesting, but if it's like crime scene photo with a point, like, okay, so go back to like our White House farm murder, the photo of like Sheila's fingernails or the blood from her neck, that's like with a point.

It's like, look at this because this is what our case is built upon because her fingernails are clean and she couldn't possibly have reloaded the gun. But just showing them dead bodies, just showing them brutality, that doesn't prove a point. They already know the murders have happened

and I think that's what they did here. So at the retrial, Hennis's lawyers went full force to undermine the case against their client. Hennis's father had been rich and paid for top-notch defence attorneys. If I ever needed a defence attorney, I would be fucked.

I can't afford one. I'd have to have like a state defender. Keep those receipts then. Yeah I'll represent myself and be like well as you can see from my stack of receipts. Hey we could research the hell out of it. I'd be your attorney.

Thanks. I'd be your attorney too. Thanks. And your alibi. Good. We'd just your attorney too. Thanks. And your alibi. Good. We just get laughed at, of course. So, first the defence team discredited Cone saying that he was a thief and a liar. Between the first and the second trial, Cone had committed several crimes and when arrested had caused a scene many times screaming at the police,

you can't arrest me, I'm helping you guys. You need to check with the district attorney they know me I'm a witness at the Hennis trial that's literally just being like don't you know who I am exactly don't you know who I am I'm a key witness in your Hennis trial you can't arrest me because I'm committing this other crime I mean it really undermines himself quite considerably. Oh, God. So a friend of Cone's even came forward and said that Cone had told him, I can do anything I want. Are you serious?

This guy is dumb as fuck. I know. But then there was also some weird things that happened. Like a couple of times when he got arrested for doing dodgy things, he did shout this and make a scene. And so they did call police officers from certain county sheriff's departments that he was shouting about. They came and they said, send him home. So they did let him off?

Yeah. With a couple of them. He was a drunk and I think a lot of the times he'd be like drunk and disorderly. There was one case when the police officer came from the Cumberland County and just put him in his car and drove him home. And he was just like, go sober up instead of taking him in. I mean, I don't think that's necessarily dodgy. He is a witness. Yeah, they were absolutely on a roll, the defence team.

They also undermined the credibility of testimony by citing how dark and overcast the morning was. And how could Cohn have given such a perfect description of the man he saw? And a pair of new witnesses brought in by the defence testified on Hennis's behalf, stating that when they were delivering newspapers that morning, they had seen a man outside the Eastburn house at 1.45am. The defence also called to the stand a local neighbourhood teenage boy. This kid said that he often walked around the neighbourhood at night when he couldn't sleep. That sounds safe. And he admitted doing so on the morning of the 10th of May 1985. When the

boy appeared in court, the entire room fell silent. He was the spitting image of Hennis. Was this the person Cone had seen? And was it just a coincidence that Hennis had bought the dog and happened to look the same? That blows my mind. It's crazy. How can a teenage boy be six foot six and look exactly like a middle-aged man who's been in the army? Oh, Hennis was only 27. I guess 27, like I'm 27, there could be a teenager that looked like me, I reckon. Yeah, I suppose. I don't know, I saw a picture of me when I was 24 and I look so different now, I look haggard. No, but you want to see these teenagers these days, they like, they don't, they just skip the awkward stage.

There is no awkward stage anymore. They just go from children to like adults. When I was 17, I look like shit. These kids, these kids dress as well as we do. Actually, having said that, my brother is 16 and he's 6'4 and still going. So. Exactly. No, I think all of it is really interesting how much they just go undermine every single

thing at this retrial. And even, you know, with the dark and and overcasting they even bring in a pilot to give testimony for that who was flying at that time to give testimony for how dark and overcast it was like they covered all their bases and gary was really obviously upset by all this because what happened was the original lawyer that had been on the prosecution's side the guy who had been very like emotive and everything had moved on and gone to like a private practice somewhere else and so the new person on this in gary's own words was just mailing the case in so it was just a free-for-all for the uh for the defense which is sad and the

defense went even further they even dug up the fact and this is when we come back to the mr x letter they dug up the fact that in the months leading up to the murders Katie had been receiving weird and threatening phone calls in the middle of the night. They were coming from a man who knew her name and would say things like I'm coming over. Was it Mr X? And then the nail in the coffin was where Mr X's letters were read aloud in the courtroom. If you only need to invoke reasonable doubt, here you go, right? But still the defence had more. The footprints that were found outside the house

were three sizes too small to be Hennis's. A spot of blood was also discovered on a towel in the Eastburn house and it didn't match any of the families and nor did it match Hennis's. The hairs, which were the pubic hairs that were also found in the house, again did not match anyone in the family nor did they match Hennis's. The hairs, which were the pubic hairs that were also found in the house, again, did not match anyone in the family, nor did they match Hennis.

Who was leaving their pubes lying around? Well, she was raped. They were found on, they were found like, on Katie Eastburn's body. And as for the fire that Hennis's neighbour had seen him start with the bonfire trying to burn things that he had done in the days following the murders nothing concrete was found in the remains of that bonfire to link it to the murders. The defence then also secured expert testimony that no blood was found on the jacket Hennis had had dry cleaned which was that black members only jacket and they even confirmed that blood wouldn't have been removed by the chemical varsol which is used in dry cleaning oh god so much so it's just like was it just literally a coincidence i'm just gonna have this this black members only jacket that

somebody saw someone wearing outside the house of loads of people who got murdered i don't know it's all very weird isn't it well just because there's no blood on the jacket doesn't mean he didn't do it maybe he left it in the car or like he took it off or he would take your jacket off if you're going into someone's house so maybe it was just put somewhere else that doesn't for me that doesn't mean i guess it was because they were saying oh look he's having it dry cleaned it must have been because it was covered in blood okay yeah yeah yeah when hennis took the stand he defended himself against the allegations by nancy mesa and he played it well because he had been rehearsing for weeks. The jury later recalled

that he looked like an arsehole but the evidence had been obliterated and so two days later the jury reached a verdict of not guilty on all counts and Hennis left the courthouse a free man. Several jurors even shook his hand.

I... I know. No, thank you. But Gary Eastburn still thought Hennis was guilty, as did Bittle and Watts. They were all broken by the verdict. So what could they do now? Hennis was a free man. But actually, you do see that quite a lot. Like with Shirin Devani, Annie's family are still convinced that he did it so I wonder

whether if you go to trial for a loved one or you're a detective working on a case you become so attached to it so convinced that it's really really hard to let it go but nevertheless Hennis was a free man and he re-enlisted in the army even even receiving three years of back pay, a good conduct medal and a promotion to staff sergeant. Angela stayed with him and the pair had another child together. He volunteered as a scout leader and was described as the perfect example to us all. Hennis even started receiving awards and accolades for his service and finally in 2004, Hennis retired from the army with the rank of master sergeant and settled into a comfortable job at a waste treatment facility many cite his life following his acquittal

as proof of his innocence what in a like kind of he doesn't look like he's living a life of guilt kind of way no also I guess in the sense of like if this man was capable of like rape and murder of all these people wouldn't he have done it again wouldn't he have lived some sort of shady life look he just goes on and lives a really ordinary life being a good man so it's proof that he's not that kind of person because like they're saying wouldn't he have just re-offended an interesting point but we do know that lots of these kind of killers can suppress this and hide it and how do they know he didn't do anything? Maybe he just didn't get caught. So as far as he's concerned Timothy Hennis thinks I'm free. I'm a free man living a great life. But in 2005 a crime analyst Billy Crawford working with Fayetteville Police Department was running a seminar on advanced

criminal intelligence techniques and he was using the unsolved Eastburn case as his example. Following the seminar it became clear that at least one important investigative path had been ignored. The sperm samples taken from Katie Eastburn's body had never been retested and DNA had come a long way since 1985 because this is 2005 now we're well into the time of what when DNA can up completely overturn cases so Trotter who was a detective at Fayetteville followed up and found the sperm it had been kept at the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office he got hold of the sperm samples and had them sent to the State Bureau of Investigations crime lab he even says in this interview I had been meaning to do it. It's like he'd just forgotten about it.

I guess you have so many other crimes you get on with, and I don't know. Then also, like, as we find out, Bittle and Watts have moved out of this department. Trotter wasn't involved in the original case, so it is weird, but he does get his act together, and he gets the slime sample sent off.

And then a year later, it takes a year i guess because it's a cold case they're not prioritizing it it takes a year and then trotter finally gets the results back and guess what there was a hit the sperm matched the dna profile belonging to tim fucking hennis okay here's my issue with this so at the time dna analysis was just always poking its head above the parapet. Nobody fully understood it yet or whether it would even be useful. Therefore, how would they have known the correct way to store it? like, I think DNA, I mean, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think DNA, in order for it to be viable for testing years down the line, it needs to be stored in a very specific way.

And how would they have possibly known that? That I don't think if it's just at the back of a fridge somewhere, it would still be a viable sample. Like, we saw this with Bible John as well. Like, I somewhere, it would still be a viable sample. Like we saw this with Bible John as well. Like I just, I'm not convinced that that sample of sperm would have been viable or necessarily stored in the correct way for it to come back with definitive results. So that's a fair question. But the way that it was put in the research that I did it was that they first had to check if there was enough of a sample and if it was like not deteriorated

enough that they couldn't do a sample and they said in first and foremost they said there is enough sperm here to run the DNA testing from the vaginal swabs taken from KTE sperm's body and it isn't degraded enough that we can genuinely say whether there is a hit. And the next thing was that the forensics expert who ran the sample said that the sample that he tested was 1.2 quadrillion times more likely to be from Hennis than any other white person in North Carolina. This forensics expert who ran this DNA in 2005 was pretty absolutely certain that this was Hennis's DNA. I think the only thing that makes me question this and makes other people question this is that there were lapses in security at this particular lab that they were holding the samples in. There were

some other reported cases of evidence going missing, some guns being stolen. That doesn't necessarily mean that this, I can understand why people come in and steal guns or whatever. Why would you touch sperm? But you know what I mean, it compromises all of the evidence that has ever passed through there. But this forensics expert, based on what he said that he ran, he said that he couldn't visualize how big a number this was to be 1.2 quadrillion times more likely to be Hennis than anyone else. It was taken as pretty certain. So for Trotter, this was it. It was Hennis. And he recalls thinking, you have, oh, this is so horrible. You have Hennis's sperm in the vaginal vault of a dead woman that speaks

volumes. That is such a disgusting turn of phrase. Vaginal vault. Oh God. But you know, they have him. They think this is it. And so trotter immediately shared the results with bittle who'd moved on like moved to a different county at this point but bittle immediately phones gary to tell him what's happened so they have their trump card now but how could they use it the problem was the fifth amendment ensures that quote no citizen can be put in jeopardy of life or limb for the same offence twice. They couldn't touch him, but they did have an idea. They invited in three Fort Bragg attorneys to Fayetteville and presented the DNA evidence to them. The attorneys took the files

with them to the commanding general at Fort Bragg, who didn't need to deliberate for very long. He got the secretary of the army to recall Hennis to active duty, as any retired soldier can be. And then they got him. Army regulations in the state, this is fascinating. Army regulations state that a person subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice who has been tried in a civilian court may but ordinarily will not be tried by court marshal so the army charged him with three counts of murder as the statute of limitations on rape

had expired yeah so i was speaking to my colleague at work who is from the states and is a lawyer hi shrina thanks for the help And I just wanted to make sure that we had this absolutely right. And she said, yes, if you are tried by one court of law in the country and you are acquitted of that crime, you can't be retried by the same jurisdiction. So it would need to be by a court

that sits outside of that jurisdiction. And really all that exists are Native American courts, which sit outside of that or being court-martialed by the army so that's fascinating. This didn't come without its controversy though with people wondering how the army could allow itself to be a pawn of the Cumberland County Sheriff's Department so they felt that the army it wasn't the function of the army to be there to try soldiers on civilian charges. Hennis declared that it was all bullshit and just screamed for his lawyer.

But the army defended its decision stating that Hennis was a unique case and an outrageous injustice had occurred that required a special response. So either way, the court-martial of Timothy Hennis began on March 17th, 2010, and a stern-faced colonel named Patrick Parrish, who previously had adjudicated military commissions in Guantanamo Bay, presided. Fourteen uniformed men and women took their seats in the jury box. The jurors, known in a court-martial as members, were equal to or greater in rank than Hennis. For a conviction, two-thirds of them would have to agree on Hennis's guilt. A death sentence would require

that the jurors be unanimous about both the conviction and the punishment. Once again, Gary and his now 26-year-old daughter Jana are sat in the courtroom, listening as the same old evidence was trawled over. But the new DNA evidence? That was the game changer. It upended everything. And weirdly, Hennis's defence became now that he had indeed slept with Katie Eastburn. I mean, he couldn't refute the DNA, he couldn't refute the fact that his sperm was found there. So now his lawyers just say, oh, it was consensual. We had consensual sex. This, unsurprisingly, did not go down very well. The idea that the murdered wife of an army captain would have had an affair with another serviceman while he was away on duty. This was the argument made in front of a jury of servicemen and women who are often themselves deployed away

from their loved ones. This, I think, is not a very smart defense move no like obviously that is gonna rather like read the room yeah but it was all they could say because his sperm was there so they were just like oh let's now say yeah we've gone from saying you didn't know her name to now you were having an affair with her i mean this is not a surprise to me at all after three hours of deliberation the jury reached a unanimous verdict. Hennis was guilty. Hennis was once again sentenced to death, but has since been appealing the verdict. Gary and Janet have moved back to England, and the last Gary spoke on this case, he said, I would just like to see him rot away in jail. He said of Hennis, I don't feel any burning desire to have him hanged or shot or

whatever it is they do. I just want him in jail without the possibility of parole. If his appeal is granted, they might have to drag me back. I think three trials is probably enough for me. If there was a fourth, I wouldn't have much extra left. That's like with Lucy Blackman, when her family have to go back to Japan every six months for years and years and years. Like, it's just reliving the whole thing again. It must be so hard. And they've desperately tried to get away from it.

They've moved to England. I think Gary and Jana, I hope you're okay somewhere. Because this is just such a horrible case. But that is the story of Timothy Hennis. Who was, I think till now, remains the only man ever to have been tried convicted sentenced to death exonerated then retried for the same crime reconvicted and put back on death row so thank you for listening do you think he did it yes do you think he did it um what makes you question it the footprints outside not being not being the same size as his that could have been

anyone also that's not super fantastic evidence. That could have been anyone. But also, that's not super fantastic evidence. That could have been anyone. That could have been Bob. The thing is, I think if you accept the sperm sample as legit, which I think I probably do now after I've had my little tantrum about it. Yeah, I think he did it. Or I think it was him. Yeah.

So, yes, we think Timothy Hennis did it. i think yeah so yes we think timothy hennis did it they think timothy hennis did it and he's probably in the right place and let us know what you think as well put it on the discussion group definitely we're really glad to see how much the facebook discussion group is growing thank you so much so definitely join us there let us know what you think and as usual please rate review and subscribe. We will see you next time. See you next time. Bye. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made.

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