Reply All - #67 On the Inside, Part IV

Episode Date: June 9, 2016

Paul Modrowski is in prison for a murder he claims he didn't commit, and he says he’s been misunderstood because of his autism. This week, we bring you the conclusion of our story. Sruthi meets Paul in prison and explains what she thinks really happened the night of Dean Fawcett’s murder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From Gimlet, this is Reply All. I'm Alex Goldman. And I'm PJ Vote. And Shrithy Pinaminani is also in the room. Yes, I'm here. And this is the final installment of the On the Insight series, which Shruthi has been reporting. If you haven't listened to the first three episodes, go back and listen to them, or you will be thoroughly confused. A refresher for people who have heard.

So this is the story of Paul Madrowski. He's a convicted murderer with a blog that his mom, up until pretty recently, published and edited for him. Paul says that he's innocent, that basically he's just an autistic person who's been badly misunderstood. Right, exactly. And I've been reporting on this story for what seems like forever at this point. And all the possibilities have boiled down to basically two things. Either Paul is, as you said, misunderstood, wrongly convicted, or he's a remorseless killer who has just gotten really good at telling the story of being misunderstood. This whole question of who Paul is, it actually played out after the trial at a sentencing hearing.

So at this point, Paul's been convicted. People have decided he is guilty of killing Dean Fawcett. And now they have to decide whether or not, like what kind of person is he? Is he irredeemably evil? And that will inform what kind of sentence he gets? Exactly. Right. And so here we're sitting in the courtroom again. There's no jury. It's just a judge who's going to decide the sentence. And there's the people like Paul's family testifying to who he is.

And I spoke to this reporter, John Carpenter, who covered these hearings. So when Paul Madrowski's father was testifying about something along the lines of, you know, at one time I fell down and he came and carried me in his arms. you know, helped me. And the father really lost it emotionally. It was not just crying, but sobbing. I would say almost blubbering. I was probably 10 feet away from the father. So I was very close to the father, looked over at the table where Madraski was sitting, which would have been about 15 feet away. And I was, it almost sent chills down my spine. He was so, so ice cold. And so I think that I'm not. And that's what the jury saw the whole time. Like you were finally getting their

vantage point. Right. And, you know, I'm sitting there, listen to his father, very, it was impossible not to be moved by what the father was saying. And, you know, literally begging for his son's life, begging, there's a judge sitting next to him who has it within his power to order that, order this guy's son to be killed. And Paul was just staring straight ahead. Of course, what this reporter could have been seeing, it could have been autism. Just because Paul wasn't expressing his feelings didn't mean that he didn't have any. And when I look back at the transcript of this whole sentencing, a different moment jumps out of me. It happens at this moment where the judge is about to deliver his sentence. Paul stands up and the judge asks, do you have

anything to say to the court? And Paul says, yes, Your Honor. At the time that I've been in jail, I've spent a lot of time thinking about my life. And the state has shown I haven't been been the perfect angel, but I wish I could have a chance to do things better. I really wish you could give me a sentence that gives me hope for the future. Sometimes they say that I'm unemotional, but deeply this hurts me. Dean's picture there hurts me because I did not do it. I understand their anger, very much so. They have a right to be angry, but I'm not the one. Of course, these were Paul's words, and I asked the judge, Sam Amaranti, what Paul's face looked like as he was saying them.

And then when you sentenced him, did he, was there anything? Like, any, did he close his eyes? Nothing. But the judge says that right then, right after Paul spoke, this thing happened for an instant. He got a glimpse of something underneath Paul's surface. You'll never forget this. He had one tear ran down his face.

And it was very heartbreaking to me. But I had to do what I had to do as a judge. And I looked at him and I said, something. to the effect, Mr. Medrowski. I'm going to give you the same hope you gave Dean Foss of the night in the railroad train. As long as you shall live, you will never smell the sweet smell of liberty,

and you will never breathe in the fresh air of freedom in your lungs again. When it turns you're true to natural life, now in the proper correction, so it'll be possible. When I talked to the judge, Sam Amaranti, he said that, like, most people in that courtroom, he had no

idea that Paul was autistic. He said he didn't know, and if he had known at the time, maybe things would have been different. And just zooming out for a second, it seems like overall people in that courtroom just didn't understand autism nearly as well as we do now.

For example, Paul's defense had put together this giant report, psychological evaluations full of reasons why the judge should give him a lighter sentence, like all these mitigating factors. And I looked at this report with Jennifer Blag, Paul's current attorney. We're sitting in this courthouse

flipping through, this thick binder. Paul's mother spoke to a pack of cigarettes a date while pregnant with Paul. That's a mitigating factor. Who knows? The report also refers to how Paul's grandmother used to pop pills or how his father was patronizing to his mother. It says Paul was hyperactive, had ADD. But what's so incredible is that the one thing it never focuses on is autism.

Why didn't they just say the word autism in the whole report? It's hide a thing. I think this was a byproduct of them not understanding the autism spectrum during that time period, you know? I mean, here's classic autism. He would bang his head as a child when he couldn't talk from one to four. I would hold him until he settled down. My wife would sit on him to quiet him down so he wouldn't hurt himself. He had little capacity to feel pain and a tendency to be emotionally unresponsive.

Rocking, you know, another classic sign of autism. So a few years ago, Jennifer decided to do what all these doctors and lawyers hadn't quite managed to do back then, to take all these different pieces and understand how they work together in Paul's autism. She found this expert, a clinical psychologist named Rachel Lofton. And what Lofton does is she evaluates people who are on the spectrum who've been accused of crimes. I try to find the right tests and the right things I can do that give us age equivalence, which is like to say, oh, he's functioning at the eight-year level and whatever skill. But somebody like Paul doesn't fall in that category because it seems as if he's intelligent.

And so it's not as if he's behaving under his age. In social ways, I certainly think he would be. I'm pretty sure on measures of social problem solving, he would come out lower than his chronological age by quite a bit. Huh. It's interesting because... Sorry, go ahead. I was just going to say, some individuals have a confidence. I think he probably has a confidence that also makes him seem more capable than he really is. Or an arrogance. It's probably the right word for it. It's funny because this is absolutely something I've noticed about Paul, that he can be the showy guy who'll go out of his way to remind me how smart he is. And I'd always just thought of it as part of Paul's personality. And Rachel told me another thing. like this test that she did with Paul, where she laid out a few random objects on the table, like a block, paperclip, stuff like that.

And then Paul had to use these objects and make up a fictional story and tell it to her. And she said that Paul really had a tough time with this one. He used objects, but not in a very imaginative way. I remember that it was very basic. I remember he kept going on for a long time, though. So the story was long enough that I remember I needed to kind of ask. him, okay, how does it end? How does it end? So I remember at the time I remember thinking, oh, he doesn't understand what I'm really measuring, and he thinks that maybe giving a really

long story is going to help him look better. So Rachel is basically telling me that the autism informed way more of Paul's personality than I'd realize, like, even the parts of him that I like. It's funny, I don't know if there's like, the thing that this makes me think of is like I have ADD, and there's so many things that I do, like behaviors or traits that I have, that are like definitely ADD symptoms, but they are also just who I am. For instance, like I'm literally,

like I can never leave a place. Like I always, it always takes me 45 minutes. Like, you've seen this, like to walk out of an office. It's funny because I know that and I never thought about it as you being ADD. I thought it was just like you,

you know, having a hard time saying no and leaving your conversation. It's both. It's both. It's both. But like if you know that one thing, helps you be more patient with me or just like put it in context. Yeah. Like, and it's sort of hard to say like, oh, this is where your disability ends and your personality starts.

Like they're the same thing. Yeah. And so much of this whole process has been like me trying to unbraid the two things, which I'm starting to realize is just futile. But it still helps to know. Yeah. I mean, so one other thing that Rachel had told me was, for instance, movies. So Paul has this habit of relating everything to movies. Like he's always, he sees him.

Like the Goodfellas thing and like. Yeah, like he's always saying I'm the narrator of Goodfellas or I'm like the main character of Gladiator. And Rachel has said, like this is a thing that she sees a lot in her clients, like people who are on the spectrum who they use social cues that they see in movies to help them figure out how to act in the world. And it comes up sometimes in terms of them being misunderstood, say someone who'd been watching. watching romantic comedies and thinks like, oh, I can act like this. And then they're accused of stalking. And Rachel has to explain to them, you know, that's movies. Yeah, exactly.

And obviously you can't, yeah, in real life, it doesn't go this way. So I feel like, you know, of all the people that I talked to at this point, you know, of all the people who said, like, I know who Paul is, let me explain it to you. Rachel was the first person where she's telling me things where I'm thinking, wow, okay, you're really making me. look at all my conversations with Paul in a very different light. But at the same time, this question that I'd been trying to answer, like, okay, he, yes, he's autistic, yes, he might very well have had an unfair trial, but did he do this thing? Like, is he guilty of Dean Fawcett's murder? That's something she said she can't help me with.

obviously someone who's autistic, they can be autistic and still know how to lie. You can be autistic and still commit violence. Like the one thing doesn't preclude the other. Obviously, most people, most people on the spectrum are not violent, but there are people who, like you can be a sociopath and be autistic. And the thing is, when I was digging into that whole sentencing hearing, I discovered all these stories and things that. that Paul had done in the years leading up to the crime, like things that weren't admissible during his trial, but were fair game during the sentencing. And these were things that really upset my picture of Paul.

I wanted to ask him about it. And so I went to Stateville Prison. Welcome back to the show. So before the break, Shruti decided to go to Stateville Penitentiary to talk to Paul in person. The Illinois Department of Corrections, they gave me exactly one hour with Paul. So I drove to the prison. It's about an hour southwest of Chicago. It's this giant compound surrounded by 30 foot high concrete walls.

And I entered through this granite lobby. I went to visit a hall. I went through a few different levels of these heavy metal doors with bars. And then finally, the guard let me into this small room off to the side. There's nothing in it except a table, a window with large. bars, and I waited there for about 10 minutes. I was chatting with the assistant warden, and then Paul just strolled into the room. Paul.

Mr. Bredroski, how are you? Fine, thank you. Good to see. The lady is here to see you. I'm going to leave you to your interview. I'm going to see you later. Thanks for putting this together. Thank you. Look at that, Paul. We meet after a year. You've got gray hair. You're getting old. I am getting old. I am definitely. I'm getting old. I'm definitely. Oh, so are you. Yes.

What's with the headphones? The headphones are so I can hear you. Was the interview, were you separated by glass in the interview room? No. No. Was it just like a table that you guys set across from one of the room? Yeah, we just, it's a special kind of table where his seat is much higher than mine so that people outside can see him. You see these seats here?

This is probably make us visit. I have to stand up on a pedestal. It is a bit awkward. I'm not sure. I guess, I guess, how should we do this? I guess lean, if you could lean towards me, and then I can actually hear it. Hello. Hi. One, two, three, four testing. One, two, three, four.

There you go. What do you look like? Paul, he was wearing this blue uniform, no handcuffs. He's tall, but not towering. Like, he's about six feet tall. Brown hair, very blue eyes. And as soon as he saw me, he gave me this big smile, which I was not expecting. I wanted to call you yesterday just to give you some tips and to help you out a little bit about the process here, but I couldn't reach you. Paul was so engaged. He was looking intensely at me since he's sitting above me. He's actually looking down at me, maintaining eye contact the whole time. And it turns out that he was thinking about autism just as much as I was. He told me that the only way he could get through the stress of a face-to-face conversation. was by drinking a ton of coffee.

Believe me, when I woke up today, you would have been interviewing a zombie. Engaging in people socially is very exhausting for me, but I can do it for short periods of times and I can mimic your behaviors and those of others for a short period of time. But if it's done continuously, I'm just saffive energy. It just drains me.

And I just go back to my normal. self. So for this interview, you're getting the best of me, I think. So you're mimicking me. Well, I'm mimicking the social situations. People, they parrot each other. So I've learned that intellectually people, I think most normal people will do that instinctively, but I do it intellectually. Like, I'll see how you're looking at me, how your stances, well, you've got a microphone stuffed at my face, but I try to mimic your expressions, and I notice that's how most other people do it. You do it well? Well, I'm very intelligent. If I was average IQ or lower, you'd probably not, you'd probably

see my autism a lot more apparent, but I do have 130 or above IQ, so I think that that allows some people with autism to overcome. their disabilities. So here's why I had come to talk to Paul. The stories that the prosecution had introduced during the sentencing, they established this pattern

of violent behavior from Paul, like starting from when he was a young teen and escalating all the way up to the murder of Dean Fawcett. So there's a bunch of things, but I'm going to give you guys just a couple of them. So when Paul was 14 years old, he walked up to a kid near a bus stop. This was a kid he knew from school.

They had some kind of beef with each other. Paul pulled a knife and stabbed this kid in the arm. The kid had no weapon on him. I actually spoke to him and he said he still has a scar. He actually has nerve damage. Oh, my God. Yeah. So Paul was charged with aggravated battery and the court appointed a psychiatrist to examine Paul.

And he wrote up this report and reading it now, Now, there's something about it that really, like, it makes a lot of the things that Paul, like these other anecdotes that Paul had described to me, it makes them all make sense. The psychiatrist says that Paul, he has autism, but he sees the world as like a very threatening place. And he reacts to these threats aggressively. So the second incident, it has to do with Paul's ex-girlfriend. This woman named Melanie, back when they were in high school, they were dating, they break up. And then Melanie and her family, they go out of town. When they come back, their house has been broken into, the waterbed has been slashed.

There used to be like a photo of Paul on her mirror, which she took away and now it's back. Their family dog, this little white fluffy dog, was stabbed. Like I've seen photos and there's this like horrible gash in the abdomen. And this whole time Melanie is getting these phone calls, like these harassing phone calls. She recorded one of them and they played it during the sentencing hearing. So Melanie says 100%, this is Paul. The courthouse lost the tape. So I'm just going to read from the transcript of the recording.

There's a male voice that says, I've got a new name for your family. I call them pin cushions. You know what that is? is, it's something you stick pins in. And then Melanie says, what do you want for me? And then the male voice says, a little of this, a little of that, your head on a lance, your parents' head on a lance, your dog's head on a lance. Oh. Yeah. So Paul was never convicted of this thing, but I wanted to ask him about it. I was looking at the transcripts of the sentencing hearing. And I have two questions. one, were you there in her house the day her house was broken into and her dog was stabbed?

No. You sure? But she want me to elaborate? Why? So you're saying that a friend of yours did it? I know who did it. You're saying a friend of yours named Harry Adams did it? I'm quite certain.

It was Harry, yes. Why would he have broken into that residence when the woman was? clearly, clearly connected with you. It was your former girlfriend, and you had thrown a book at her younger sister, which had gotten you in trouble at school. Well, with the younger sister, you understand that Melanie and Randa didn't get along that much together. Either way, I'm just saying you had the connection with that family.

Why would Harry do this? That's a good question. And the answer is that Melanie wasn't the typical girl that I went out with. She was very sassy. She had attitude and spunk. She, and she acted very sassy towards them, and she gave them no respect and she called them names and whatnot. My, that didn't suit well with the type of people that I was associating with, especially Harry. So you're saying you had nothing to do with it, you didn't even know that they were going to do it?

Absolutely not. I learned afterwards, though, yes. And what about the voice message, the answering machine message that was left that said that the things that would be done to Melanie and her family, their heads on a spit? Well, that was me. I used to, yes, I know you're looking at me crazy. Like, I'm a crazy person. Why would he say that?

I was just playing with her at the time. I know it sounds kind of ridiculous, but sometimes. I would just play with her. It sounds more than ridiculous, and it doesn't sound like playing around. No, you listen to the voice, and she knows she's very playful. I know what comes across is, yeah, I'm some sick, deviant person, and how could this not be intertwined with the breaking of her house, but that's the truth of the matter.

I just can't. I mean, I think any one of these things by themselves, I think you can get out of. It's understandable. Shit happens. Whatever. Wrong place, wrong time or some idiot friend of yours who blamed you. I think when you look at the entire body of things, like if you just throw it all together

in a bag and look at everything together, then it becomes harder to believe you. You understand that right. You know, you're basically leaving voice messages to a woman about how you're going to cut her head off and then Dean gets his head caught off. I mean, you can look at yourself as the unluckiest person of the world who's been blamed for all sorts of things, but you're, as a thinking person, that one's hard to just brush under the carpet. Do you know how I got the name Victor? How? You started calling yourself Victor because people used to call you Polly and you didn't like the diminutive. And so you chose the name Victor, Vic.

Well, that's part of the reason. But where it started to catch on was we went out to see a movie. It's called The Highlander. And there is a character. He's a villain in the movie. His name is Victor Kruger. And he's a Kyrgin from centuries ago, thousands of years. Anyways, what the Highlanders do is they chop off each other's heads.

That is how they win global power. And so you want to talk about coincidences. That's a coincidence. Here I'm named after Victor, a Highlander who cuts off people's heads. But cutting off people's heads is just something people say quite often, especially in prison. That's a threat. Maybe not in your little... Not when you're in high school.

Not when you're in high school. Oh, you would be surprised what people will say in high school and especially around my crowd. I would take that as a deflection of the question. Yes, but how many people had dyed their hair black and was enormously muscular and stronger than most other people and had that crude, crass type of personality unfiltered-like... Oh, so you're saying it was on purpose? You actually were going for that comparison? No, I just, they thought it was funny, and it's... And I started using it because, as you said, I didn't like...

being Pauly. So Victor was much better. I do not know what to make of this one. Basically, I asked him, you know, all these things that happened when you were a kid, like, it looks really bad. And I can't believe that you didn't do any of them. Like, there's too many coincidences. And he responded with a non-sequitur about how his nickname was a reference to a movie character who decapitates people. Yeah, it seems like he's like joking. Like, it seems like he doesn't get it.

It's totally possible that he was just nervous and blurting out a weird story. But it looks really bad. Yeah. And combined, it looks really bad. Yeah, yeah, it does. And I wanted to get the testimony of this woman whose house was broken into, like, the one whose dog had been stabbed. And I asked Paul's mom for the transcript. And she pulled it out of the boxes.

She's been really great. Sending me all sorts of documents. and she pulled them out of attic. And hours later, I spoke to her and I said, hey, Linda, just wondering if you're, you know, you found them. And she said, you know, I've been sitting here. I read them. They're really awful.

And I've been, I scanned them. I'm sitting in front of the email saying I should push send. And I don't want to send them. And we had a long talk where I said, you know, I'll get the transatlant. transcripts, but I agree with you. They make Paul look really bad. And if you don't want to be the person to send them to me, I completely understand. And I said, no matter what happened, I think you've really, you've tried your best to protect him. And I really admire all the work you've put into his blog. And she started crying. And then she sent me the transcripts. Man, this must be so hard for her. Yeah. So at this point, I've been reporting on the case of Dean Fawkes. for months. And in my mind, there's always been two columns, like the column of all the reasons why Paul is guilty and all, and then another column for all the reasons why Paul is not guilty.

And in the guilty column, there's no physical evidence, but there are a few things that I just can't knock down, right? So there's the witness that woman Nadine Lanarchek who saw Bob and Paul together pick up Dean Fawcett and drive away with him. And then there's Bob Frazsche who, you know, who says he was with Paul the whole time. And neither one of these people on their own is, is perfect. But like together, it's like they independently corroborate each other. And then in the Paul is not guilty column, the main thing that I've been left with is Paul's story of what happened that night. So Paul says he has an alibi. He was at his sister's house until midnight the Dean was murdered. This is a story that his family supports, and I have tried every which way to check it, like get somebody outside of the family to corroborate, but there's nothing. Like nothing in the police reports, no phone records, nothing. And then about a week ago, I spoke to this person who told me a story that I had never heard before, and it puts Paul at the scene of the crime. I can't name the person because they spoke to me on background, but they said I can't,

use the information. And there's a, they're a person who, like at least you know, could know this? Absolutely. Okay. Is this somebody who you trust?

I don't trust anybody. I don't trust anybody. Yeah, so this person told me Paul was at the scene of the crime. And I said, but wait, I spoke to Paul's sister

and she said, no, Paul was at my house that night. And this person said, I don't think she's lying. But I think she has her date wrong. I know she has her date wrong because this is what happened. On the evening of December 28th, Paul and Bob Frotchi came home from the railroad tracks together. Paul took a shower listening to a band called King Diamond, like this heavy metal band.

The story that this person told me was so full of details in which I saw Paul that I recognized. And, you know, in this past year, I have thrown so many challenges like this at Paul, and it never phases him. So I decided to ask him about this one. The thing that has always tripped me up is the alibi, right? So you say you were at your sister's house on December 28th. Can I ask your question, why are you so sure that it was that day? Why are you so sure that it was December 28th? I don't upset.

I'm absolutely. because it was December 28th. That's my father's birthday. And I know it from, you know, my memories from long ago, and even when I was arrested are very vague about what happened a half a year before. But one thing I do know is December 28, 1992, I know exactly where I was at. And that was at my sister's house. And I remember her clear as day, beckoning me to talk to my father and to make amends for the fight we had like a few weeks earlier. What day was it that day? Like, the day of a week? I believe it was a Monday. I have a question. What is King Diamond? Where did you hear that from?

Where are you going with this question? Where did you even get that name? Who told you this? Who brought this up to you? You're just a little... Yeah, you're a little nosy person, aren't you? You love this, don't you? I can see it in your eyes.

You love this work. Come on. I understand that. I want to hear where you got this little... No, no, you're not going to be Megan Kelly with me. You're going to answer my question. I have an alternate image of what happened that night. It was Monday night.

It was Monday night football. The San Francisco 49ers were playing the Detroit Lions. They beat them. You were in the shower listening to King Diamond. What? Where do you get this? Where do you get your information from? No, I wasn't.

I don't, I don't get that at all. No, I wasn't in the, yeah, I did take a shower when I got back probably. I don't really remember. It's not like you remember these things like taking a shower. As for King Diamond, when I was in junior, late junior high, early high school, I listened to King Diamond, which is a heavy metal band. and it is somewhat unique, I guess, amongst even people that listen to metal. I don't know how unique.

Paul talked for a while about King Diamond, and then I said to him, okay, but did it go down this way? So you're implying that I kill Dean Fawcett, and then I listen to King Diamond while taking a nice shower at Bob Farachis. Well, that's nuts. Why couldn't be Danzig or Metallica? Why is it King Diamond? You don't know? I'm not sure why you chose to do what you did. Did Bob Farachi tell you this crazy idea?

You know how many crazy things Bob Farage you said? At this point, I felt like I had just run out of reasons to believe in Paul's innocence. I mean, this is what I've come to believe. That Paul is autistic and misunderstood and had a problem. bizarre trial and that he was involved in Dean's killing. And so I said this to Paul. I said, the night Dean was killed, I think you were there. I don't think you were the mastermind, but I do think that Bob Farachi could have convinced you to come along. And you went, as you always did. You know, maybe it started off as a joke. Maybe it was you guys just wanted to scare Dean because he had told this person that,

he would rat you guys out about these bad checks he'd been writing. And I can imagine that the both of you picked up Dean Fawcett, took him to the railroad tracks. Maybe Bob shot him. Maybe you caught off his head. Like that, I can imagine. I can imagine you being there because of Bob Farachi. My question is, how long would you go before saying, okay, this happened. But I've had a really good prison record.

I can show that I've been rehabilitated, let me out. Would there be a moment, like if that was a scenario? Are you nuts? I've spent over 20-something years in this fucking prison suffering for something I had had nothing to do with. Now, you might imagine that I could have been present at the crime scene, but I was not at the crime scene. And I will be buried in a prison grave before I ever said

I was with Bob Farachi on that day because I was not with Bob Farachi on that day. Now, I know there's a lot of circumstantial innuendo and things that you say, oh, Paul can be a bad guy and he's mean and he's a bully in high school

and, oh, he made a harassing phone call to one of the girls he dated. But I'm not going to be involved in a murder. That is something, a line that I would never cross and I would never even get involved in. And Bob Farachie, he is a brilliant con. but I'm not going to follow him to the railroad tracks in Barrington and kill Dean Fawcett. Ever. Never.

It's just not going to happen. And if it came down to it and there was a parole board reintroduced in Illinois, fuck you. I'm never, ever going to say that I was present at the crime scene, ever. And they can let me die here. I don't give a shit. I've already, my life is wasted away. Look at me.

I'm nothing of the person I, I am a hollow shell of the person I used to. to be in and I could just die in here. It doesn't matter to me if I get out when I'm 50 or something 60 years old. I don't give a shit about the remnants of my life. They've taken everything from me. This is all I have. What am I going to do when I get the fuck out of there anyways? What?

They want to release me when I'm 50-something years old because of parole because I've been of a good boy? I don't give a shit about that. What am I going to do when I'm 50? I can't do nothing. So I'll just die in here. How'd you like that as an answer? And then he smiled. The warden comes in the room at this point.

and told me that I was out of time. And then, like we do at the end of every interview, I recorded a minute of the sound of the room. Oh, man. Oh, God. And then the warden told me to turn off the recorder. Paul and I got up, left the room. He went through one set of bar doors.

I went through another. We could see each other from across the room. And he just waved at me. And then I waved back. and then he turned and walked back into the prison. Shruthy Pinnemanani is a producer for a show. Paul is out of appeals, but his lawyers are working on his post-conviction petition,

which could get him a new trial. They're going to bring up Paul's autism, and also they have an affidavit from Bob Farachi swearing that he did not borrow Paul's car the night of the murder. The Brown's Chicken Massacre, that crime that brought so much attention to Paul's case, that was finally solved in 2002.

The real killers, it turns out, have left behind DNA evidence, partially eaten chicken bones. Repaal is hosted by me, PJ Vote, and Alex Goldman. The show is produced by Shruti Permanani, Fia Benin and Chloe Prasinos. Our executive producer is Tim Howard. The show is edited by Peter Clowny, correction assistance from Tom Cody. The show is mixed by Rick Kwan. We are fact-checked this week by Michelle Harris. Additional editing help from Ashley Ford and Zach Stewart Pontier.

Matt Lieber is a new puppy that finally sleeps through the night. Special thanks this week to Anthony O'Rourke, Giora Binder, and Katie Clarkson. And a big thank you to Dr. Matthew Lerner, assistant professor of psychology at Stony Brook University. Dr. Lerner established a model for understanding the involvement of people on the autism spectrum in the criminal justice system, and he helped review our story. Another big, big thanks to Professor Richard McAdams of the University of Chicago Law School, who helped with legal questions. You can check out his book, The Expressive Powers of Law. Our theme music is by the mysterious breakmaster cylinder, and our ad music is by Build Buildings. You can find more episodes of the show at iTunes.com slash Reply All or in the Google Play Music Store.

Our website is Reply All.limo. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next Wednesday.