The Binge Cases: Denise Didn't Come Home - Just Say You’re Sorry | 1. Not That I Recall

Episode Date: May 1, 2023

Texas Ranger James Holland approaches Air Force veteran Larry Driskill and asks him for help with a murder case. These are the first moments in a psychological battle that will end in Driskill confessing to a brutal killing. All while swearing he doesn’t remember the crime. Incredibly, the whole thing is caught on tape. Through Holland's recordings, journalist Maurice Chammah follows the men into the interrogation room... Subscribe to The Binge to get all episodes of Smoke Screen: Just Say You're Sorry ad-free right now. Click ‘Subscribe’ at the top of the Smoke Screen show page on Apple Podcasts or visit GetTheBinge.com to get access wherever you get your podcasts. A Somethin’ Else, The Marshall Project & Sony Music Entertainment production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, wherever you get your podcasts. The Bench.

Before we start, a warning that this episode contains descriptions of violence. Please take care as you listen. Law enforcement, I was always taught and was raised and the way I understood it was to trust them. They're there to help you. But now, that's a totally different ballgame. That voice you're hearing belongs to Larry Driscoll. On a winter day back in January of 2015,

Driscoll is working at a barn in Parker County. It's a rural area about an hour from the city of Fort Worth, which explains why Driscoll has that rich Texas twang. He looks the part, too. Jeans, ball cap, weathered face, salt-and-pepper hair. A stranger approaches him. He looked like a cowboy.

Dressed up in cowboy garb and all that. The man is tall, with a pristine white shirt and sharp creases in his clothes. Nice pair of pants, more cowboy hat. He has a little star made from a silver peso

pinned above his left shirt pocket. This star is the symbol of a legendary police division, the Texas Rangers. Did he have, like, a gun and a holster? Yeah, he had a gun and a holster. So it was clear he was a law enforcement. Mm-hmm. He introduces himself. Hey, Jim Holland with it was clear he was a law enforcement. Mm-hmm. He introduces himself.

Hey, Jim Holland with the Texas Rangers. Nice to meet you. James Holland, who sometimes goes by Jim, is recording all of this. But Driscoll doesn't know that yet. What he does know is that the Texas Rangers are serious cops who command respect. So when Holland asks him to get in his truck and head over to the local sheriff's office, he knows it must be important.

Okay, am I in trouble or what? We think you might be able to help us on the deal. Okay. Holland says, we think you might be able to help us. That's fine. Alright, well buckle up. Let's go. What Driscoll doesn't know is that he's about to be questioned. About a murder.

I'm Maurice Chama, and I'm a writer at The Marshall Project, where I report on the criminal justice system. At this point, I've looked into a lot of disturbing cases and gotten pretty cynical about the law. But this case, it's really shaken me. Because it raises a question. Would you admit to a crime you didn't commit? Can you imagine yourself doing that?

I couldn't until I came across this story. In the early stages of reporting on this case, I got my hands on the recording of Holland and Driscoll meeting for the first time and the interrogation that followed. Um, how do you spell your last name? Driscoll, D-R-I-S-K-I-L-L. I spent several days just sitting in my office

and playing these tapes over and over. It's just addictive trying to guess what each person is about to say, thinking, wait, where is Holland going with this? Or what exactly does Driscoll mean by that? You're constantly hearing these little surprises. And until the end, you can't imagine what's going to happen. It's one of the most troubling interviews I've ever heard. It was extraordinary in everything that can be bad in interrogations.

I've never seen anything like it. I absolutely know I would say anything to make it stop. Over two days, Driscoll goes from being a possible witness... You're not under arrest. You don't have to be here. You recognize all that. ...to being the prime suspect

in this homicide investigation. He ends up confessing to strangling a woman and dumping her body in the middle of nowhere. But he also maintains he can't remember doing it. Seven years later, Driscoll is still in prison, convicted of murder. And Holland? He's become one of the most celebrated detectives of his generation. Now Holland, that Texas Ranger's done amazing work with him to help pull this out and help solve cases.

I had an old partner one time that said, you know, a fish would never get caught if it didn't open its mouth. He's a heck of a fisherman. He gets shit done, and he comes in like a superhero. But do superheroes ever get it wrong? This isn't a whodunit story. I'm not setting out to solve this crime. I have a different mission. I want to discover how James Holland,

a detective at the top of his game, really operates. And to understand why Larry Driscoll confessed to a murder he swears he didn't commit. Everyone has a breaking point. We think we don't, but we do. You do something for me? What? Say I'm sorry.

This is your chance, in which you're going to say that you're sorry that you made a mistake. I know you made a mistake about what happened. Sorry about what happened? Yeah, I'm sorry that it all happened. I know you're sorry about what happened. I know that you're sorry. You do something. I thought you were going to say that you're sorry.

I'm sorry. Sorry for what? I didn't do nothing. From Something Else, Sony Music Entertainment, and The Marshall Project, this is Smokescreen. Just say you're sorry. Episode 1, Not That I Recall. I was born in Austin, and I've spent most of the last 10 years reporting in Texas. So I've done a lot of driving, all across the state.

Which, as we Texans will constantly tell you, until you're tired of hearing it, is really big. During these travels, I meet these fascinating people in prisons and courtrooms. One of them is the lawyer Mike Ware. He's the director of the Innocence Project of Texas, based in Fort Worth. We met more than a decade ago in a Mexican restaurant when I was just starting my career. Since then, I've seen Mike literally walk people out of jail after he and his team have proven that they were wrongfully

convicted. As a journalist and a source, we may not always see eye to eye, but I've learned to always take the meeting. So one morning, a few years ago, Mike is passing through Austin. We catch up over coffee, And it doesn't take long for him to tell me about his newest client, Larry Driscoll. Mike gets lots of pleas for help from people in prison. I once got to see a warehouse full of boxes and boxes of these letters from people claiming their innocence. But Driscoll's story stands out to Mike. And it stands out because of one thing. The interrogation. This is an outlier, really, in interrogations, I think. Mike mostly makes his arguments in courtrooms.

But he knows that public attention can make or break a case. He knows that other wrongful conviction lawyers have ways of contacting Kim Kardashian and Oprah. Mike has me. We just want the truth to come out. Right. There's no doubt in my mind what that is. These conversations with lawyers are always a bit of a dance. Maybe my job is maybe desensitized,

but I'm usually thinking, is there a compelling story here? Will people really care? And yet, as Mike gives me the details of Driscoll's case, I'll admit it, my jaw drops. So I start down the rabbit hole. I make a public information request and get a hold of the case files,

plus those police recordings we heard earlier. It's actually kind of overwhelming how much audio I receive. I get what sounds like every minute of Holland's interrogation of Driscoll. But there's no substitute for meeting the guy at the center of it all. So in the summer of 2021, I find myself driving about four hours east of Austin, to a prison in this part of Texas that we call the Piney Woods. The town is actually called Woodville, and the prison itself is surrounded by forests,

which I pass through on the drive. I'm just going to hit record so it's going. When I walk in, he's behind a thick pane of plexiglass, and he's holding one of those old telephone receivers. He's in his 50s, wearing a ratty white cotton prison uniform with his name written in fading black ink above his shirt pocket.

Larry Driscoll. How long did it take y'all to get down here? Six hours? Let me pause here to say that most people in prison are not manipulative psychopaths, as some movies might lead you to think. In my experience, most prisoners, when you sit face-to-face with them, will tell you the truth, or at least their version of it.

And so it does make an impression when Driscoll looks me in the eye and tells me that he didn't kill anybody. All I can think of is the man upstairs playing. And he knows I didn't do it, and he'll take care of this in his time. When I speak to Driscoll, he mentions God. A lot. I did a lot of talking to God. That's all I know to say about that. Beyond that, what strikes me is that he's chatty, and you can tell he's smiling, even behind the COVID face mask he's wearing. He has a lot of funny little phrases like,

can't complain, but gonna do it anyway. If you've seen that old TV show, King of the Hill, which is set in a small Texas town, this is the kind of thing one of the men might say as they drink beer on the lawn. But it sounds different coming from a man who has been locked up for six years for a crime he says he didn't commit. Someone like that, you would think, has plenty to complain about.

Driscoll tells me that back in 2015, he was living in Aledo, Texas, about a half hour west of the city of Fort Worth. The city has almost a million people. Aledo has around 5,000. It's in Parker County, which is very rural. Picture rolling hills that go on for miles, crisscrossed by rivers and highways,

and dotted with peach farms and horse ranches. At the time, Driscoll worked for the county. Because I was a licensed jailer in the state of Texas. The local jail would send out some of the men under arrest who they deemed safe to do road maintenance and other work. Driscoll was essentially their boss. He tells me

he had this reputation as a very hard worker. If you had one at Larry, you'd get rid of four of the guys you had because he ain't scared of work. What was an average week like for you before this all just sort of started up? Driscoll also had a job as a handyman at a local family's house, the Bradford straight from there and worked there until 6, 7 o'clock at night, unless it was summertime.

Summertime, sometimes it was even later than that when I got off work. Wow, so you were working 13, 14-hour weekdays. I used to do it six and seven days a week. When a county-owned barn burned down, Driscoll was put in charge of the reconstruction. And that's where he was the day he met Texas Ranger James Holland. The closest thing I've ever heard about Texas Rangers was Walker on TV, where Chuck Norris plays as a ranger, catching bad guys and doing all that other stuff. Holland might not be Chuck Norris, but he's still over six feet tall and cuts an imposing figure.

Pretty much straight away, he asks Driscoll if he can help him with his investigation. Driscoll agrees and gets into his truck. Holland asks if he knows the best route to the sheriff's office. I'm thinking that you run all these back roads, right? Yes, sir. What's the best way to get there? Just go straight? Go to the Parker County Sheriff's Office? Yeah. Take a left.

Take a left? Yes, sir. You know all the back roads then, don't you? Like anyone in this situation, Driscoll is curious to find out more. What kind of case is it? It's murder. Oh, shit. Yeah, Texas Ranger, man. We don't do larceny cases.

Right. Right? Listening back now, I can't help but feeling that this small talk that follows is more significant than it must have felt to Driscoll at the time. Now, you from here originally, or? I was born in Boise, Idaho. Driscoll tells Holland that his dad was in the military. When he was a baby, Driscoll's family moved to Puerto Rico

and then finally settled in Texas. As a kid, he loved sports. I played PB football. I played baseball. And then after that, I decided to go ride a few bulls in rodeo. Just a normal, everyday life in Texas. Driscoll's promising rodeo career was cut short. He met a girl. Well, the club that I met her at, matter of fact, we walked in and a buddy of mine that lived in

Weatherford, we went up to the bar to get us a beer or whatever, and I asked him. I said, do you know her? She was up by the pool tables. He said, yeah, she goes to school with me. I said, well, I want to meet her. And that's what happened. We started dancing, and that was it. We dated for like three months, and we were married. Most people don't work out, but mine lasted 30-something years. Wow.

And if this wouldn't have happened, I'd probably still be married. In the truck, Driscoll tells Holland about his son and daughter and two of his wife's nephews, who he raised. He's got grandkids now, too. They talk about his many jobs. He got a little bit of a military strut. Holland says he can tell Driscoll has been in the military. Larry replies.

23 years. I'm guessing it ain't the Coast Guard. No, Air Force. Yeah. Holland also tells Driscoll a bit about himself. He's known as an expert in closing cold cases. So I'm kind of interesting because in 20 plus years of being with the good old state of Texas, I don't have any unsolved crimes. Whether or not it's strictly true that Holland has a perfect record, it sounds impressive. After about 20 minutes, Holland and Driscoll arrive at the Parker County Sheriff's Office. They walk me into the Sheriff's Office through the back door and just sit down and talk to me in a little room for a little while. Driscoll sits across from Holland. It's a small room, just two chairs and a desk.

There are no windows, just a lot of fluorescent light. Holland takes his folder and produces a picture. You ever seen this girl? She don't look familiar to me, period. light. Holland takes his folder and produces a picture. It's a picture of a woman in her late 20s with a small face and dirty blonde hair. Holland asks a question that kind of comes out of left field. You ever mess with any prostitutes or anything like that? Nope. Ever? Never. You were in the Air Force for 23 years, never went off to Guam and had a good time or anything? Went to Guam twice, went to Hawaii twice, been to Japan three times in four years, but I've never been with a prostitute in my life. Driscoll repeats that no, he's never been with any kind of sex worker.

But Holland keeps pressing, implying that he knows Driscoll is holding something back. Would you be surprised if Arlington PD had you on a list of people that trolled prostitutes? He's suggesting that the local police department has Driscoll down as a person who drives around looking for sex workers. Sitting in prison years later, Driscoll told me this question didn't stick out or worry him at the time. But of course, looking back now, it's the first really clear sign that there is far

more going on in this conversation than Holland is letting on. They talk around in circles, much of it just chit-chat. If I were in Driscoll's shoes, I'd be starting to get frustrated here. Like, what is this about? Holland has this ability to keep the conversation going without quite getting to the point. He even acknowledges this. So there's a method to my madness. I'm not trying to drive you crazy or insult you or anything. It's just the way that things work. That's okay. Like I said, I'll try to help where I can. Holland keeps coming back to this place called East Lancaster Street, which may be connected to that woman in the photo. It's this major road near downtown Fort Worth. It's pretty well known for

sex work and drugs. Lots of little run-down motels. Will you ever meet any girls or pick up any girls over there in Fort Worth? No, sir. You ever swing by and some girl's hitting on you or something or throwing herself at you? No, sir. As far as I know of, I haven't ever given nobody a ride down there. Driscoll keeps saying that he has no memory of giving someone a ride on East Lancaster Street or meeting any sex workers. But at some point, Holland says, well, that can't be right because there is proof. He says the Fort Worth Police Department has recorded Driscoll's work van being on that street around the time that this woman went missing.

Would you be surprised if I told you that Fort Worth PD had run you one time and had you over in Lancaster Street around 2005? The recordings start to get a little repetitive. No, says Driscoll. No, I don't remember. I don't think so. But in between those answers, he's also starting to say, well, maybe. He's searching the back of his mind for something that would explain his license plate showing up in police records from East Lancaster Street. Eventually, he lands on something useful. He tells Holland that back then, his father had fallen on hard times and ended up staying for a while at a shelter in that part of Fort Worth. How often did you go down and visit your dad?

I might go down there once or twice, three times while he was down there, and that was it. Holland says, okay, now we're getting somewhere. Perhaps he did interact with this woman before she disappeared. Maybe he did see something that would help the investigation. When I listened to these tapes the first time, I noticed this moment where something shifts between these two men. At first, Holland is trying to butter up Driscoll. And Driscoll is wondering, where is this all going?

And maybe he's finally getting a little annoyed that they're talking in circles. I've never picked up anybody, prostitute or otherwise, that I know of in my mind. But gradually, this dynamic reverses. Driscoll starts trying to please Holland by producing memories that he thinks will be helpful, like that one about his dad. And it's Holland who now starts to sound frustrated with the vagueness of Driscoll's memory. What do you mean by that? You keep saying that it's in my mind. What does that mean?

In someone else's mind it could have happened? I've never heard that saying. In my mind? I don't remember off the top of my head being there or doing it, doing anything. Or doing what? Being there. Now, here's Holland detonating a small bomb. But one of the indications that someone's maybe not being completely honest is they say,

not that I can remember. Right. And what that is, that's an indication that, yes, but I don't want to talk about it. Okay. But you've got to be honest with us, because if you're not, then all of a sudden I'll start looking at you as maybe the person who did this crime. Maybe the person who did this. So the Texas Ranger, James Holland, implies that he might not believe Larry Driscoll.

That changes the tone of the conversation between these two men. They keep talking for several hours that afternoon. You can hear the tension starting to climb. We already heard Holland tell Driscoll that police tracked his license plate around East Lancaster Street back in 2005 and suggest that they have him on a list of people who see sex workers. But then he really turns up the pressure. He tells Driscoll that he was seen by eyewitnesses. Two of them that put you right off East Lancaster in your van

describe you to a T. Okay. Describe you to a T. Okay. And there's a girl who gets in your van for a little bit. But we have these two people that are definitively saying, this is you. At this point, Driscoll might be wondering, hey, wait, where is this going? When I hear it, I think, hey, maybe this is the point where you call a lawyer. Stop talking, Larry. But Driscoll just sounds confused.

How does Holland know it was him these people saw? That's when the ranger pulls out a sketch of a face and shows it to Driscoll. What do you think that looks like? Not me. Not at all? Mm-mm. Holland believes the sketch matches the man in front of him.

I've got that sketch. And it doesn't not look like Driscoll, but it's hardly a dead ringer. They're both white men, middle-aged, relatively skinny. The man in the sketch has a flat-top haircut and some wrinkles in his forehead. He's wearing glasses. That is not me. Holland has another picture he wants to show him. Not a sketch, a photograph.

So this is our dilemma. Okay. What the hell did somebody do to her? It's the same missing woman Holland had shown Driscoll earlier, but this photo was taken after her body was found. Kind of see where we're getting with this? Yeah. We think, based on the information that we've been given,

that we're very positive of, that you were the last person seen with this girl, and we think that you, sir, can solve this crime. Where before Holland was questioning Driscoll's memory gaps, now he's reassuring him. I think you're afraid that you're going to get caught up in this deal. I don't want you to be afraid. I want you to help me to get the son of a bitch that did this.

Right. Suddenly, Driscoll has another, clearer memory. The only thing I can maybe even think about, the only time I ever remember is at the Dollar General or Family General store on Lancaster Street, way the hell down. Right, yeah, I know where that is. That I might have pulled in there and dropped somebody out. But other than that, I don't remember anything. Okay, now we're getting somewhere.

They finish the interview on this positive note. Maybe Driscoll can remember something after all. And maybe that memory will help Holland solve the case. Before he leaves, Driscoll gives some DNA with a mouth swab and agrees to return the next day to continue talking to Holland. But the ranger makes one last request. He said, will you come in tomorrow and take a polygraph? I said, yeah. You know, he discussed some things about it and just kept asking me a bunch of

questions. Just kept telling me I'm a witness. I'm a witness. Hond reassures Larry that he expects him to pass the polygraph test in the morning and that will then rule him out as a suspect. I mean, what's my gut? My gut is you probably

ace this thing tomorrow and walk on down the road. Hopefully you can remember something to help us out. If not, then... If I can, I'll tell you when I get here.

But if I can't, I can't remember it. Get a good night's sleep. Relax. Take it easy. You've done these things before. I am. I'm going home

to drink a beer. There you go. Have one for me, too. Maybe two. And that's what Larry did. Went home, picked up my wife. We went to Railhead Barbecue.

I had a couple drinks. She had her little margaritas or whatever, and we ate barbecue and whatever, and then went home. We discussed a little bit, but not too much about anything. The Railhead Smokehouse Barbecue in Aledo is a community spot. I've been there. Picture a big patio with wooden tables topped with metal trays full of brisket and sausages. The sort of place you run into people you know. Families will stop in before the high school football game. There's country

music blasting from the speakers and sometimes even a live band. So that evening, Driscoll is eating with his wife and reflecting on this weird day. Leaving work with a Texas Ranger, going to the sheriff's office, learning about a murder that took place 10 years ago, racking his brain for memories. By his own account, he was calm eating dinner. In retrospect, it seems obvious that he should have been freaking out. I'm sure I would, at the very least, have called a lawyer by now. But again, that's easy for me to say looking back.

I have people like Mike Ware, the wrongful conviction lawyer, saved to my phone. But the way Driscoll tells it to me, he was still looking on the bright side. He's optimistic, deferential. He has no reason not to trust the police. I was just trying to help, but I just thought I was a witness. And I thought, I don't even know what you're talking about. Given how much of this story rests on the reliability of Driscoll's memory, it's notable to me that he does remember what restaurant he had dinner in that night,

and even what he and his wife had to drink. But I guess we'd all remember our last dinner in the free world. The morning after Larry Driscoll eats barbecue with his wife, he drives himself back to the Parker County Sheriff's Office. He's agreed to take a polygraph test on the understanding that it will show he's telling the truth about what he'd witnessed 10 years earlier. They hook a strap around your chest. Then they hook some things on your fingers

and you're supposed to sit there perfectly still. I had my legs folded back up underneath my chair and my foot was kind of cocked up at an angle. But you can't move because you're taking a polygraph test. Because if you move, that sets off all them stupid meters and everything. We're going to come back to this moment and hear what happens in the crucial minutes after the results of that polygraph test are revealed. And then we're going to hear the dramatic second day

of James Holland's interrogation of Larry Driscoll as it unfolds. Listen, I'm trying to help you. You learned in my life what you're trying to do, and I didn't do a damn thing. You know what? I'm trying to save your life. I need to understand how this high-stakes dance between Holland and Driscoll plays out to its shocking conclusion. I'm trying to save your life because if you don't paint this picture, Larry, then you're going to force us to paint it. I don't know of a picture to paint.

But first, we're going to look into the original police investigation of the murder, uncovering the chain of events that led James Holland to Larry Driscoll. You know, we've got something in common, me and you. He looks at me like, huh? I said, well, you didn't do it, did you? He said, well, no. I said, well, I didn't do it, right? No. I said, well, you take the goddamn charge. It all begins with the disappearance of a woman, Bobby Sue Hill. That's next time on Just Say You're Sorry. Smokescreen, Just Say You're Sorry, is a production of Something Else,

The Marshall Project, and Sony Music Entertainment. It's written and hosted by me, Maurice Shema. The senior producer is Tom Fuller. The producer is Georgia Mills. Peggy Sutton is the story editor. Dave Anderson is the executive producer and editor. And Chika Ayers is the development producer.

Akiba Solomon and I are the executive producers for The Marshall Project, where Susan Shira is editor-in-chief. The production manager is Ike Egbetola, and fact checking is by Natsumi Ajisaka. Graham Reynolds composed the original music, and Charlie Brandon King is the mixer and sound designer. The studio engineers are Josh Gibbs, Gulliver Lawrence Tickle, Jay Beal, and Teddy Riley, with additional recording by Ryan Katz. This series drew in part on my 2022 article for The Marshall Project, Anatomy of a Murder Confession. With thanks to Jez Nelson, Ruth Baldwin, and Susan Shira.