The Binge Cases: Denise Didn't Come Home - Just Say You’re Sorry | 4. Memory, Taste and Odor

Episode Date: May 22, 2023

Driskill is in jail ahead of a potential court case when an informant comes forward with information that seems to blow a hole in his claims of innocence. Meanwhile James Holland moves on to his next case. It’s a story with eerie similarities to Driskill’s. Another veteran, Christopher Ax, is being investigated for the murder of a woman. But this time, things turn out very differently for Holland, and the first cracks start to appear in his legend. Driskill is desperate for help and writes a hail-Mary letter to the Innocence Project of Texas. 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. Before we start, a warning that this episode contains descriptions of suicide and violence.

Please take care as you listen. Coming up this time on Just Say You're Sorry. I mean, they were everything to me ever since I was a kid. And it wasn't from anything I saw on TV. It was just, to me, they symbolized and epitomized Texas. If y'all gonna screw me, let's just make this as easy as possible. Let's say five years and let's be done with this. He said they won't do that.

Larry Driscoll is sitting in his living room in Weatherford, Texas. He has just confessed to murder after spending the last two days being interrogated by Texas Ranger James Holland. But the Ranger didn't arrest him in the interrogation room. He said Driscoll could go home and tell his wife first. He made himself a drink and settled in for a conversation that's hard to imagine. Telling a loved one, hey, I confess to a murder.

But before he can really start, the deputies arrive and handcuff him and put him in the car. There's a whole bunch of cop cars, trucks, and all that other with red lights on. And the guy that was cuffing me said, I know you from hauling hay. Don't think you're going to outrun me or try to bully me or beat me up because I'm bigger than you are. I didn't try to fight nobody, anyone. I just did what they told me to do. Deputies drive Driscoll right back to the sheriff's office

and book him into the Parker County Jail. He's given one of those classic black-and-white striped uniforms to wear. They put me in a cell by myself. It's big enough to hold 20 or 30 people in there. But they put me in there by myself because of my job. Because I was a licensed jailer for the state of Texas. Because Driscoll previously held a position of power over other men in the jail, the authorities think he could be a position of power over other men in the jail, the authorities think he could

be a target of violence, which means he is essentially kept in solitary confinement. I think what might have helped me through it was being military because being a reservist, you're on two-week duties. So you learn from your military training and everything else too that I can do this. But this wasn't a two-week army tour. In fact, two years go by as Driscoll starts talking to his lawyer, occasionally attends court,

and basically waits to see if his case will go to trial. Every day is pretty much the same, until Driscoll starts being allowed to mix with other men in the jail. I got where I was going out with the other guys, playing handball, but it's awful weird this day. Out on the yard, this day, in April 2017, he meets a man. We aren't going to tell you his real name name as we don't want to risk his safety, so we'll call him John.

He was arrested for stealing a lawnmower and then fleeing to Oklahoma to avoid the police. I'm walking around, and he looks at me, and I nod my head. I talked to him for a couple minutes, and all I told him was, I didn't do it. This is Driscoll's story, but John, he claims that their conversation went very differently. He requested a meeting with the authorities. Let's go around here real quick.

Your attorney, he's in the back of jail right now. Do you have any water or anything? No, I'm good. Okay. This is from a video I got of that meeting. John wastes no time launching into the story of what happened when he talked to Larry Driscoll out on the rec yard. Larry has a bad habit of discussing his case. So we went to rec and we were sitting there talking and he actually told me that he did do it

and that the DA don't have enough evidence against him to convict him. Okay. What particulars did he tell you about his case? He said it was in his truck. He did it over $20. And the reason he did it is because he thought she was robbing him.

Okay. Do you know who she is? No, it was some prostitute. Some prostitute? Yes. This is basically the story in Driscoll's confession. Sex worker tries to rob him. He fights back and kills her. He told me that he strangled her to death because he thought she was going to rob him

because he heard that her boyfriend and her had a history of robbing them after they were getting done doing the job. John then offers to get more details from Driscoll. I'm sure I can get more from him. That wouldn't be a problem. But the investigator says no. That would effectively make him an agent of the state, which they're not willing to do. John is released back to the jail.

And then, pretty quickly, Driscoll hears about what happened. Driscoll denies ever confessing to John. He's back out on the rec yard one day, and guess who he meets again. After they showed me the video, they put him back over on our wing like a week later. And he come out on the rec yard and was talking to me. He said, Mr. Driscoll. He said, I didn't say nothing. I said, stop right there.

I said, I've seen the video. I've seen everything that you did and said. I said, so leave it alone right there. People in prison and jail don't like snitches. I had some guys that said, we'll take care of him. Driscoll told me he received a warning from the jailers. If anyone goes after John, we'll blame you. Snitches get stitches.

You see people come out of prison with gas cars from here to here, and that's because they snitched. At this point, Driscoll has more than just this guy's fate to worry about. He's been in jail for more than two years, facing trial for a murder he still swears he didn't commit. But if the case does go to trial, the jury will hear that he confessed to Texas Ranger James Holland.

And then the informant might testify too, and say that Driscoll admitted guilt again in jail. How do you defend yourself when the other side says you confess not once but twice? The prosecutors also know this is the state of play, and that a first-degree murder conviction in Texas can lead to decades in prison, if not a life sentence. Driscoll is in his 50s. But instead, the prosecutors offer a deal.

He can take a sentence of just 15 years. He'd get out before his 70th birthday. All he has to do is plead guilty. I didn't really understand why all this was happening. And to this day, I still ask God every day, why didn't you allow this? You know I didn't do it. From Something Else, The Marshall Project, and Sony Music Entertainment,

I'm Maurice Shama. This is Smokescreen. Just say you're sorry. Episode 4. Memory, Taste, and Odor. When I got this video of the jailhouse informant, it did throw me. Now there were two accounts of Driscoll confessing to this murder. Was Holland right to use those interrogation tactics after all?

It made me want to look at the bigger picture. Not just of Driscoll's case, but of Holland's track record. Was this an outlier? Or were there other people in Driscoll's situation? I made a list of Holland's track record. Was this an outlier? Or were there other people in Driscoll's situation? I made a list of Holland's old cases. I wrote to the people in prison. Some didn't contest their guilt. One even praised Holland as a perfectionist. As you might imagine, some did say they were innocent, but they didn't have proof. And it quickly became clear that sussing out the truth in each case

would be a major undertaking, if not impossible. Which maybe I should have realized because, well, look how much work Driscoll's case was to unpack. All in all, I found five cases where Holland lied during the interrogation, and a similar number with minimizing talk of self-defense or accidents. There were a few with hypothetical, how-would-you-have-done-it type language. But one case, frankly, makes all of the rest seem pretty tame. The case of Christopher Axe. Holland spoke to Axe on and off for weeks, and Axe was really good at describing to me what it was

like to be on the other side of the Rangers tactics. So now we're going to take a detour into his story to show just how much Driscoll was not alone. Pretty soon after Driscoll's arrest, in early 2015, Holland travels north to Gainesville, Texas, a tiny town near the Oklahoma border. The sheriff's office there has reopened the murder of a young woman named Shebaniah Doherty. People called her by her middle name, Sarah. In 1997, she was 20 years old, working at a video rental store. She didn't come home after a night shift. Her body was discovered in a wooded area near an abandoned barn.

Holland studies the case file. He learns that Sarah was known as quiet and religious, not especially social. He reads about the leads they pursued back in 1997. They even hypnotized a witness back then. There was a suspect during that original investigation, but detectives never found enough evidence to arrest him. Then he died in a car accident.

So now, 18 years later, Holland dives in. He starts looking into other people who knew Sarah, who were considered suspicious for whatever reason. He brings in the same forensic artist from the Driscoll case to work with a witness and produce a sketch. They age the face in the image, just like in the Driscoll case. But, and maybe this isn't surprising, it goes nowhere. There's no pawn shop owner calling in to say he knows a guy.

At one point, Holland is interviewing Sarah's sister, and she says, Sarah had a crush on this guy named Chris Axe. Then she says, Axe left town right after the murder, but now he's back. Holland drives over to where Axe is working. What do y'all do here? You know what Walmart distribution is? Yep. We're kind of the same thing, only for electrical and plumbing supplies.

I gotcha. Axe says he knows this is about Sarah, and he freely admits he left town in the wake of her murder because he felt harassed as a suspect. He climbs into Holland's vehicle. Hey, so tell me, I guess, what you know about Sarah. Let me think back. Axe says we were friends. We knew each other's families.

Remember, this is a small town where everyone knows everyone. Well, I knew the family for, well, my family's known that family for as long as I can remember. Yeah. And not just that. They'd gone on a date once. And Mom tried to set me up with Sarah one time, and we went out on a date, and it was good, but it was, there was nothing there. It was just friendship only kind

of thing. Axe agrees to have a longer conversation at the sheriff's office. You know, I look at this as murders go and it sounds stupid. And I know you don't know anything about the crime scene, but in a way, I don't even see this as a murder. I see it more as an accident. Axe is in his 30s, and much like Larry Driscoll, he's a military veteran, now working blue-collar jobs in rural Texas. He had joined the Army as a teenager. He thought it would be a stepping stone to his real goal, to become a cop. And not just any kind of cop. Do you want to be a truther? Do you want to be a ranger?

Actually, I wanted to be a ranger. When I spoke to Axe myself, he told me that growing up, he actually idolized the Texas Rangers. I mean, they were everything to me, ever since I was a kid. And it wasn't from anything I saw on TV. It was just, to me, they symbolized and epitomized Texas. And Texas was the best state. I mean, it's the only state that could be its own country and easily survive. And they epitomized Texas to me.

They pretty much ran the show. Axe tells Holland that in 1997, around the time of Sarah Doherty's disappearance, he was living with a roommate a few blocks from the video store where Sarah worked. Because they were friends, he used to drop by while she was working. When did you start checking on her up at work? Maybe a month prior. A month prior to Sarah's disappearance.

Okay. Because I went to rent a movie from there, and I'd never been in there before, but I lived close to it, and I was like, I want a movie. So I walked in, sure enough, she was working, and after that, at least every other day, I'd try to stop in and say hi. Holland says he wants to talk about the night Sarah went missing. He asks whether Axe checked on her that night. It was a Friday in March.

Axe told me he was never really sure that he saw her on the exact night she disappeared. But he tells Holland that he did drive by and saw the store was closed, which was unusual. Holland asks Axe to rewind and go through his day leading up to that moment in detail. I started the day the way I always start my day. I wake up, I get dressed, and I get in the car and go get a Dr. Pepper. Okay.

That's been the same since I had a car. Holland pushes him for more details beyond this daily run to get Dr. Pepper. But Axe can't remember much. Again, this was 18 years ago. Out of nowhere, Holland drops one of his bombs. He reveals to Axe that he went and spoke to his roommate, the one he was living with around the time of the murder. This is true. And apparently the roommate's story is that Axe did go and get a movie from the store and had pizza the night Sarah disappeared. He says that you left the house at nine o'clock, that you went up there, got movie and pizza, and that you were back at, you know, like 10, 30 or 11. Axe denies getting a movie and isn't sure if he had pizza.

But there really was a pizza box found in Sarah's car after her death. So Holland doesn't let it go. But we know that she ordered pizza earlier that night. She did? Yeah, Domino's. And we know that we know how much of the pizza was eaten.

How stupid that sounds because she ate it with someone else and then she was saving the rest of it. was eaten. How stupid that sounds. Appreciate it was someone else, and then she was saving the rest of it. I don't eat Domino's. If I'd have gotten pizza, it would have been from Pizza Hut. I'm not sure about you, but I don't find this whole I prefer Pizza Hut to Domino's defense especially compelling. I know I've had pizza with her, but I don't believe it was that day. And I think it's only happened once.

And it was just a fluke accident where I happened to get pizza and saw her working. Holland asks whether Sarah had ever been to his house. No, not to my knowledge. If she had, I wasn't there. All right. You keep saying things that are indicative of deception. You're killing me. You keep, to the best of my knowledge, as far as I can remember.

It's a military thing. When we can't remember something, we always say, to the best of my knowledge. And to the best of my knowledge, no, I never saw her that night. As in, I don't remember seeing her at all. You can hear how Holland is beginning to sound exasperated with acts, just like he was with Larry Driscoll. Holland then goes to one of his favorite places, the land of hypotheticals. Remember how he asked Driscoll, how would you have committed murder?

Now he spins out a hypothetical narrative for Axe, drawing on the fact that he went on one date with Sarah, and she had a crush on him. What if it went further? I could see a scenario where you hook up and start going to first base, right? And everything's going good and all the signs are there and it's two thumbs up and all of a sudden, you know, kind of psychotic dad religious thing flips in and this girl just freaks out and goes nuts. Well, considering the most I've ever done is maybe give her a light kiss.

And when I say light, I mean not even as in I like you as a girlfriend. No offense to me, that scenario is completely crazy. Now, could it have happened with somebody else? Yeah, maybe. But not with me. Holland says he believes him, but he needs to clear him. He says he wants Axe to help him find the real killer. Did you kill her?

No. I believe you, all right? Let me just say that, okay? But I need to clear you, all right? Which probably would be good. Would you agree? I mean, would that, okay, Texas Ranger, you didn't kill anyone, right? No. Okay. So that would be good. Would you agree? I mean, would that... Okay, Texas Ranger. You didn't kill anyone, right?

No. Okay. So that would feel good. No civilians. Well, but the second point of this would be, how good would it make you feel to get some bitch who did it? Define how good would it make me feel to get him. I'm going to get him, but leading me to the Holy Grail and giving me the information that I need to get there.

That would be good. And that's where they leave off. I want to prove definitively that you didn't do this. Whatever I can do to help. To recap this first interview, Holland has left Axe room to believe he's not really a suspect. But he's also started to mount the pressure through little revelations. He has used the tactic known as minimization, pushing Axe towards a story where the victim's death wasn't really his fault.

And then there's the whole hypothetical if you did it line of questions. The parallels with Larry Driscoll are plain to see. But where Driscoll had just one night before it all got really serious, Axe goes back to his daily life. But he stays in contact with Holland over the next five weeks. And the texts came in and the calls were coming in. He was hounding me day and night while I was at work, when I was off work. In the beginning, I wanted to help and I was going to do everything I could to help.

Axe says he even went to Holland's own office in a different town on three separate occasions for interviews. And then every time I went to his office, he would always accuse me of doing it. What would he say? I know you killed her. I mean, straight out. Just tell me. Confess. It'll make you feel better.

I said, I'm not going to confess to something I didn't do. And he would call me while I was at work. And I would say, I am at work. I cannot talk to you right now. Well, you need to quit your job. I'm more important right now. His exact words. The way you say it almost makes him sound out of context, like an abusive partner or something. Thank you for being the one to say that because that is something I have never said, but it is 100% accurate. Holland also starts to lie, telling Axe his DNA was found on the victim's socks

and shoes. Then, later on, he gaslights Axe, telling him, I never said that. In a way, Holland is playing good cop and bad cop. He's demanding and intense, but also chummy and persuasive. Because eventually, Axe says he does remember eating pizza with Sarah, the victim, at the movie store, then going to his house to hang out.

He still can't say, after 18 years, whether this happened on the day she disappeared. But over the course of the conversations, that distinction evaporates. Holland asks him to take a polygraph. she disappeared. But over the course of the conversations, that distinction evaporates. Holland asks him to take a polygraph. Axe is talking to a lawyer on the side who says, don't do it. But he does anyway. This takes place in

late May of 2015, more than a month after Axe first met Holland. After the polygraph, Axe is told that he's failed. I still don't believe I failed that son of a bitch. If I did, it had to be a medical fucking reason. This recording you're hearing takes place around 9 p.m. Then there are five hours of intense back and forth.

Questions, speculation, frustration on both sides. Finally, Axe relents and tells Holland that it's possible he accidentally choked Sarah. But Axe later follows up by saying that may just be, quote, the vivid imagination of a tired mind. It's past 2 a.m. at this point. He also says, quote, if I am responsible for her death, I'll never forgive myself. This all turns out to be enough to justify an arrest warrant. A few days later, Axe is at work. I went inside and I didn't even get a chance to get a drink out of my drink. and I had armed men, probably 40 of them, it felt like 40, it could have been 10, walking into that room, grabbing me, slamming me into the counter, saying, you're under arrest for the murderous error.

After Chris Axe is arrested, he stays up pretty much all night with James Holland. The recording of their exchange, which I got from the Cook County District Attorney's Office, is more than eight hours long. The parallels with Larry Driscoll are fascinating, but so is Holland's perseverance. Axe really puts up a fight. James Holland with the Texas Rangers. June 4, 2015. Time is 4.24 p.m. Interviewing Christopher Andrew Axe.

Even though Axe failed the polygraph and has been arrested, he's still maintaining that he doesn't remember any of this. He doesn't remember killing Sarah. I don't want to put someone in prison for the rest of their life. I don't want someone to look at the death penalty when I know that this is self-defense. Before, Holland had said maybe it was an accident. Now he tries a theory of self-defense. It's about an hour into the interview, and Axe already sounds pretty hopeless.

No matter how you splash it, no matter how you want to make it look good, the bottom line is, my record that I have worked my entire life to keep clean is fucked. And then we get another Holland classic. You may recall this one from the last episode, The Grand Canyon. I told you before, the other day, you're kind of like on the edge of the Grand Canyon, right? And you jump off. But you have to understand

that once you jump, you jump. Okay? You've jumped. Okay? And... I didn't jump, I got pushed. Despite Holland's best efforts, Axe just isn't remembering. And then Axe does something shocking, at least to me. He suggests they visit the place where Sarah's body was found.

I need to see where it happened, because one of two things is going to happen. Either I'm going to firmly tell you I didn't fucking do it when we get there, because there's places I've been and places I haven't been since I've never heard of a detective taking a suspect to a crime scene before a confession. Talk about the risk of contaminating memories. They drive over. It's the middle of the night as they trek through the woods. They reach the abandoned barn. Axe says the walls look familiar. A story emerges very slowly, bit by bit, sort of a co-production of Holland's and Axe's late night brains.

Please skip ahead around a minute if you don't want to hear talk of suicide. In this story, Sarah made a sexual advance towards Axe. He rejected her. And then, and it's a huge leap, she hanged herself. Axe tells Holland that he has this hazy memory of discovering her and of cutting the rope. I know somehow suicide came up, and I remember just sitting on the step inside the building. And again, I was so freaking tired.

And I said, I don't know why, but I could see somebody just swinging right there, like they had hung themselves. And I think it was the fact that I was so exhausted, I was thinking back to the military. When I met Axe, he told me that during his time in the military, he was traumatized by a similar incident. One of his friends, a fellow soldier, did hang himself, and Axe discovered the aftermath. Yeah, him hanging himself, that did a number. I think it did a number on all of us, though. Axe told me he wondered if the police interrogation revived this stress, contributing to the blur between memory and invention.

Larry Driscoll actually said something similar about his own trauma from an incident in the military. Some psychologists have told me that past trauma might raise the risk of a false confession. Most of what we know comes from stories of kids and women who experienced domestic violence. But it doesn't feel random that both Axe and Driscoll had these traumatic episodes in the military before they confessed to Holland. Axe and Holland return to the sheriff's office, and over an hour goes by with them exploring the possibility of Sarah taking her own life.

And things become even weirder. They order pizza. Honestly, I was thinking about Domino's pizza because I'm hungry. Maybe since you ate Domino's pizza that night, that will help you. Huh? The one thing I do remember. Memory and taste and odor. Man, I'm telling you. He's saying, let's eat the same kind of pizza as you did the night of your friend's death. Maybe that will jog your memory. In the Driscoll case, he had asked a witness to concentrate on the five senses in his memories, hoping to unlock something new.

That's not really controversial. It's part of a technique called the cognitive interview, the same one that Holland used on Michael Harden in episode two. And it makes some sense. Who doesn't have memories awakened by smells and tastes? But I've never heard of a detective actually using the physical item to revive the sensory experience, literally. Eventually, the pizza arrives. Yeah.

Oh. Yeah, I thought Domino's had that 10-minute deal with the loo ring. Yeah, 30 minutes or a train. Oh, man. Thank you. Do you had that 10-minute deal delivered. Yeah, 30 minutes or a trade. Oh, man. Thank you. Do you want some? We got a second. Oh, you probably got pizza, didn't you?

Lucky. Axe is in here rolling over. So now Holland tells Axe to focus on the flavor of the pizza. We're nearly five hours into the interrogation at this point. It's late into the night. One, I'm trying to remember. Two, I'm glad you like this pizza. It's helping you though. I'm here for you. I'm here for you. I'm brothering stuff right now, man. They didn't cut it like this back then though. It's brothering stuff right now. I'm helping you to remember. Face that crust.

Smell it. About an hour later, they start discussing a green rope found in Sarah's car. That's when Axe responds in a way he can't control. He throws up. The next few things we cover are hard to listen to, but I think it's important in order to understand the state that Chris acts as in when he starts to cooperate. Dude, you all right? Not 100%, no. Want some water? I know that throw-up doesn't taste good in the mouth. I can think of other examples where someone who committed murder

has a similar bodily response to being confronted about it. So I can see how this would really make Holland think Axe is guilty. When I interviewed Axe, he told me he had just been sick, but he also recalls feeling really hopeless. Axe is so hopeless that now he sounds suicidal. He asks Holland to shoot him. All kidding aside, I really do wish

you would just fucking shoot me. I'm not even bullshitting when I say that. You're not gonna do it, man. I wish you would. I'm not that person. I'm not the kind of person that kills somebody,

but I'm in jail for it. At a certain point, you're so resigned that you ask him, like, to shoot you, or you just say, like, this would be easier if you just shoot me now, right? Do you remember that? Oh, yeah, I remember that. I wanted it done. I wanted to be away from him, and I thought that was probably the only way I was getting rid of him.

I see. I mean, to be completely honest. It's in this really vulnerable state, late into the night, when Axe starts to accept Holland's scenarios. Holland starts to revise the story about Sarah Doherty

hanging herself. Instead, he says, well, maybe the rope was around her neck because you put it there. Maybe she attacked you and you defended yourself. But, I mean, if she comes at you with that thing and starts trying to raft around your neck and you push it off and it ends up around hers, you know?

Yeah, I would have pushed her hard at that point. It would have been, you know, fight or flight. Get the fuck out. Well, I mean, is this the ultimate self-defense where she's trying to kill you? I hate saying it, but it wouldn't surprise me. Holland asks for a more specific

memory. Do you remember that rope coming up underneath you? Remember? No, but it's... Feel it? Can you feel it? Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah, no. But the thing is, everything happened so fucking fast.

Everything I did would have been pure reaction. I mean, pure reaction. And the sole intent would have been getting her the fuck off. Not killing her, not ending her life, not hurting her, just getting her off. This is the end of an eight-hour interview.

Axe is clearly broken. I knew there was a point when no matter what I did, he wasn't going away. So Axe remains in jail. There are moments where, just like Driscoll, he wonders, did I really kill someone and not remember it? What does that say about me? But at other moments in jail, Axe gets his bearings and thinks,

no, I am innocent. I didn't kill anyone. This Texas Ranger just manipulated me into admitting things that are not true. At this point, Axe is in the same situation as Larry Driscoll. Do I plead out and minimize my losses with a lighter prison sentence? Or do I fight this out in a trial? Axe has been charged with capital murder, meaning he could face the death penalty, or at the very least, spend the rest of his life in prison. And to win, he somehow got to convince the jury that he didn't do it, even though he confessed.

But there is a difference. In Driscoll's case, evidence from the crime scene is either not tested for DNA, or the samples are too poor to provide usable results. We'll get into that in the next episode. In Axe's case, there are still DNA results pending. Chris Axe spends more than three years in jail, waiting for his case to be investigated further and a trial date to be set. He doesn't plead guilty.

He plans to fight to the end. He has to wait as prosecutors and defense lawyers are making plans to duke it out in court. Finally, the trial is set for the fall of 2018. But then, the DNA test comes back. It shows that the DNA on Sarah's clothes matches the original suspect in the case, who had died in a car accident. Not Chris Axe. This is a bombshell. Axe learns that this test was so damaging to the prosecution's case that they are dropping the capital murder charge. He's a free man. The DA puts out a press release. It says, quote,

To this day, the prosecutors in his case maintain the DNA test doesn't ultimately prove Axe's innocence. There was room for error. It's just that they couldn't justify continuing to pursue the case against him. Axe, of course, continues to maintain his innocence, and it's true there's no meaningful evidence against him, except for his late-night confession to Holland. But that's not the end of his story. He told me that many people in his town are still convinced he's guilty and got away with it.

This makes it hard to get a job, to land an apartment, to meet people, to date. When we spoke at his mother's house, he repeatedly mentioned the fact that several of his relatives died while he was in jail, thinking he was a murderer. And he has some really choice words for James Holland. He says Holland lied on the witness stand during a court hearing, saying he didn't know Axe had a lawyer. We don't have the records to prove or disprove that. He was a moron. I'm dead serious when I say that. It takes a certain kind of stupid to focus on just one person instead of looking at facts. And that's all he was doing. I see. And I'm sorry, I'm not going to pull punches when it comes to this guy. I refuse. How he became a Texas Ranger is beyond me, because that just shows me the bar level has been dropped so low for him to have gotten that far.

Larry Driscoll never says things like that. Axe is angry. And at one point that anger was pointed, it felt like, towards me. After I first interviewed Axe, I wrote about his case and what Holland did. Afterwards, I went back and asked him, can I bring a microphone to your house and do an interview for this podcast? Initially, he refused. He said that in my article, I made Holland sound too good.

He said he felt betrayed. Which is a matter of opinion. I don't know if I could ever satisfy him on that front. But more importantly, he said my article hadn't really done anything for him. He thought maybe a lawyer would see it and help him sue Holland. But that never happened. It was sort of like, you got your story, but I'm still here. My life is still here.

My life is still hard. He said he wasn't sure he wanted to talk again. In a way, it was sort of a relief. I came away from both the Larry Driscoll and the Chris Axe interviews feeling conflicted about asking these guys to revisit moments of trauma in such depth. When Axe got angry with me, it was like, finally, this is sort of what I've been waiting for. Someone to call me out for picking at their psychological wounds. Axe saw himself as a victim, reasonably enough. He hadn't been assaulted, and he hadn't lost a loved one to murder, but he'd been traumatized.

The things I'd felt approaching the family of Bobby Sue Hill, the victim in Driscoll's case, returned. Was I just using him for a good story, and what did I owe him in exchange? I don't have answers to those questions. I'm still wrestling with them. So now, back to Driscoll, who, as of 2017, is still in jail. No DNA is coming back to free him. That jailhouse informant has made the prosecution's case against him even stronger. What Driscoll does have is a lawyer. He's an old seasoned defender named Jack Strickland. And what was your first interaction, first conversations with,

what was it, Jack Strickland at the beginning? What played out? Oh, Lord. He said, I'm your court-appointed attorney. And he said something about, you didn't do this and whatever. But I only seen him two or three times in six months. To recap Driscoll's situation, he has a choice to make. He can plead guilty. That would get him a limited prison term. Or he could go to trial. If he wins, he's free. It's all over.

But if he loses, he gets a really severe sentence, maybe life in prison. And Driscoll starts to feel like his lawyer is pushing him to take the deal, to forego a trial and just take prison time. He was pushing us into it. For a defense lawyer, not going to trial is easier. And the prosecutors know that. That's why they make it worthwhile to take the deal, offering a lighter sentence than they would demand in a trial. More than 90% of felony convictions across the U.S. end up with one of these deals.

At the same time, Driscoll's lawyer, Jack Strickland, does put up a fight. In June 2017, Driscoll is taken from the jail to a courtroom for a pretrial hearing. It's a chance for both sides to clash over what evidence will be allowed into the actual trial. I have the transcript. Strickland, the defender, says, the whole interrogation that led to Driscoll's confession is full of stuff that violated his constitutional rights.

The confession should be thrown out. In order to resolve this, the judge invites up to the witness stand, you guessed it, Texas Ranger James Holland. Strickland questions him about the fact that there are some big gaps in the recordings. It's hard to know what would be in those gaps, given how intense the recorded parts are. But it's possible Holland did something like flat-out refuse to get Driscoll a lawyer,

and that casts a questionable light on the whole thing. Holland says the various recording devices malfunctioned. He denies ever refusing Driscoll a lawyer, and says, technically, Driscoll didn't really ask for one. In the recording, remember Driscoll just kept asking whether he should call a lawyer. It wasn't clear-cut. Do I need to call an attorney or what? After Holland leaves the stand, Strickland says to the judge and the prosecution, look,

sure, Driscoll didn't ask for a lawyer directly, but look at the full circumstances. Driscoll thought at first he was just a witness to the crime, and Holland told him if he implicated himself, you know, dug into his memory and said, yeah, I was there, it would help him. Strickland says Holland's approach prevented Driscoll from, quote, knowing his true status as a suspect.

So no, he didn't ask for a lawyer, but he didn't know he needed to because Holland lied to him. The prosecutor responds, well, lying is legal, which is true. And he says Holland never shouted at Driscoll, never berated him. He was calm and professional the whole time. He played by the rules. The hearing ends. The judge now gets to decide. Afterwards, Driscoll considers the deal that's on the table. When he first told me what they were offering, I told him, they come up with

15 years. I said, no, if y'all gonna screw me, let's just make this as easy as possible. Let's say five years and let's be done with this. He said, they won't do that. Who said that? Jack Strickland. I said, okay, let's say 10 years. If y'all gonna screw me, let's make this as easy as possible. I need to be clear here. What Driscoll was being offered wasn't a deal to plead guilty. It was actually what they call a no-contest plea. Well, he said that some counties won't allow a no-contest. Some counties will say, you either have to say guilty or not guilty. He said, but Parker County will let you say no-contest.

A plea of no-contest is unusual. It's basically a strange middle ground where the defendant says, I'm not guilty, but I acknowledge the prosecution has a strong enough case against me that I'll accept a deal. And the prosecution says, fine, maintain your innocence, but take the prison sentence. So Driscoll has this meeting with his lawyer and his family members. Jack Strickland was in the front corner. My wife was sitting down. My mom was behind my wife, and my stepdad was next to her, behind the attorney. And he said, this is the best thing to do, because if not, they're going to go after the life.

And you'll have to pull a minimum of 30 years in prison. Feeling out of options, Driscoll takes the deal of no contest. 15 years in prison. Strickland's perspective on all this is quite different. We spoke for an hour over the phone. He's adamant that he did as well as he could have done for Driscoll under the circumstances. 15 years for first-degree murder is pretty light by Texas standards. And Strickland argues that if they had gone to trial, then Driscoll, with all his uncertainty and his inconsistent memories, would not have gone over well with the jury. For what it's worth, I get it. Driscoll does

come across as unsure. He's bad at describing his memories. On the other hand, who among us is that good at sounding certain about events 10 years in the past? Overall, considering the challenges he faced, Strickland says, this plea deal of no contest was a great outcome. In fact, he called it a near miracle. But it doesn't feel that way to Driscoll. I trusted the legal system, and I won't ever do that again. Because the two sides have struck a deal, there is no trial. There's just another court hearing to put it on the record.

Bobby Sue Hill's family is in the courtroom watching, and they're given the opportunity to make a statement. Her oldest daughter says, quote, my mom's short life enriched the lives of so many people. She'll be loved and missed forever. Driscoll goes from the county jail to the Texas prison system. Eventually, he's transferred to a facility in a small remote town, Woodville, Texas, hundreds of miles from his wife and his mom.

He and his wife start heading to divorce, but his mom, Linda, is driving hundreds of miles regularly to go see him. We had a guy come in and started the veterans program in there. The prison has a program for military veterans, and it's during one of their meetings that somebody suggests Driscoll write a letter about his case and send it to the Innocence Project of Texas. Then all of a sudden, next thing you know, I get a phone call about a visit. I didn't have one lawyer show up.

I had four lawyers show up. It's actually two lawyers and two of their students. During their first meeting, Mike Ware says to Driscoll... One more question I got to ask you. I said, what's that? He said, you more worried about the money or your name being cleared? All I want right now is my name cleared. Everything else will come to fruition.

I just want my name cleared. Everything else will come to fruition. I just want my name cleared. And that's what Driscoll is going to try to do. Clear his name. Next time on Just Say You're Sorry. I was sort of starry-eyed for the, you know, American hero, the cowboy, and also, here's my white knight, right? We follow James Holland to Hollywood for the case that would make him famous.

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.