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#376 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Norfolk 4 · Wrongful Conviction

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Speaker 1: Hey there, Laura and I writ are here. This week
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Speaker 1: we're bringing you an update from the Commonwealth of Virginia.
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Speaker 1: In Season two of False Confessions, we explored the story
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Speaker 1: of the Norfolk four. This is a classic case of
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Speaker 1: false confessions in all the most horrible ways. It involves
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Speaker 1: tunnel vision and confirmation bias in the investigation police, lying
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Speaker 1: to suspect in the interrogation room, preying on suspects of vulnerabilities,
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Speaker 1: and ignoring forensic evidence. The list goes on and on.
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Speaker 1: It took twenty years for the truth to be acknowledged
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Speaker 1: by the Virginia legal system, and the story of this
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Speaker 1: miscarriage of justice became a rallying point for the entire
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Speaker 1: legal community, and in twenty twenty one, Virginia took action.
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Speaker 1: The state abolished the death penalty, making it the first
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Speaker 1: state in the South to do so. It was clear
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Speaker 1: cut cases of wrongful conviction like this one that finally
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Speaker 1: tip the balance away from injustice and toward righteousness. Welcome
1:09
Speaker 1: to wrongful conviction, false confessions.
1:11
Speaker 2: I'm Laura and I writer and I'm Steve Drisen.
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Speaker 1: Today's case feels like a recurring nightmare. We'll tell you
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Speaker 1: about not one but four US Navy sailors who falsely
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Speaker 1: confess to murdering another sailor's wife. They volunteered to fight
1:26
Speaker 1: for their country, but they ended up fighting for their
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Speaker 1: own freedom.
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Speaker 2: The Norfolk four is an iconic case because it is
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Speaker 2: one of the most colossal screw ups in the history
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Speaker 2: of American justice. I've never thought this case would go
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Speaker 2: to trial, but it did, and they were convicted, and
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Speaker 2: I was stunned.
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Speaker 1: When you think about these guys from all across the
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Speaker 1: United States who signed up to serve their country in
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Speaker 1: the military, and this is what they were handed. It's outrageous.
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Speaker 1: I mean, Steve, you've had family members in the military.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, My father served, and he enlisted less than six
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Speaker 2: months after his own brother was killed at Iwo Jima.
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Speaker 2: I grew up every Memorial Day we would gather by
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Speaker 2: my uncle's graveside and these men in uniform would fire
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Speaker 2: rifles into the air and I can still hear how
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Speaker 2: loud they were to like a seven year old kid.
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Speaker 2: The military was something that was respected in my household.
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Speaker 2: You know, the military is built on honor.
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Speaker 1: The truth is, every one of the Norfolk four was
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Speaker 1: there to serve his country and instead, their reputations and
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Speaker 1: their lives were dragged through the mud.
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Speaker 2: It's like a war zone at the end of this case,
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Speaker 2: with bodies strewn all over the place.
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Speaker 1: But nobody won.
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Speaker 2: That's right. Everybody was a casualty. It took twenty years
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Speaker 2: to right this wrong completely, and it never should have
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Speaker 2: happened in the first place.
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Speaker 1: Today's story starts at the US Naval Station in Norfolk, Virginia.
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Speaker 1: It's the world's largest naval base, the headquarters of the
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Speaker 1: Fleet Forces Command, and it all sits on a narrow
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Speaker 1: peninsula separating the Chesapeake Bay from the Atlantic Ocean. That's
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Speaker 1: where the USS Simpson docks at Peer five on July eighth,
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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven, after six days at sea. Among the
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Speaker 1: hundreds of sailors on board is Billy Bosco, a nineteen
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Speaker 1: year old signalman. As his ship maneuvers into place, Billy
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Speaker 1: is scanning the pier. He's hoping to find his eighteen
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Speaker 1: year old bride, Michelle, waiting for him. Billy and Michelle
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Speaker 1: were high school sweethearts from Pittsburgh who'd been married for
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Speaker 1: just three months. They'd met a few years earlier on
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Speaker 1: the school bus when Billy's eye was caught by Michelle's
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Speaker 1: red hair. He tried to impress her by saying, hey, Toots,
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Speaker 1: nice jacket, but it was her a quick response, my
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Speaker 1: name's Michelle, that impressed him. Pretty soon they became inseparable.
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Speaker 1: After graduating, Billy enlisted in the navy. Michelle followed him
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Speaker 1: to Norfolk, where they got married. But when Billy's ship
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Speaker 1: docks that day, there's no Michelle waiting for him. He
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Speaker 1: goes straight home to their tiny apartment off base. Michelle
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Speaker 1: usually kept the place spotlessly clean, but today is horribly different.
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Speaker 1: On the bedroom floor, Billy finds his wife dead, wearing
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Speaker 1: nothing but a black T shirt and surrounded by blood.
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Speaker 1: She's been raped, stabbed, and strangled. Billy searches for the phone,
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Speaker 1: but in his panic, he can't find it. Instead, he
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Speaker 1: runs next door to the apartment of another naval couple,
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Speaker 1: Daniel and Nicole Williams. Billy tells them his wife is dead,
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Speaker 1: and Daniel calls nine one one. The two men go
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Speaker 1: back to the scene, where they a blanket over Michelle's legs.
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Speaker 1: Police arrive just minutes later. There are no signs of
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Speaker 1: forced entry, so police theorized that Michelle knew her attacker
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Speaker 1: and had let him in. They asked Michelle's friends who
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Speaker 1: might have done this. No one has any ideas. The
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Speaker 1: police keep pressing, though, and one friend finally mentions the neighbor,
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Speaker 1: Daniel Williams. Daniel was a twenty five year old sailor
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Speaker 1: from Michigan who'd also just gotten married. But Daniel and
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Speaker 1: his wife, Nicole, had recently gotten some terrible news. They
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Speaker 1: had thought Nicole was expecting, but she wasn't pregnant after all. Instead,
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Speaker 1: she was dying of ovarian cancer. Daniel was grief stricken,
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Speaker 1: but the police had ideas of their own about how
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Speaker 1: he was handling it. They developed a theory that Daniel
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Speaker 1: had become interested in Michelle. It's only been an hour
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Speaker 1: and a half since Michelle's body was found, but police
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Speaker 1: are somehow already convinced they've got their man. With no
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Speaker 1: other leads, ask Daniel Williams to come down to the station.
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Speaker 1: They tell him it's normal to question anyone who'd been
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Speaker 1: involved in discovering a body, and Daniel finds himself alone
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Speaker 1: in an interrogation room, totally unprepared for what's about to happen.
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Speaker 3: This is the worst type of crime you can imagine
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Speaker 3: not only a murder, but a murder rape of a
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Speaker 3: young woman. And these are the kinds of cases that
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Speaker 3: really get the adrenaline of police departments up.
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Speaker 1: That's our friend Richard Leo, one of the globes leading
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Speaker 1: experts on false confessions. He's also co authored a book
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Speaker 1: about the Norfolk Four.
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Speaker 3: It's entrenched in the police culture that when you interrogate,
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Speaker 3: it's because your goal is to get a confession. We
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Speaker 3: all think an innocent person wouldn't falsely confess. So it's
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Speaker 3: a puzzle why would people do something that none of
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Speaker 3: us think we would do.
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Speaker 1: Some of you may remember our explanation of how false
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Speaker 1: confessions happen from last season. If you're new to this podcast,
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Speaker 1: you can check out our first episode or Steve and
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Speaker 1: I take a deep dive into the interrogation room. Here's
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Speaker 1: how it goes. For Daniel Williams, police accuse him of
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Speaker 1: raping and killing Michelle Bosco, and Daniel says he had
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Speaker 1: nothing to do with it. They ask him to take
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Speaker 1: a polygraph and he agrees. He wants to prove his innocence,
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Speaker 1: but police lie to Daniel. They tell him he failed
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Speaker 1: the polygraph when he really passed it. They say the
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Speaker 1: polygraph proves he's guilty.
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Speaker 3: Polygraphs, in any event, are highly unreliable. They're not scientific
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Speaker 3: what police pretend they are. You give a suspect polygraph,
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Speaker 3: you tell them the results indicate that they're lying, and
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Speaker 3: that the machine is scientific and error free. So it's
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Speaker 3: an effective interrogation technique in breaking down somebody's resistance and
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Speaker 3: denials because science has just proven beyond any doubt that
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Speaker 3: they are guilty.
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Speaker 1: Daniel's scared as hell. It's dawning on him that the
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Speaker 1: police will never believe he's innocent. They insist that Daniel
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Speaker 1: needs to admit he attacked Michelle. The interrogation goes on
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Speaker 1: overnight for eight hours, but Daniel won't say he did it. Now,
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Speaker 1: none of the interrogation was taped, so we don't have
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Speaker 1: a perfect record of what happened, but we do know
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Speaker 1: that by early morning Daniel still hadn't confessed. So police
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Speaker 1: bring in a closer, an interrogator who knows how to
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Speaker 1: get confessions, and according to Daniel, that's when things get
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Speaker 1: really rough.
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Speaker 2: So the detective who was the primary instigator in this
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Speaker 2: case was a man named Detective Ford, and Daniel Williams
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Speaker 2: was not equipped to deal with his high stress interrogation tactics.
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Speaker 1: According to Daniel, the detective suggests that he'd been attracted
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Speaker 1: to Michelle. Maybe he couldn't have sex with his dying
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Speaker 1: wife as much as he wanted to. Ford says, maybe
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Speaker 1: Daniel wanted an affair with Michelle and he went to
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Speaker 1: her apartment to get it.
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Speaker 2: Daniel went from the joy of finding someone to spend
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Speaker 2: the rest of his life with to knowing that his
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Speaker 2: wife was going to die painful, miserable death in all likelihood.
9:02
Speaker 2: In the middle of that, he's accused of sexually assaulting
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Speaker 2: and murdering his neighbor. Unbelievable.
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Speaker 1: The interrogation only gets worse from there. Daniels told the
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Speaker 1: evidence against him is rock solid. The death penalty is
9:20
Speaker 1: on the table, Ford tells him unless he cooperates with
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Speaker 1: police and confesses.
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Speaker 2: Daniel is essentially assaulted with threats of the death penalty,
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Speaker 2: lies about the evidence against him, screaming, shouting, breaking him down,
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Speaker 2: accusing him of being a liar, and after a long
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Speaker 2: period of time, Daniel agrees to a preconceived story that
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Speaker 2: was fed to him by Detective Ford.
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Speaker 1: That's when police finally turned on the tape recorder.
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Speaker 4: I got her in the back round and I forced
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Speaker 4: her to the floor. I forced her to have intercourse
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Speaker 4: with me. She resisted, and I hit her a couple
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Speaker 4: of times in my hand. I grabbed a flat, hard
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Speaker 4: shoe and I struck her with it once, and I
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Speaker 4: got up and I left.
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Speaker 1: Soon enough, though, police realized they've got a problem. While
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Speaker 1: they're recording Daniel's confession. The autopsy report comes back and
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Speaker 1: they learned Michelle hadn't been beaten with a shoe, she'd
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Speaker 1: actually been stabbed. So now police have to feed Daniel
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Speaker 1: a news story.
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Speaker 5: So you stabbed her box me three times?
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Speaker 4: That Greg, that is correct.
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Speaker 3: People look at these confessions and say, well, geez, you know,
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Speaker 3: they described the crime scene, they described the weapon. People
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Speaker 3: don't know that when an innocent person is broken down
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Speaker 3: and falsely confesses, the police fed them the crime facts,
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Speaker 3: and the person, after many hours, repeated that back.
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Speaker 1: By seven o'clock the next morning, Daniel Williams has become
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Speaker 1: a confessed killer. He's arrested and calls his mom right
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Speaker 1: away from jail to recant his confession, but it's too late.
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Speaker 1: Daniel is charged with capital murder, meaning the death penalty
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Speaker 1: is on the table and the Norfolk Police close the case.
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Speaker 1: The case stayed closed for all of four months. That's
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Speaker 1: when results came back from a DNA test on the
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Speaker 1: seamen found on Michelle's body. It was a single mail
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Speaker 1: profile that didn't belong to Daniel Williams.
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Speaker 2: Game over. This is the kind of evidence that exonerates defendants.
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Speaker 2: All of the.
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Speaker 1: Time, Dan should have been on his way home.
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Speaker 2: He and his wife should have been able to spend
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Speaker 2: her remaining days together.
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Speaker 1: His confession was false, the DNA proved, but the police
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Speaker 1: refuse to let go of their belief in Daniel's guilt. Instead,
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Speaker 1: they developed a new theory. Another man must have been
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Speaker 1: there too, and before long they picked out a second suspect.
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Speaker 5: This episode is sponsored by AIG, a leading global insurance company,
12:25
Speaker 5: and Paul Weiss Rifkin, Wharton and Garrison, a leading international
12:29
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12:38
Speaker 5: most in need, and recently they announced that working to
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Speaker 5: reform the criminal justice system will become a key pillar
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Speaker 5: of the program's mission. Paul Weiss has long had an
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Speaker 5: unwavering commitment to providing impactful, pro bono legal assistance to
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Speaker 5: the most vulnerable members of our society and in support
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Speaker 5: of the public interest, including extensive work in the criminal
12:58
Speaker 5: justice area.
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Speaker 1: Joe Dick was twenty one, a Navy sailor who rented
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Speaker 1: a room from Daniel and Nicole Williams. Joe had grown
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Speaker 1: up in Baltimore with major intellectual disabilities that made him
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Speaker 1: think more like a child. Joe was eager to please
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Speaker 1: and very easy to intimidate. As a high schooler, he
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Speaker 1: worked at his church mowing the lawn until one day
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Speaker 1: when the mower clawed, Joe reached inside and the blade
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Speaker 1: cut off a couple of his fingers. After that, whenever
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Speaker 1: his high school shop teachers told him to use machinery
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Speaker 1: that he didn't understand, Joe would hide until class was over. Unfortunately,
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Speaker 1: Joe couldn't hide from Detective Ford. Six months after Michelle's death,
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Speaker 1: naval security turns Joe over for interrogation. Detective Ford accuses
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Speaker 1: Joe of helping Daniel kill Michelle Bosco. Now Joe is
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Speaker 1: really confused because he remembers being on in his ship
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Speaker 1: the night Michelle was killed. But again Ford administers a
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Speaker 1: polygraph and says Joe failed. Ford shows Joe a picture
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Speaker 1: of Michelle lying dead on the floor and says he'll
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Speaker 1: get the death penalty unless he admits helping Daniel killer.
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Speaker 1: It's pretty clear there's only one story Ford will accept.
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Speaker 3: Innocent suspects come to see their situation as hopeless, that
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Speaker 3: there's no way out other than to give the interrogator
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Speaker 3: what they want, and the interrogator is offering them a
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Speaker 3: way out by suggesting they can go home, or they'll
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Speaker 3: mitigate their damage, or or they can just put an
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Speaker 3: end to the interrogation. Most people don't know police are
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Speaker 3: trained in these manipulative techniques. And of course, if the
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Speaker 3: police have the right person, that's a good thing as
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Speaker 3: long as they follow the law. But sometimes they get
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Speaker 3: the wrong person.
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Speaker 1: Soon enough, Detective Ford turns on the recorder and Joe
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Speaker 1: Dick confesses to helping Daniel rape and murder Michelle Bosco.
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Speaker 1: At least he does the best he can.
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Speaker 6: Why did you two take it upon yourselves to rape
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Speaker 6: and murder this woman?
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Speaker 4: Don't know?
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Speaker 6: Didn't you describe the knife? All I can say about
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Speaker 6: the knife is it looked like a normal kitchen knife
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Speaker 6: that you would use for Nader song, Charlotte.
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Speaker 3: Yes, Joe Dick is slow and low functioning and highly suggestible,
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Speaker 3: and these are personality traits that make somebody more vulnerable
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Speaker 3: to making false confessions. And so it took less time
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Speaker 3: to break Joe Dick than it took to break the others.
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Speaker 2: Joe Dick was even less equipped to deal with the
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Speaker 2: interrogation tactics of Detective Ford. He was a follower in
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Speaker 2: the truest sense of the word, and Detective Ford took
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Speaker 2: advantage of that.
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Speaker 1: On this confession. Joe is charged with capital murder as
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Speaker 1: Daniel's co defendant. The police were sure that this time
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Speaker 1: they'd closed the case. Then within weeks, Joe's DNA is
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Speaker 1: compared to the semen from the crime scene. Turns out
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Speaker 1: the DNA doesn't belong to him either. Neither Joe Dick
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Speaker 1: nor Daniel Williams could have been the attacker. But instead
16:21
Speaker 1: of looking outside their circle of suspects, police decide to
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Speaker 1: expand it. They insist that Daniel and Joe must still
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Speaker 1: be guilty, but now they decide a third man must
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Speaker 1: have been involved too.
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Speaker 2: You know, when faced with compelling evidence of innocence, compelling
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Speaker 2: evidence that your theory is wrong. You should be examining
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Speaker 2: the theory, not trying to reinterpret facts to create a
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Speaker 2: new theory which accommodates the DNA evidence. We see this
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Speaker 2: over and over again. When prosecutions start changing their theories
16:57
Speaker 2: in midstream, you have to be very concerned and an
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Speaker 2: injustice is about to happen.
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Speaker 1: By this point, two injustices had already happened, and more
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Speaker 1: were still to come. Joe's lawyer told him that his
17:12
Speaker 1: best hope of escaping the electric chair would be if
17:15
Speaker 1: he identified one more perpetrator. Pretty soon, Joe came up
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Speaker 1: with a third name, Eric Wilson, and on April eighth,
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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight, Eric became the next domino waiting to fall.
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Speaker 1: Eric Wilson was a twenty one year old naval recruit
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Speaker 1: from Texas. He was an eagle scout, the kind of
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Speaker 1: guy who'd walk girls home from parties when their dates
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Speaker 1: got too drunk. On April eighth, Detective Ford starts interrogating
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Speaker 1: Eric Wilson once again. Ford administers a polygraph and tells
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Speaker 1: Eric he flunked it, just like with Joe. Ford slaps
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Speaker 1: a picture of Michelle's dead body on the table. And
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Speaker 1: says he can prove Eric helped Daniel and Joe commit
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Speaker 1: the crime. It was all bullshit. Eric barely even knew
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Speaker 1: Daniel or Joe. But after hours in the interrogation room,
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Speaker 1: Eric starts to doubt his own memory. Maybe he really
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Speaker 1: was lying and didn't realize it.
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Speaker 3: People come to doubt themselves and their memories or beliefs
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Speaker 3: in interrogations. It's a high pressure game of deception, manipulation,
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Speaker 3: persuasion to get people who deny committing a crime to
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Speaker 3: confess to committing it.
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Speaker 1: Eventually, Eric agrees to the cop story. Detective Ford turns
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Speaker 1: on the recorder and Eric repeats what he's been told
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Speaker 1: that he, Joe and Daniel raped Michelle, but he says
18:33
Speaker 1: he left before the stabbing started.
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Speaker 7: I grabbed Michelle by either the shoulders or the upper arm.
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Speaker 2: I can't remember exactly. I didn't know what to do.
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Speaker 2: I was real confused.
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Speaker 8: Well, Dan ended up raping her, and.
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Speaker 2: LEVI went in next and I start.
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Speaker 1: And soon enough Eric Wilson is charged as capital defendant
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Speaker 1: number three.
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Speaker 3: He said that the interrogation was so coercive that he
19:10
Speaker 3: would have said anything if they had told him that
19:13
Speaker 3: he needed to confess to the killing of John F. Kennedy.
19:15
Speaker 3: He would have said he handed Oswald the gun. He
19:18
Speaker 3: would have said anything just to get out of there
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Speaker 3: at the end of many, many hours that broke him down.
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Speaker 1: But again, weeks pass, the DNA is tested, and yet
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Speaker 1: again it's not a match. By mid June, police are
19:31
Speaker 1: looking for a fourth man.
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Speaker 2: Oh for three. This is bad enough for Joe Dick
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Speaker 2: and Dan Williams and Eric Wilson. Imagine what it's like
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Speaker 2: for Billy Bosco. The worst possible nightmare you can imagine.
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Speaker 2: But it only gets worse because please keep telling him,
19:49
Speaker 2: it's not just one person that raped and killed your wife,
19:52
Speaker 2: it's two and then three. She's being violated over and
19:57
Speaker 2: over again. He has to relive the trial every time.
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Speaker 2: The police bring in somebody else to this story, and
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Speaker 2: it's all a lie.
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Speaker 1: To find their fourth man, police go back to Joe Dick.
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Speaker 1: After a lot more questioning, Joe offers another name, George Clark.
20:16
Speaker 1: Now police have no idea who George Clark might be,
20:20
Speaker 1: or if this person even exists, so they bring Joe
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Speaker 1: an old Navy yearbook. Joe flips through it and points
20:27
Speaker 1: to a picture of a former sailor named Derek Tice. Yeah,
20:31
Speaker 1: Joe says, that looks like him. Derek Tye was born
20:37
Speaker 1: in North Carolina, a Southerner who called his elders sir
20:40
Speaker 1: and ma'am. Derek was really smart, but he had a
20:43
Speaker 1: learning disability and never did well in school. He scraped
20:46
Speaker 1: through graduation and enlisted in the Navy to get trained
20:49
Speaker 1: as a paramedic. But now it's Derek Tye's turn to
20:53
Speaker 1: be questioned by Detective Ford. When Derek says he knows
20:56
Speaker 1: nothing about Michelle Bosco's murder, Ford falsely tells Derek that
21:01
Speaker 1: physical evidence had already proven him guilty.
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Speaker 3: Police routinely pretend to have evidence they don't have, state
21:07
Speaker 3: that there is evidence that doesn't exist. That's an acceptable
21:11
Speaker 3: technique in American policing. In the American legal system, unlike
21:15
Speaker 3: in other legal systems.
21:17
Speaker 1: Ford follows the same playbook that he used on the
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Speaker 1: other three. He administers a polygraph and tells Derek he
21:22
Speaker 1: failed it again. Ford threatens Derek with the death penalty
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Speaker 1: unless he confesses. After nearly twelve hours of this, Derek
21:30
Speaker 1: agrees to confess. Just like the others on tape, He
21:34
Speaker 1: repeats the story that Ford tells him that he committed
21:37
Speaker 1: the rape and murder along with Daniel, Joe and Eric.
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Speaker 1: This story is enough for Derek to become the fourth
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Speaker 1: man charged with the attack on Michelle Bosco.
21:46
Speaker 2: Why did you all agree to go with him? I
21:50
Speaker 2: agree because of pil pleasure.
21:54
Speaker 4: I can't say why the others did.
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Speaker 2: I believe it is for the same ways.
22:00
Speaker 1: Probably guess what I'm about to tell you next. The
22:02
Speaker 1: DNA is tested yet again and it doesn't belong to
22:05
Speaker 1: Derek either.
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Speaker 2: This is false confession number four. Laura. I know you
22:10
Speaker 2: don't know much about baseball.
22:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I do know that no one gets a
22:14
Speaker 1: fourth strike.
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Speaker 2: You don't get a fourth strike in baseball, and you
22:18
Speaker 2: don't get a fourth strike in law enforcement. It's time
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Speaker 2: to call this game. It's time to end this charade.
22:27
Speaker 1: All four sailors have been proven innocent by DNA, but
22:30
Speaker 1: prosecutors ignore the evidence and move forward with cases against
22:34
Speaker 1: all of them. Daniel Williams, Joe Dick, Eric Wilson, and
22:39
Speaker 1: Derek Tice become known as the Norfolk Four. As prosecutors
22:55
Speaker 1: got ready to try the Norfolk Four, the case took
22:57
Speaker 1: a serious twist. On February twenty second, nineteen ninety nine,
23:01
Speaker 1: a prison inmate named Omar Ballard sent a letter to
23:05
Speaker 1: his friend. In it, Ballard mentioned Michelle Bosco's murder and wrote,
23:10
Speaker 1: guess who did that me? Omar Ballard was in prison
23:16
Speaker 1: for raping a fourteen year old girl and for beating
23:20
Speaker 1: up one of Michelle Bosco's female neighbors a few weeks
23:23
Speaker 1: before Michelle died. In fact, right after he'd committed the assault,
23:27
Speaker 1: Ballard had been chased through the apartment complex by an
23:30
Speaker 1: angry crowd eager to exact revenge. To protect him from
23:34
Speaker 1: the mob, Michelle let Ballard hide in her and Billy's
23:37
Speaker 1: apartment until things calmed down. Two weeks later, Michelle was
23:41
Speaker 1: killed in that same apartment by someone she knew. Police
23:48
Speaker 1: brought Ballard in from prison for questioning. This time, it
23:52
Speaker 1: didn't take a polygraph to get a confession. Ballard admitted
23:55
Speaker 1: to raping and stabbing Michelle Bosco, and he insisted that
23:59
Speaker 1: he acted alone. Most importantly, police finally had their DNA
24:04
Speaker 1: match the semen at the crime scene belonged to Omar Ballard.
24:10
Speaker 6: No, no, I guess something, just taking my head and
24:12
Speaker 6: I went to the kitchen and got a knife, went
24:15
Speaker 6: back to the room, she was getting ab off the bid,
24:18
Speaker 6: or she was already above the big when I stabbed
24:21
Speaker 6: in the chairs one time, and when she got on
24:23
Speaker 6: the floor, I think I said about two or three
24:26
Speaker 6: more times. I'm not quite sure was anybody with you
24:28
Speaker 6: during this defense?
24:30
Speaker 2: No police officers were handed the true perpetrator on a
24:36
Speaker 2: silver platter. The wake up call was hand delivered to
24:39
Speaker 2: them literally. Omar Ballard confessed to this crime and then
24:45
Speaker 2: DNA matched him before trial.
24:48
Speaker 1: Walk away, but prosecutors wouldn't walk away. Instead, they offered
24:53
Speaker 1: Joe Dick a plea deal if he testified that everyone
24:57
Speaker 1: else had been there along with Ballard. For Joe, the
25:00
Speaker 1: death penalty would be off the table. It worked. Joe
25:04
Speaker 1: Dick pled guilty and agreed to testify against the others
25:07
Speaker 1: as he'd been told. In short order, Derek Tice was
25:10
Speaker 1: convicted of murder and Eric Wilson was convicted of rape.
25:14
Speaker 1: As for Daniel Williams, he'd pled guilty to both rape
25:17
Speaker 1: and murder only a few weeks before Ballard's letter turned up. Daniel, Joe,
25:23
Speaker 1: and Derek all received life in prison. Eric Wilson was
25:27
Speaker 1: sentenced to eight and a half years for rape.
25:29
Speaker 3: There was just something almost Twilight Zone like about this case.
25:34
Speaker 3: You had four people in prison for a rape and murder.
25:38
Speaker 3: The DNA evidence did not link to any of them,
25:41
Speaker 3: and it linked to somebody else who had a history
25:44
Speaker 3: of violent crime and rape, and he admitted that he
25:48
Speaker 3: did it.
25:48
Speaker 1: At his own trial in two thousand, Omar Ballard pled
25:51
Speaker 1: guilty to killing Michelle Bosco, but the prosecution also made
25:55
Speaker 1: a deal with him in exchange for a sentence of
25:58
Speaker 1: life rather than death. Ballard told the court that the
26:01
Speaker 1: Norfolk four had participated in the attack. It was the
26:05
Speaker 1: only time he implicated any of them. Back in prison,
26:11
Speaker 1: Ballard returned to his original story over and over. He
26:15
Speaker 1: insisted that he was the sole perpetrator. That was enough
26:19
Speaker 1: for several large law firms to start reinvestigating the Norfolk
26:22
Speaker 1: Forest convictions. In September two thousand and five, Eric Wilson
26:26
Speaker 1: was paroled after serving his full sentence, and in two
26:29
Speaker 1: thousand and nine, Virginia Governor Tim Kaine granted a conditional
26:33
Speaker 1: pardon to Derek, Daniel and Joe based on the weakness
26:37
Speaker 1: of the case against them. So all of the Norfolk
26:39
Speaker 1: four were out of prison, but they were still living
26:42
Speaker 1: as convicted murderers and sex offenders, they still had to
26:46
Speaker 1: win exoneration. Derek Tice was the first to be granted
26:50
Speaker 1: a new trial in two thousand and nine. His lawyers
26:53
Speaker 1: found evidence that he had tried to ask for a
26:55
Speaker 1: lawyer during questioning, but he wasn't given one in violation
26:58
Speaker 1: of his Miranda rights. Before Derek could be retried, two
27:02
Speaker 1: more bombshells dropped. First, a PBS Frontline episode about the
27:07
Speaker 1: Norfolk Four aired in twenty ten, featuring none other than
27:10
Speaker 1: Omar Ballard. During an interview from behind barr as, Ballard
27:14
Speaker 1: insisted he had acted alone. The second bombshell had to
27:18
Speaker 1: do with Detective Ford. In twenty ten, a federal jury
27:22
Speaker 1: convicted Ford of extortion. He'd gotten criminal defendants to pay
27:26
Speaker 1: him to say they deserved shorter sentences because they'd given
27:29
Speaker 1: valuable information. Ford was sentenced to more than twelve years
27:33
Speaker 1: in prison. That was enough to convince prosecutors not to
27:37
Speaker 1: retry Derek Tice, and he became the first of the
27:40
Speaker 1: Norfolk Four to win exoneration. In twenty sixteen, a federal
27:45
Speaker 1: court held a hearing to determine whether Daniel Williams and
27:48
Speaker 1: Joe Dick were innocent too. At that hearing, Joe's commanding
27:52
Speaker 1: officer testified that Joe had been on duty the night
27:55
Speaker 1: of Michelle Bosco's death and couldn't have killed her. It
27:59
Speaker 1: was testimony that it never came out before because Joe
28:01
Speaker 1: had been persuaded to plead guilty. In light of this
28:06
Speaker 1: evidence and everything else that didn't make sense, the judge
28:09
Speaker 1: granted Daniel and Joe new trials too. By any measure,
28:13
Speaker 1: the judge wrote, the evidence shows their innocence. No sane
28:18
Speaker 1: human being could find them guilty. The prosecution took the hint.
28:23
Speaker 1: On December fifteenth, twenty sixteen, they decided not to retry
28:27
Speaker 1: Daniel or Joe either. The only one left was Eric Wilson.
28:32
Speaker 1: Eric's turn came just a few months later. On March
28:35
Speaker 1: twenty first, twenty seventeen, Governor Terry mccaliffe granted absolute pardons
28:40
Speaker 1: to each of the four men, removing all doubt. Finally,
28:45
Speaker 1: after twenty years of hell, the Norfolk Four were exonerated.
28:51
Speaker 3: Counterintuitively, the Norfolk four are lucky. They spent many years
28:56
Speaker 3: in prison based on false confessions to crimes they didn't commit,
29:00
Speaker 3: but there was DNA in their case and they got
29:03
Speaker 3: out These are all earnest, honest, down to earth individuals
29:08
Speaker 3: who serve their country well, whose wrongful convictions took the
29:12
Speaker 3: best years of their lives for almost two decades before
29:15
Speaker 3: they were exonerated.
29:18
Speaker 1: The Norfolk Force survived a battle they should never have
29:20
Speaker 1: had to fight, and now they're rebuilding their lives.
29:27
Speaker 3: Hello.
29:28
Speaker 1: Dan, this is Laura and Steve. How are you.
29:30
Speaker 2: It's so nice to finally get a chance to talk
29:33
Speaker 2: to you dad, and thank you.
29:34
Speaker 1: Are you living in Michigan? Are you living in Virginia?
29:37
Speaker 7: I'm currently living in Michigan now.
29:39
Speaker 1: And what keeps you busy these days?
29:41
Speaker 7: After my incarceration? After I got home, I went to
29:46
Speaker 7: Baker College of Luasso and got my associate's degree and
29:50
Speaker 7: applied science for welding.
29:52
Speaker 2: Wonderful? Have you been able to stay working?
29:56
Speaker 7: I have not stopped working yet.
29:58
Speaker 2: That is phenomenal.
29:59
Speaker 1: Let's see, you're a Michigan guy. Are you born and
30:01
Speaker 1: raised in Michigan?
30:02
Speaker 3: Yes?
30:03
Speaker 2: Okay?
30:03
Speaker 1: What kind of fishing you like to do? What do
30:04
Speaker 1: you go fishing for?
30:05
Speaker 7: Usually panfish and bass?
30:08
Speaker 1: Yep, lakes or streams?
30:09
Speaker 2: Usually lakes.
30:11
Speaker 4: Did you ever cook the fish you catch?
30:12
Speaker 5: Dan?
30:14
Speaker 7: All the time? Cooking is something that I do enjoy. Also,
30:18
Speaker 7: since getting out, I have been cooking at our local
30:24
Speaker 7: BFW in Alasso Sunday.
30:26
Speaker 1: Breakfast, pancake breakfast, that kind of thing.
30:29
Speaker 3: Everything.
30:30
Speaker 7: Yeah, pancakes, French toast, eggs, to order, omelets, breakfast burrito.
30:36
Speaker 2: You're grill mad.
30:38
Speaker 1: Yes, And you're at the VFW, so you're there with
30:40
Speaker 1: other guys who are in the service. Yes, it's nice
30:43
Speaker 1: to be with guys with that same experience.
30:46
Speaker 7: I usually just live life one day at a time
30:50
Speaker 7: right now and staying positive.
30:53
Speaker 1: One day at a time is pretty good these days.
30:56
Speaker 8: It sounds like to me, the idea that it took
31:04
Speaker 8: so long to right these wrongs is just hard to fathom.
31:10
Speaker 2: You know, we claim we care about those in the military,
31:14
Speaker 2: we care about our vets, and what was done to
31:18
Speaker 2: these men is just beyond the pale.
31:21
Speaker 1: Too often it's a fight to exonerate, even people who
31:24
Speaker 1: are obviously innocent. But it's a fight that's got to
31:27
Speaker 1: be one. That's our life's work, freeing false confessors and
31:31
Speaker 1: sharing their stories with you. For Dan, Joe, Eric and Derek,
31:36
Speaker 1: that's the least we can do. Thank you for serving
31:39
Speaker 1: our country and for letting your stories serve in the
31:42
Speaker 1: fight against wrongful convictions. Wrongful Conviction False Confessions is a
31:49
Speaker 1: production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal
31:53
Speaker 1: Company Number one Special thanks to our executive producers Jason
31:57
Speaker 1: Flamm and Kevin Wardis. Production team is headed by Senior
32:01
Speaker 1: producer and Pope, along with producers Joshi Hammer and Jess Shane.
32:05
Speaker 1: Our show is mixed by Genie Montalvo. John Colbert is
32:09
Speaker 1: our intrepid intern. Our music was composed by Jay Ralph.
32:13
Speaker 1: You can follow me on Instagram or Twitter at Laura
32:16
Speaker 1: and I Wrider, and you.
32:17
Speaker 2: Can follow me on Twitter at Sdrizzen.
32:20
Speaker 1: For more information on the show, visit Wrongful Conviction podcast
32:24
Speaker 1: dot com. Be sure to follow the show on Instagram
32:27
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and
32:32
Speaker 1: on Twitter at wrong Conviction