Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #582 Guest Host Conor Hall with Brian Pippitt

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#582 Guest Host Conor Hall with Brian Pippitt · Wrongful Conviction

0:04
Speaker 1: Hello again. It's Connor Hall, the senior producer for Wrongful
0:07
Speaker 1: Conviction with another update and more behind the scenes insights.
0:11
Speaker 1: And today we're talking about Brian Pippott, an episode that
0:15
Speaker 1: I had the privilege of hosting. And that's not why
0:19
Speaker 1: we're listening to this today, that's just a coincidence. There's
0:23
Speaker 1: an actual update to be had. Now, this case came
0:26
Speaker 1: to me from another innocent man's advocate. If you remember
0:29
Speaker 1: John Juca, his mother Doreen, she is the total badass
0:33
Speaker 1: that is known as Mother Justice. She had sent me
0:36
Speaker 1: an article and introduced me to the journalist who wrote it,
0:40
Speaker 1: a guy named Ted Ham, and it was all about,
0:42
Speaker 1: you know, Brian's case and how Minnesota's Conviction Review Unit
0:46
Speaker 1: under Attorney General Keith Ellison had done a two year
0:49
Speaker 1: investigation and they concluded that Brian was factually innocent. But
0:54
Speaker 1: the local district attorney in Aiken County, a guy named
0:58
Speaker 1: James Rats can't make that shit it up, had welched
1:01
Speaker 1: on his agreement to go along with the CRU's ruling.
1:04
Speaker 1: So the media started getting involved, including us. Now, this
1:08
Speaker 1: was all in the late summer fall of twenty twenty four,
1:11
Speaker 1: when Minnesota Governor Tim Waltz was running for vice president,
1:15
Speaker 1: which likely made his team and maybe the entire team,
1:18
Speaker 1: wary of weighing in on anything that could be controversial,
1:22
Speaker 1: like dispensing justice. In Brian's case shouldn't be controversial anyway. Now,
1:27
Speaker 1: had they won that election, Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan, who's
1:31
Speaker 1: half Ojibwe, same tribe as Brian, she would have become governor,
1:36
Speaker 1: and who knows, maybe she'd take an interest. But that's
1:38
Speaker 1: not how the cookie crumbled. So after the election, Brian's
1:42
Speaker 1: team filed for clemency with the Waltz admin and in
1:45
Speaker 1: April twenty twenty five, Minnesota's Clemency Review Commission, on the
1:49
Speaker 1: basis of Brian's credible evidence of innocence, voted six to
1:53
Speaker 1: one in favor of commutation to time served. Next step
1:57
Speaker 1: was a hearing with the Pardon Board, which has three members,
2:00
Speaker 1: the Governor, the Attorney General, and the Chief Justice of
2:03
Speaker 1: the Minnesota Supreme Court. Now we already knew that Keith
2:06
Speaker 1: Ellison was convinced of Brian's innocence, so this came down
2:09
Speaker 1: to the Chief Justice and Tim Waltz. Now, after years
2:14
Speaker 1: of watching Jason at work, the guy is a master advocate.
2:18
Speaker 1: I mean, he basically took all the skills from his
2:20
Speaker 1: actual profession advocating for artists, and he uses those skills
2:26
Speaker 1: for the innocent. It's amazing to watch, like, I mean,
2:29
Speaker 1: even being around him. He's like this like vortex of
2:32
Speaker 1: like connections in this world. And I am not that.
2:36
Speaker 1: But it made me think, you know, what could I?
2:39
Speaker 1: What could little old me do?
2:40
Speaker 2: Right?
2:41
Speaker 1: So I started thinking about how I could reach either
2:44
Speaker 1: one of them, the Chief Justice or Tim Waltz. Right,
2:47
Speaker 1: who the hell am I? Anyway? We had just covered
2:50
Speaker 1: Leonard Peltier, whose advocate Holly Maccaro was very effective, and
2:55
Speaker 1: she is also ojaboy like Brian and the Lieutenant Governor.
3:00
Speaker 1: Funny enough, Holly had just taken a consulting job with
3:03
Speaker 1: Peggy flannagainst senatorial campaign. That primary is August eleventh, twenty
3:08
Speaker 1: twenty six. But I digress. So I sent Holly the
3:11
Speaker 1: podcast and filled her in on everything and begged her
3:14
Speaker 1: to speak with Peggy, who maybe she could convince to
3:18
Speaker 1: lobby Governor Waltz on Brian's behalf, or maybe even Holly,
3:21
Speaker 1: could you know, cross paths with him and corner him
3:24
Speaker 1: and give him the elevator pitch. Now, I'm not sure
3:28
Speaker 1: what she was able to do, what effect any of
3:30
Speaker 1: this had. But on September twenty fourth, twenty twenty five,
3:34
Speaker 1: the Pardon Board held a hearing and Governor Waltz chose
3:37
Speaker 1: to commute brian sentence. Now, the Clemency Reviewed Commission's recommendation
3:42
Speaker 1: was time served, but Governor Waltz, who had reelection on
3:46
Speaker 1: his mind, well, he chose to just make him parole eligible.
3:50
Speaker 1: It's a shame how electoral politics can cause so much
3:54
Speaker 1: caution and compromise when it comes to justice, probably because us,
4:00
Speaker 1: you know, the enemies of justice are so happy to
4:03
Speaker 1: manipulate low information voters. But I digress again. At this hearing,
4:07
Speaker 1: Waltz made a comment that I'm going to paraphrase. It's
4:11
Speaker 1: something like, moments ago, mister Pippott was serving a life sentence.
4:15
Speaker 1: Now he'll be home by the new year. Interesting that
4:18
Speaker 1: he was so confident in what the Parole Board was
4:20
Speaker 1: still yet to do that December, and then Brian was
4:23
Speaker 1: finally released on January eighth, twenty twenty six. Around that time,
4:28
Speaker 1: Minnesota was really going through it and still is. The
4:32
Speaker 1: current DOJ has made misleading and racially charged allegations about
4:38
Speaker 1: childcare fraud schemes while withholding federal funding. And I guess
4:42
Speaker 1: we'll find out how much water any of these cases hold.
4:46
Speaker 1: But it's been so disruptive that Tim Waltz dropped out
4:49
Speaker 1: of the governor's race. And perhaps even more consequential, the
4:53
Speaker 1: same DOJ has refused to renew the federal grant that
4:56
Speaker 1: helped fund Minnesota's Conviction Review Unit. Attorney General Keith Ellison
5:01
Speaker 1: had to shut it down. There is no more Minnesota
5:06
Speaker 1: Conviction Review Unit. Luckily, Keith Allison was able to reunite
5:10
Speaker 1: Brian Pippot with his family and his tribe, while so
5:14
Speaker 1: many more will just continue to face an even steeper
5:18
Speaker 1: uphill battle. On February twenty fourth, nineteen ninety eight, eighty
5:25
Speaker 1: four year old Minnesotan Evelyn Mallin was discovered in her
5:29
Speaker 1: ransacked bedroom, strangled and beaten to death. Her small apartment
5:35
Speaker 1: was attached to her convenience store, but the store was undisturbed,
5:39
Speaker 1: including any signs of forced entry. There was a broken
5:42
Speaker 1: basement window, but it appeared to have been broken from
5:45
Speaker 1: the inside out. Yet, instead of focusing on personal or
5:50
Speaker 1: business relations with access to keys, the investigation targeted an
5:54
Speaker 1: Indigenous man named Brian Pippott and four of his male relatives,
6:00
Speaker 1: despite no evidence connecting them to the scene, credible alibis,
6:04
Speaker 1: and an equally incredible theory of guilt. One of them
6:08
Speaker 1: made a statement. Two more pled. One was acquitted, but
6:13
Speaker 1: Brian wasn't so lucky. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back
6:28
Speaker 1: to wrongful conviction, where we have a story about a
6:31
Speaker 1: group of indigenous men about an hour's drive north of
6:35
Speaker 1: Minneapolis Saint Paul, the Malas Band of Vojabwee to be exact,
6:40
Speaker 1: but the theory of their involvement in the murder was
6:42
Speaker 1: so lazy and full of holes that authorities must have
6:47
Speaker 1: known it was also full of something else. And joining
6:51
Speaker 1: us to tell his story, still in a Minnesota prison
6:55
Speaker 1: is Brian Pippott. Welcome. Brian helped tell this story an
7:01
Speaker 1: attorney and investigator from probably the original innocence organization in
7:06
Speaker 1: this country, Centurion Ministries Jim Cousins Welcome, well, thank you,
7:12
Speaker 1: And before we even begin with Brian's personal history, I'd
7:15
Speaker 1: like to recognize the history of the Malax Band of Ojibwe,
7:19
Speaker 1: as well as their relations throughout the area, whose roots
7:23
Speaker 1: are on the East Coast. But as Europeans began their
7:26
Speaker 1: continental conquest about five hundred years ago, the Ojibwe were
7:31
Speaker 1: forced into a nomadic lifestyle. They eventually allied themselves with
7:36
Speaker 1: the French in the Seven Years War, a relationship evidenced
7:40
Speaker 1: even by the name Malaks It's French for a Thousand Lakes,
7:44
Speaker 1: a reference to the Great Lakes area in which the
7:46
Speaker 1: Ojibwe eventually settled a little over two hundred years ago
7:50
Speaker 1: and where they were later recognized by the US government
7:52
Speaker 1: as a sovereign nation. Spread among various reservations, some of
7:57
Speaker 1: which were in Aiken County, Minnesota.
8:00
Speaker 3: Well, Aikin County includes the town or city of Acn itself,
8:04
Speaker 3: and about twenty miles from there is a town called McGregor.
8:08
Speaker 3: That's where there's a small Native American reservation called the
8:12
Speaker 3: Sandy Lake Reservation. I understand that there's a fair degree
8:17
Speaker 3: of tension between the white community, law enforcement authorities from
8:21
Speaker 3: the Acon County Sheriff's office, and the Native American community.
8:25
Speaker 1: That tension has made headlines in recent years as the
8:28
Speaker 1: current sheriff, Daniel Geida, it appears, has accepted financial support
8:33
Speaker 1: from an oil conglomerate called Enbridge, and then it just
8:37
Speaker 1: so happens that protesters were treated pretty roughly for seeking
8:42
Speaker 1: to protect clean drinking water in the area where Brian
8:46
Speaker 1: was raised.
8:47
Speaker 4: Yes McGregor, mistrict, IWO of Malacc's Sandy Lake Indian Reservation.
8:52
Speaker 4: We moved up from the late eighties to Sandy Lake
8:56
Speaker 4: and my mother she rented a carcel I end up
9:00
Speaker 4: there for a dollar for fifty years and had a
9:04
Speaker 4: house built. She kept adding on to the house. She
9:08
Speaker 4: wanted a place for everyone, and we all lived in
9:13
Speaker 4: the households around the Sandy Lake area. Had some brothers
9:16
Speaker 4: and they have all passed and rest. Some good times
9:20
Speaker 4: going swimming in the lakes, calling fish and going hunt
9:24
Speaker 4: trapping with my uncles in the wintertime, harvesting deer, using
9:29
Speaker 4: everything of the tier, and giving finish for the deer
9:32
Speaker 4: and afer into Mexico.
9:34
Speaker 1: Despite ugly efforts to the contrary, the Ojuboy and other
9:38
Speaker 1: indigenous nations have been able to maintain their culture and
9:42
Speaker 1: self governance well. Folks like Ojiboy Elder Marge Anderson were
9:46
Speaker 1: able to make strides for their nations with the US government,
9:50
Speaker 1: like the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of nineteen eighty eight,
9:53
Speaker 1: which brought much needed economic opportunities to their nation. In fact,
9:58
Speaker 1: on February twenty third, ninety eight, Brian had accompanied his nephew,
10:02
Speaker 1: Michael Mus Squattis to an interview at one of those casinos.
10:06
Speaker 4: Yeah, Mike Squattus, my sister Anita's son. He had a
10:11
Speaker 4: job interview that day and ponded radio for I don't know,
10:15
Speaker 4: thirty dollars or something for some extra money to go
10:18
Speaker 4: to a casino. I didn't drive at that time that
10:22
Speaker 4: I had arrived with him and my other nephew, Brandon.
10:28
Speaker 1: By all accounts, the trio returned to the area around
10:31
Speaker 1: eight thirty PM, and Brian was home for the night
10:33
Speaker 1: by ten. Then the following morning, February twenty fourth, nineteen
10:38
Speaker 1: ninety eight, eighty four year old Evelyn Mallin's body was
10:41
Speaker 1: discovered in her bedroom in nearby tiny Shamrock Township.
10:46
Speaker 3: The building is very small and houses not only her bedroom,
10:52
Speaker 3: but also a little convenience store that has so three
10:54
Speaker 3: point two beer and cigarettes and other sundry items and
10:58
Speaker 3: piecing together so some of the witness testimony, she's probably
11:02
Speaker 3: murdered the night before, sometime between ten and ten thirty
11:06
Speaker 3: in the morning. Her daughter, Norma Horner, went to the
11:09
Speaker 3: store with her boyfriend, Gerald Horsemen, and they knocked on
11:13
Speaker 3: the door, They knocked on the windows, they didn't get
11:15
Speaker 3: a response. They went around to the back door. There
11:19
Speaker 3: was a skeleton key broken off from the inside of
11:21
Speaker 3: the back door, so they couldn't open it, so they
11:24
Speaker 3: called nine to one one Aken County Sheriff's department. Kick
11:28
Speaker 3: in the back door. They find Evelyn Male and the
11:31
Speaker 3: victim in her bedroom. That she was strangled and beaten
11:35
Speaker 3: rather savagely, and there was fecal matter on her too.
11:38
Speaker 3: Now that may have been that she evacuated as a
11:41
Speaker 3: result of being strangled and beaten, but there's some other
11:44
Speaker 3: theories that who theever the assailant was took some fecal
11:47
Speaker 3: matter from a little there's a bowl. I mean, there
11:50
Speaker 3: was no indoor plumbing in the store and through that
11:52
Speaker 3: on her. I don't know whether that's true or not.
11:55
Speaker 3: But they didn't see her immediately because her bedroom was ransacked.
12:00
Speaker 3: Were thrown all over the place and she was tossed
12:02
Speaker 3: off her ben There was a mattress on top of her,
12:04
Speaker 3: and then they went around throughout the building. They noted
12:08
Speaker 3: that the front end door locks were locked. They noted
12:12
Speaker 3: that a basement window was broken and the store portion
12:15
Speaker 3: is utterly untouched.
12:17
Speaker 4: The back room was ripped apart, like whoever did that
12:22
Speaker 4: was looking for something particular.
12:24
Speaker 3: Thereafter, they interviewed Gerald Horseman and Norma Horner. Gerald Horseman
12:30
Speaker 3: was responsible for some of the inventory in the little store,
12:34
Speaker 3: and he told them at the time that there was
12:36
Speaker 3: no beer, no cigarettes missing. Subsequently, Merle Maylin, the victim's son,
12:42
Speaker 3: came up from his home in New Mexico several days
12:45
Speaker 3: after the murder. Theoretically there was some cash in a
12:49
Speaker 3: white envelope that she used to keep that he thought
12:52
Speaker 3: was missing.
12:53
Speaker 1: Initially, Gerald Horseman thought so too, as well as a checkbook,
12:58
Speaker 1: but both turned up. Merle Mallin continued to allege that
13:02
Speaker 1: other items were missing.
13:03
Speaker 4: There is a mention of guns missing, biers, televisions, all
13:09
Speaker 4: kinds of stuff, and they were flying over the reservation
13:12
Speaker 4: looking in the swamps for the stuff. And then oh no,
13:16
Speaker 4: this wasn't missing. This was a missing messing was missing
13:19
Speaker 4: at at trial and he said, oh, we've fold them money.
13:22
Speaker 1: But Merle Maelan has always maintained that beer, cigarettes, and
13:26
Speaker 1: a gun were stolen, which propped up the state's theory
13:30
Speaker 1: a robbery turned homicide, despite what Horsemen, who actually kept
13:34
Speaker 1: the store's inventory, has maintained all along that the store
13:38
Speaker 1: was undisturbed and no store items were missing. Interestingly, one
13:43
Speaker 1: of the alternative suspects was Merle's son, Mark Mallin.
13:48
Speaker 3: The mourning of the murder, relatives actually pointed toward her grandson,
13:55
Speaker 3: Mark Maelan, and he would help her at the store too,
13:57
Speaker 3: so he had access to the store, and that he
14:01
Speaker 3: could be violent, particularly he was on something, and that
14:05
Speaker 3: Evelyn Malan used to give him money, and a couple
14:07
Speaker 3: of weeks before this incident, Mark Maelan asked her for
14:11
Speaker 3: four or five hundred dollars and it was one of
14:13
Speaker 3: the first times when she had refused him money. Others
14:16
Speaker 3: subsequently had said, we know that he's been rough with
14:18
Speaker 3: his grandmother before, and he knows where she hides money
14:21
Speaker 3: in the store, but law enforcement didn't really follow up
14:24
Speaker 3: on that thread. Another alternative suspect was a man by
14:27
Speaker 3: the name of Terry Pete. He evidently was somebody that
14:29
Speaker 3: Evelyn Maylan was afraid of, and she expressed that fear
14:32
Speaker 3: to some others that bad news is back in town.
14:35
Speaker 3: He had been released from being incarcerated, and he had
14:39
Speaker 3: asked her to buy some propane on credit and she
14:42
Speaker 3: had refused. He subsequently perished when his trailer caught fire.
14:46
Speaker 3: Several months later.
14:47
Speaker 1: But before the death of Terry Pete, as well as
14:50
Speaker 1: the specter of missing cash had dissipated, the rumor mill
14:54
Speaker 1: in Aiken County was quite active.
14:56
Speaker 3: There were rampant rumors, some of which are clearly untrue,
15:01
Speaker 3: that the assailants cut off her finger to take her
15:04
Speaker 3: ring off her, the assailants sexually assaulted her. I heard
15:08
Speaker 3: it was the miss Squades. I heard it was this person.
15:11
Speaker 3: I heard it was that person. And so mister Bijurga
15:14
Speaker 3: from the BCA, which is the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension
15:18
Speaker 3: the equivalent of an FBI for the state, and Bruce
15:21
Speaker 3: Beck from the Aiken County Sheriff's Office went over to
15:24
Speaker 3: interview Michael Mus Squads, Keith MS Squades, and Brandon Ms
15:28
Speaker 3: Squaddies as well. They're all the nephews of Brian Pippott.
15:31
Speaker 3: This is within I think a week of the murder.
15:34
Speaker 4: And they looked at Keith and checked his body for
15:39
Speaker 4: scrapes and marks. He didn't have any, and they asked
15:42
Speaker 4: him where he was. He said he was at home,
15:44
Speaker 4: and they asked Mike where he was.
15:47
Speaker 3: Michael Musquades says, what day is this now? Oh, that
15:51
Speaker 3: was the day I had my interview down at the
15:53
Speaker 3: Grand Casino. Brandon and my uncle Brian Pippott went with
15:56
Speaker 3: me as well. The authorities knew this now. They later
16:01
Speaker 3: interrogated Brandon Misquatis, who was fifteen at the time, in
16:04
Speaker 3: a very coercive interview where they kept saying to him,
16:07
Speaker 3: we know you were there. Your relatives have said you
16:10
Speaker 3: were there. Come clean, and he said, no, I wasn't there.
16:12
Speaker 3: I wasn't there. I was at the casino. They later
16:15
Speaker 3: acknowledged that his alibi was correct. So that's the same
16:17
Speaker 3: alibi that Brian Pippott has. So the alibi was established
16:22
Speaker 3: quite early on.
16:23
Speaker 1: Nevertheless, after a year had gone by, Terry Pete had passed,
16:27
Speaker 1: while Merle Mallin kept the specter of a robbery alive,
16:31
Speaker 1: and the rumor mill led investigators to Brian Pippott, his
16:34
Speaker 1: nephews Raymond and Keith Musquattis, as well as his cousins
16:38
Speaker 1: Neil King and Don Hill.
16:39
Speaker 3: Right after an award had been offered, Don Hill started
16:44
Speaker 3: a rumor that Brian Pippott said something along the lines
16:47
Speaker 3: of oh, she was already dead when I went in there.
16:50
Speaker 3: And then eventually Don Hill starts naming a few of
16:52
Speaker 3: these people that ultimately are selected as the assailants. And
16:58
Speaker 3: as they started to narrow down some of these rumors,
17:00
Speaker 3: they used tactics of saying to one so and so
17:04
Speaker 3: said you were there. Now you need to help yourself
17:07
Speaker 3: by saying you were there and admitting to things, and
17:11
Speaker 3: the first person to the trough gets the best meal
17:14
Speaker 3: or something. That was the line they used.
17:16
Speaker 4: Yes they live, threatening all your younger kids with long
17:22
Speaker 4: term prison sends.
17:24
Speaker 3: And so there was a carousel of interrogations of various
17:27
Speaker 3: people until they got somebody to say, okay, I was there,
17:32
Speaker 3: and that was Raymond Misquades. He had a couple of
17:35
Speaker 3: felonies pending, and there had been some rumors about him
17:38
Speaker 3: being there and not being there, and he is recanted
17:42
Speaker 3: completely and fully, genuinely, in detail and with specificity, and
17:47
Speaker 3: if you look at his various statements, I actually have
17:51
Speaker 3: a chart as to how they changed over time, you
17:54
Speaker 3: can tell he wasn't there.
17:56
Speaker 1: Raymond first said that around seven pm they arrived at
17:59
Speaker 1: the Dollar Lie door and Brian had kicked in the
18:01
Speaker 1: front door. Both elements not true, so his story had
18:06
Speaker 1: to change alongside the state's narrative until they were the same.
18:11
Speaker 3: The state's theory is that these five men were driving
18:15
Speaker 3: around drunk and decided that they were going to go
18:18
Speaker 3: to the Dollar Lake store. The store was closed with
18:20
Speaker 3: The allegation is that Keith Musquades was able to get
18:23
Speaker 3: through a basement window, which, by the way, would have
18:26
Speaker 3: entailed removing panes of glass the little pieces of wood
18:30
Speaker 3: that separate the panes, reaching in and removing two wooden
18:34
Speaker 3: slats that were nailed across the window, Squeeze down through
18:38
Speaker 3: the window, walk across a sandy basement floor, come up
18:42
Speaker 3: through a trap door, which, as far as we know,
18:46
Speaker 3: he would have no idea existed.
18:48
Speaker 4: Everybody forgets to mention that there was a chair on
18:51
Speaker 4: top of that trap door and it was webbed up
18:54
Speaker 4: against the window sill. It was in the police report
18:57
Speaker 4: that the police removed the chair from a trap door
19:00
Speaker 4: to get down to the basement.
19:03
Speaker 1: So the back door was inoperable, the front door was
19:06
Speaker 1: dead bolted shut, and their suspects didn't have access to keys.
19:10
Speaker 1: Yet this basement entry theory was still chosen despite its impossibility,
19:16
Speaker 1: and I guess since the front door was definitely not
19:18
Speaker 1: kicked in, Raymond changed his story from Brian kicking in
19:22
Speaker 1: the front door to an intoxicated Keith Musquattis wiggling through
19:26
Speaker 1: a jagged basement window. And remember they examined him just
19:30
Speaker 1: days after the crime, and he didn't have a scratch.
19:33
Speaker 3: He said that Keith Musquades cut himself going through the window,
19:38
Speaker 3: but Keith Msquaddes had no cuts on him. There's no
19:40
Speaker 3: evidence anywhere that anyone went through that window, no fabric,
19:44
Speaker 3: no blood, no skin. There is some cat blood, so
19:47
Speaker 3: I guess a cat couldn't get through there without cutting itself,
19:50
Speaker 3: so he theoretically comes up opens up the trap door.
19:53
Speaker 3: Raymond says that they all came in and out through
19:55
Speaker 3: the front door, But we now know that the front
19:57
Speaker 3: door was locked with a dead bolt, that you needed
19:59
Speaker 3: a CA to operate.
20:01
Speaker 1: Even with the alleged gymnastics, the theory still doesn't work
20:05
Speaker 1: without a front door key, but not according to BCA
20:08
Speaker 1: investigator David Bjurga.
20:10
Speaker 3: Mister Bjurga was questioned about that lock at the grand jury.
20:14
Speaker 3: He was asked, you can't get in and out of
20:16
Speaker 3: that door without locking the dead bolt. Is that right?
20:19
Speaker 3: He said, well, that's right, we don't believe it was locked.
20:21
Speaker 3: Why do you think that, Well, because Raymonds, Squades and
20:23
Speaker 3: Don Hill said they went through the door, so it
20:25
Speaker 3: couldn't have been locked. Well, that's completely circular logic. That's
20:28
Speaker 3: not saying anything about the forensics or the physics of
20:31
Speaker 3: the scene.
20:31
Speaker 4: Again with the door, prosecutor on it around and evaded
20:36
Speaker 4: the question, said, well, I can't go into that because
20:40
Speaker 4: it's from the investigation.
20:43
Speaker 3: The theory on the door was that the dead bolt
20:46
Speaker 3: lock wasn't really locked. That was just the lock on
20:50
Speaker 3: the door handle that you could lock by pulling it shut.
20:52
Speaker 3: There's no merit to that whatsoever. The first responders all
20:56
Speaker 3: reported that door locked. The crime scene photograph shows that
20:59
Speaker 3: the dead bolt door locked. I had a forensic locksmith
21:02
Speaker 3: examined that photograph. He said, that's clearly a dead bolt
21:05
Speaker 3: and it's clearly locked. And when they took photographs of
21:09
Speaker 3: the lock when they disassembled it, they didn't show the
21:11
Speaker 3: actual bolt portion of it because that would show you
21:14
Speaker 3: that what you see in that photograph a dead bolt
21:17
Speaker 3: clearly locked. There's no real getting around that now they've
21:22
Speaker 3: lost the lock.
21:23
Speaker 1: However, Raymond was not aware of those damning specifics in
21:27
Speaker 1: real life or in the statements he was making.
21:30
Speaker 3: He said that he stayed in the car but he
21:33
Speaker 3: heard a crash. They come out with beer and cigarettes,
21:37
Speaker 3: and Brian comes out with some kind of bag with
21:39
Speaker 3: what they thought was a weapon in it, and the
21:42
Speaker 3: theory is that they then went back to Raymond's father's
21:45
Speaker 3: house and Keith Musquades and Brian Pippott confessed that they
21:49
Speaker 3: had killed Evelyn maelon Or when she came out of
21:51
Speaker 3: her bedroom, but she didn't come out of her.
21:53
Speaker 1: Bedroom, according to other interviewees, BCA investigator David Bijerga routinely
21:59
Speaker 1: inserted the unfounded element into his questioning that the victim
22:03
Speaker 1: had discovered the assailants in the store and so they
22:06
Speaker 1: had to put her down, but the store was undisturbed,
22:09
Speaker 1: no signs of a struggle, according to both police reports
22:12
Speaker 1: and Gerald Horseman, who also maintained that no store items
22:16
Speaker 1: were missing. But instead Raymond conformed his statement to include
22:19
Speaker 1: unsubstantiated claims from Merle Mallin, the father of the only
22:23
Speaker 1: alternative suspect, about a stolen gun, cigarettes, and beer. Mallin
22:28
Speaker 1: also testified that his mother wasn't able to lock the door,
22:32
Speaker 1: something that it appears he forgot, he had said when
22:35
Speaker 1: interviewed years later by a post conviction investigator, and again
22:38
Speaker 1: at a two thousand and six PCR hearing, when he
22:41
Speaker 1: said that she could in fact lock the door. And
22:44
Speaker 1: there's even more nonsense to unravel.
22:47
Speaker 3: Ramus Squade said they went to an abandoned house that
22:50
Speaker 3: used to be his father's on the Sandy Lake Reservation,
22:53
Speaker 3: which was probably abandoned the last time he had been
22:55
Speaker 3: there years ago, but had since been remodeled, and had
22:59
Speaker 3: resident said it. He said that they were all driving
23:02
Speaker 3: a gold Tornado, but no such car existed, so almost
23:06
Speaker 3: nothing he said matched with reality.
23:24
Speaker 4: It was arrested. I was a year later or something,
23:27
Speaker 4: and it wasn't really a significant time for me to
23:31
Speaker 4: remember anything. So I told him, well, I don't know
23:35
Speaker 4: where I was. And it wasn't until I had to
23:39
Speaker 4: report and my mother came to visit me, and she said,
23:42
Speaker 4: oh yeah, that's that they had loaned event for the
23:46
Speaker 4: job interview, and then he wrote along and they said,
23:49
Speaker 4: oh yeah, okay, Well I would have a Tom's ticket
23:53
Speaker 4: for that data, and I called my investigator and he
23:57
Speaker 4: went over there and he's sure enough there was a pontic.
24:00
Speaker 4: And it wasn't until later on that I was getting
24:05
Speaker 4: the discovery papers that I realized that the East, Mike
24:09
Speaker 4: and Brandon, and my mother all confirmed my alibi.
24:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, in all likelihood this was you know, somebody that
24:15
Speaker 1: was related to her or had access to a key.
24:19
Speaker 4: Right. Yeah. I remember sitting in the shell and reading
24:22
Speaker 4: a discovery and I said, huh, this is an inside job.
24:26
Speaker 4: And the police didn't pick up on that. They didn't
24:29
Speaker 4: pick up on the doors being locked, didn't pick up
24:32
Speaker 4: on the chair being on top of the trap door,
24:35
Speaker 4: even the atops he had report. I thought, well, this
24:40
Speaker 4: person had a lot of anger towards her.
24:43
Speaker 1: But that, along with the gaping holes in Raymond's and
24:46
Speaker 1: the state's narrative, appear to have been ignored, as Raymond
24:49
Speaker 1: was offered five years and his other charges dropped to
24:52
Speaker 1: become the state star witness against his four relatives.
24:57
Speaker 3: Keith Msquades, Brian and Neil King deny having anything to
25:00
Speaker 3: do with it, and denies that to this day they
25:03
Speaker 3: did get a sort of confession from Don Hill, except
25:06
Speaker 3: for it kept changing and changing and changing. He was
25:08
Speaker 3: going to testify and he would get five years and
25:11
Speaker 3: they would forgive some sexual assault colonies. He never did
25:14
Speaker 3: testify because they recognized that nothing this guy said was true,
25:18
Speaker 3: even though he still got the deal, which was I
25:20
Speaker 3: think less than five years. Same with Raymond.
25:23
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Brian, Neil, and Keith awaited trial in jail, with
25:27
Speaker 1: proceedings taking place between nineteen ninety nine and two thousand
25:31
Speaker 1: and one.
25:32
Speaker 3: Keith misquades he had a first degree sexual assault case
25:35
Speaker 3: pending against him. They dismissed that in exchange for his
25:39
Speaker 3: Alfred plea on the murder. I think it was manslaughter.
25:42
Speaker 3: He had nothing to do with it. He has an
25:44
Speaker 3: alibi as well. But he takes this plea on the
25:46
Speaker 3: theory that you know, I might be able to survive
25:49
Speaker 3: prison better if I'm a murderer as opposed to sexual assault.
25:54
Speaker 3: So he takes an Alfred plea. But then he tries
25:57
Speaker 3: to withdraw his plea within I think two weeks, and
26:01
Speaker 3: that's denied, so he serves I think fifteen years.
26:05
Speaker 1: So only Neil and Brian couldn't be coerced into a
26:08
Speaker 1: plea deal.
26:09
Speaker 3: Neil King has tried first, and he is acquitted by
26:13
Speaker 3: the judge at the conclusion of the state's evidence on
26:16
Speaker 3: two grounds. One that the only incriminating testimony against him
26:20
Speaker 3: was Raymond Masquattes, who was an accomplice, and in Minnesota
26:23
Speaker 3: you need corroborating evidence in addition to accomplice evidence. And
26:28
Speaker 3: the other thing is that Raymond musquad said Neil King
26:31
Speaker 3: he was drunk in the backseat of the car, So
26:33
Speaker 3: there was no clear evidence that, even under Raymond's story,
26:36
Speaker 3: that Neil King had gone in and participated in the
26:39
Speaker 3: actual homicide or burglary. But in any event, he was
26:42
Speaker 3: acquitted based on the principle that there was no corroborating evidence.
26:46
Speaker 4: So the state right away started interviewing all my filmates
26:51
Speaker 4: and trying to threaten them and hitting them to say
26:54
Speaker 4: something against me.
26:56
Speaker 1: And they found jail house snitch.
26:58
Speaker 3: The jail house snitch is a guy by the of
27:00
Speaker 3: Peter Arnaldi. It's a longtime con man, fraudster. And so
27:05
Speaker 3: Brian been told this guy knows his way around the
27:08
Speaker 3: court system. And Brian said, I've been wrongfully charged here.
27:11
Speaker 3: I mean, I said, what should I do? And he
27:13
Speaker 3: showed him the criminal complaint.
27:14
Speaker 4: Asked him to look at it, and I tell him
27:16
Speaker 4: what I'm being charged with, and then he said, well,
27:19
Speaker 4: let me take this to the own and I'm thinking, okay,
27:24
Speaker 4: well no, I'm going to need that back side grab it,
27:28
Speaker 4: BacT and that's the last. I'm not saying that Arnaldi
27:31
Speaker 4: until a couple of years later when he was strolls
27:34
Speaker 4: into the courtroom wearing the street clothes and I didn't
27:37
Speaker 4: know that he was in federal custody for bank robbery.
27:40
Speaker 4: And then we had to play with the system and
27:42
Speaker 4: then work it to his advantage.
27:45
Speaker 3: Peter Arnaldi subsequently says that Brian confessed this crime to me.
27:51
Speaker 3: The majority of what he attests to was in the
27:55
Speaker 3: criminal complaint which Brian had showed him, but he completely
27:59
Speaker 3: misconstrued it. He said they stuffed Kleenex in her mouth
28:02
Speaker 3: to stifle her screams. And he got that because the
28:07
Speaker 3: criminal complaint in the autopsy said that she had soft
28:09
Speaker 3: tissue injuries around her mouth.
28:12
Speaker 1: Wow. But the county attorney, Bradley Rhodes, felt comfortable presenting
28:19
Speaker 1: this failure in reading comprehension as corroborating evidence. Rhodes has
28:24
Speaker 1: since been disbarred for unrelated reasons. In addition, Brian's original
28:29
Speaker 1: judge had become ill, resulting in a mistrial and a
28:32
Speaker 1: change of venue. Then his original attorney, Chris Davis, chose
28:37
Speaker 1: this moment to retire, so.
28:40
Speaker 4: He appointed me another attorney. That attorney had never tried
28:43
Speaker 4: a murder case. I had a new investigator. I think
28:47
Speaker 4: that was his first case. So I had two people
28:51
Speaker 4: that really didn't know much about how to present a case.
28:56
Speaker 3: Tom Mrtha, he was the defense counsel in this case.
29:00
Speaker 3: He was a year and a half out of law school.
29:02
Speaker 3: This case was dumped on and there was a change
29:04
Speaker 3: of venues so it was up in International Falls, right
29:06
Speaker 3: on the Canadian border. So he had to drive up
29:09
Speaker 3: there and a station wagon with the files in the back,
29:13
Speaker 3: without much support.
29:15
Speaker 4: And I think they knew what they were doing. Minnesota's
29:18
Speaker 4: prejudice against stative Americans and the part that you go
29:22
Speaker 4: up north, the more prenduice there. They had me at
29:25
Speaker 4: the tip of the state.
29:26
Speaker 3: Here's an interesting thing too. Before the trial started, the
29:30
Speaker 3: judge brought the prosecutor in and Tom Earth and Brian
29:34
Speaker 3: in and said, look, can we do a deal here.
29:36
Speaker 4: Prosecutor said, well, we'll take life off the table. I'll
29:40
Speaker 4: give you seventeen or eighteen years, something like that, and
29:43
Speaker 4: then a judge because, well, I'll tell you this, I
29:47
Speaker 4: don't care what he's offering you. I'll give you seven years.
29:52
Speaker 4: And I already had two years in. I thought, well
29:55
Speaker 4: three years left, and I said, well, that's an excellent deal.
29:58
Speaker 4: And if I was guilty, I would but I'm not
30:01
Speaker 4: guilty and I can't see myself admitting to something that
30:04
Speaker 4: I didn't do.
30:05
Speaker 1: So they moved ahead with trial in January two thousand
30:08
Speaker 1: and one, presenting the now congealed but still erroneous narrative
30:13
Speaker 1: through Raymond Asquattis, and to impeach him. Brian urged Tom
30:16
Speaker 1: Murtha to ask about the condition of the house to
30:19
Speaker 1: which they allegedly fled in the aftermath.
30:22
Speaker 4: And he described it as a hole, born out, born
30:26
Speaker 4: down party house, windows broke, red, shag carpeting, brown, experior,
30:34
Speaker 4: and the house was enoughing like that it had been remodeled.
30:39
Speaker 4: My brother was living in there with his girlfriend Mary
30:42
Speaker 4: Bleagan at the time, so that couldn't have been possible.
30:46
Speaker 4: The police knew this, the.
30:48
Speaker 1: Sheriff knew this, yet this false narrative was still presented. Unfortunately,
30:54
Speaker 1: Tom Murtha had not yet uncovered all the internal inconsistencies
30:58
Speaker 1: in blatant falsehoods, including the basement entry theory.
31:03
Speaker 3: The forensic technician from the BCA who testified to that
31:07
Speaker 3: did so in an extremely superficial way. He just said
31:10
Speaker 3: the point of entry was this window. There was no
31:14
Speaker 3: analysis done. Two different experts have reviewed the forensics and
31:19
Speaker 3: the physical evidence surrounding that window independently. They came to
31:22
Speaker 3: the conclusion that the window entry was staged, that the
31:26
Speaker 3: wooden slats were pried off from the inside with a tool.
31:30
Speaker 3: There's tool marks, that the muntains that separate the panes
31:34
Speaker 3: were removed and placed neatly in a spot where they
31:36
Speaker 3: wouldn't have fallen. Two panes of glass were removed and
31:40
Speaker 3: placed outside. The other pane was broken, but the glass
31:44
Speaker 3: from that was actually in the window well, which means
31:46
Speaker 3: it was broken from the inside. And then there was
31:49
Speaker 3: large pieces of that pane that were placed again not
31:53
Speaker 3: where they would have fallen, in fact where they could
31:55
Speaker 3: not have fallen.
31:56
Speaker 1: So it appears that someone broke this window out from
31:59
Speaker 1: the inside. It may have been staged, or maybe had
32:03
Speaker 1: nothing to do with this crime at all. It's unclear,
32:06
Speaker 1: but what is clear is the implausibility of an unscathed
32:10
Speaker 1: entrance through this basement window.
32:12
Speaker 3: There was a screw protruding into the area of the
32:16
Speaker 3: window that you would have caught something on if you
32:19
Speaker 3: had gone through there. Where the muntins were broken, there
32:21
Speaker 3: were pointed pieces that would have caught somebody's fabric if
32:25
Speaker 3: they had gone through there. There was no footprints or
32:29
Speaker 3: any sign that anybody landed on the boxes below. Nothing
32:33
Speaker 3: from the window well, which had leaves and pine needles
32:35
Speaker 3: and so forth, was discovered beneath the window. There's no
32:39
Speaker 3: set of footprints that lead from the window over to
32:43
Speaker 3: the trap door. So there's no forensic evidence supporting the
32:47
Speaker 3: idea that somebody went through this window other than the
32:50
Speaker 3: window was open, and all of the forensic evidence is
32:54
Speaker 3: that nobody did in fact go through the window. No
32:57
Speaker 3: part of that case with stands scrutiny in any respect, forensically, physically,
33:04
Speaker 3: the objective evidence.
33:05
Speaker 1: And let's not forget the chair blocking the trap door,
33:08
Speaker 1: or the currently misplaced dead bolt that was locked and
33:13
Speaker 1: required a key, which would have destroyed the state's theory.
33:16
Speaker 1: But none of it was discovered by his trial attorney
33:19
Speaker 1: and pointed out to the jury.
33:21
Speaker 3: In fairness to Tom Mirtha, he had not tried a
33:24
Speaker 3: felony case before. I'm not even sure he tried any
33:26
Speaker 3: cases before, but he did put on a defense. He
33:28
Speaker 3: called Michael Musquade, says to the alibi the pawnshop operator
33:33
Speaker 3: to authenticate the pawnshop ticket.
33:35
Speaker 4: I had a charge account stick gas at the local
33:38
Speaker 4: gas station in town. I had a bart tab.
33:41
Speaker 3: And then the prosecute tried to argue that he fabricated
33:45
Speaker 3: this alibi while he was awaiting trial with his relatives. Unfortunately,
33:51
Speaker 3: his attorney at the time didn't make the point that
33:53
Speaker 3: they knew about this alibi back in March of nineteen
33:56
Speaker 3: ninety eight, so he didn't fabricate it. And they said, well,
33:59
Speaker 3: when we asked him about but he was doing that day,
34:00
Speaker 3: he didn't come up with the alibi. And Brian's answer
34:02
Speaker 3: to that is, I didn't know exactly what day this
34:05
Speaker 3: murder occurred. I had nothing to do with it, so
34:07
Speaker 3: I didn't necessarily put together that I was at the
34:09
Speaker 3: casino until my nephews told me that, and my mother,
34:13
Speaker 3: Agnes Chief, said, hey, wait a minute, you don't you
34:15
Speaker 3: have a pawn receipt from that day.
34:17
Speaker 4: None of that came in and they call the head
34:20
Speaker 4: of security for Malax Casino and he says, yeah, we
34:25
Speaker 4: don't have any record of mister Pippott being at the casino,
34:30
Speaker 4: And that was all just for show because they knew
34:33
Speaker 4: that no records exist because they were changing the security
34:37
Speaker 4: systems at that time. There was no evidence linking me
34:42
Speaker 4: or any of us to the crime, no motivation that
34:45
Speaker 4: they said motive didn't have a factor in Minnesota courts,
34:48
Speaker 4: and the only thing I had was my nephew testifying
34:52
Speaker 4: and the jail house in Foreman.
34:54
Speaker 3: Peter Arnaldi said that Brian felt a great deal of
34:58
Speaker 3: remorse about what had happened, that they had killed this
35:01
Speaker 3: lady as part of a burglary and he was going
35:03
Speaker 3: to try and get his relatives to conjure an alibi
35:08
Speaker 3: for him, and that they arrived in his mother's van
35:12
Speaker 3: and they had gone in and robbed the place of
35:14
Speaker 3: beer and cigarettes and murdered Evelyn Maillen. He did have
35:18
Speaker 3: to admit that Brian had showed him the criminal complaint
35:20
Speaker 3: and that's of course where the soft tissue injuries were disclosed,
35:24
Speaker 3: which were not kleenex.
35:26
Speaker 4: Seemed like he was a professional. Even I thought, Wow,
35:30
Speaker 4: this guy. He really found what he's talking about. If
35:34
Speaker 4: I was a jurior, I believe I think we impeached
35:37
Speaker 4: Arnaldy and it really didn't matter to the jury. They
35:42
Speaker 4: you now, like Native Americans up there in northern Minnesota
35:46
Speaker 4: was at the tip of the state. They don't even
35:49
Speaker 4: like help tighters.
35:50
Speaker 1: I mean, did you have hope that when they came
35:52
Speaker 1: back from you know, deliberation, that things might go your way.
35:56
Speaker 4: No, my attorney did. And then he said, well, what
35:59
Speaker 4: are you going to do when you get out. I said, well,
36:01
Speaker 4: this thing is not over it. I looked at the
36:03
Speaker 4: Karian that I could read their micro expression, I'm not
36:08
Speaker 4: planning on anything. And I believe it was three days
36:12
Speaker 4: later that they came back to guilty verdicts. And I
36:16
Speaker 4: think Judge was so mad at me that I didn't
36:19
Speaker 4: take his seven year offer that he gave me a
36:23
Speaker 4: double maximum sentence of two light sentences without the possibility
36:29
Speaker 4: of parole. I got sent to the water prison and
36:49
Speaker 4: the garage a treaty according to your crime to mine
36:52
Speaker 4: was a heinous crime against an old lady. So didn't
36:55
Speaker 4: treat me very fairly. I ended up in the hole
36:58
Speaker 4: quite a bit. Fell off kind of targeted pass the
37:04
Speaker 4: time by work, doing anything you can, staying as busy
37:09
Speaker 4: as a chance. I do that right now to billop
37:12
Speaker 4: a routine, a routine that a call every day and
37:15
Speaker 4: really draw off course. And I did stay as I can,
37:19
Speaker 4: and it helped past the time.
37:21
Speaker 1: Of course, part of that time was passed by appealing
37:24
Speaker 1: his conviction, which was upheld, but his sentence was ruled
37:28
Speaker 1: to be improper and he was resentced to one life
37:32
Speaker 1: term with parole eligibility. Meanwhile, he filed for post conviction
37:36
Speaker 1: relief and was granted a hearing in two thousand and six.
37:40
Speaker 3: The evidence that was presented there was they said there
37:42
Speaker 3: was a false evidence about the door lock, that Merle
37:46
Speaker 3: Maylon testified that she wasn't able to lock the door
37:49
Speaker 3: at the trial, but then he admitted that she could
37:52
Speaker 3: lock the door, so that was one element. They had
37:55
Speaker 3: an ineffective assistance of counsel claim. They had an updated
37:59
Speaker 3: from Keith Musquad saying that he wasn't there and that
38:02
Speaker 3: he knew that Brian came back from the casino that
38:04
Speaker 3: night at like ten something. Then there was a victim's
38:07
Speaker 3: advocate who had talked to Ray on the phone. But
38:10
Speaker 3: some time after the trial, and Ray had said, I
38:14
Speaker 3: just told him what they wanted to hear to get
38:16
Speaker 3: out of this, but they couldn't find him testify. A
38:19
Speaker 3: guy by the name of Craig Lacari was housed with
38:22
Speaker 3: Brian Pippott and Peter Arnaldi, and he said that Arnaldi
38:26
Speaker 3: had told him that Brian said he was innocent, that
38:30
Speaker 3: he had never said anything about Brian confessing.
38:32
Speaker 4: We pointed out the flaws in Arnaldi's testimony, saying that
38:37
Speaker 4: there was twilve paper steps in her mouth and the
38:41
Speaker 4: complained said soft tissue injuries, and somehow he converted that
38:47
Speaker 4: into tissue paper being put in her mouth, and they
38:52
Speaker 4: ignored it.
38:53
Speaker 3: That was an affidavid from Lacari. The judge wouldn't rid
38:55
Speaker 3: him out. They didn't have Peter Arnaldi testify, they didn't
38:58
Speaker 3: have all the forensic experts that we've assembled testified. They
39:02
Speaker 3: didn't have Neil King testify. So it was really a
39:06
Speaker 3: pretty tepid presentation and it was denied and appealed and denied.
39:11
Speaker 1: At which point Brian began looking for meaningful pro bono help.
39:15
Speaker 3: Brian Pippott had written to Centurion, so I went out
39:19
Speaker 3: with two other members and we interviewed him, and everything
39:22
Speaker 3: he told me turned out to be true. It took
39:24
Speaker 3: me quite a long time to find Raymond Squaddes, but
39:27
Speaker 3: when I found him, he was forthcoming about his having
39:30
Speaker 3: not told the truth. I also found Peter Arnaldi initially said, well,
39:35
Speaker 3: you know, they raped her, and I said, Peter, I
39:37
Speaker 3: have the autopsy report. Whoever did this didn't rape her,
39:40
Speaker 3: So oh my god. I always thought that you know
39:42
Speaker 3: these you know, he wasn't charitable about what he called them,
39:45
Speaker 3: went in and raped.
39:45
Speaker 4: This old lady.
39:46
Speaker 3: He said, I think I have it all wrong.
39:48
Speaker 1: Perhaps this was just how Arnaldi internally justified his false
39:53
Speaker 1: testimony for personal gain. Either way, Jim continued his investigation,
39:58
Speaker 1: moving on to Neil King.
40:00
Speaker 3: Neil King said the basis of his defense was that
40:03
Speaker 3: he was drunk in the backseat of the car, and
40:05
Speaker 3: that wasn't even really the truth. He wasn't even there
40:07
Speaker 3: at all, but he didn't want that disrupted. He felt
40:10
Speaker 3: that Brian Pippott had implicated him, so he didn't want
40:12
Speaker 3: to help him even though that wasn't the truth. But
40:14
Speaker 3: he gave us a declaration saying he wasn't there at all.
40:16
Speaker 3: Keith Musquades gave us a declaration saying he wasn't there
40:19
Speaker 3: at all. And then I have this forensic evidence, locksmith,
40:22
Speaker 3: the two different crime scene specialists, and so I put
40:25
Speaker 3: together an application to the CRU in January of twenty
40:28
Speaker 3: twenty two. It was about seventy five pages long, doing
40:31
Speaker 3: an analysis of the different stories that Raymond told, showing
40:35
Speaker 3: photographs of the lock and the store supported that with
40:38
Speaker 3: an eight hundred page appendix. So the CRU took the
40:41
Speaker 3: application they started their own investigation. There's a couple of
40:45
Speaker 3: aspects of that I think we're worth mentioning too, and
40:48
Speaker 3: that is Jim Rats, the County Attorney at the onset
40:51
Speaker 3: of the CRI investigation, signed a memorandum of understanding with
40:55
Speaker 3: the Attorney General's Office and CRU, and from what I understand,
40:58
Speaker 3: he asked for a phrase in that memorandum of understanding
41:03
Speaker 3: that said, I'm paraphrasing it in the event that I
41:06
Speaker 3: don't want to support the recommendation of the CRU, as
41:09
Speaker 3: the county attorney, if I don't want to execute that recommendation,
41:13
Speaker 3: then in that event I agree that I will surrender
41:16
Speaker 3: jurisdiction to the Attorney General's Office.
41:18
Speaker 1: So it's fair to assume that the county Attorney waived
41:21
Speaker 1: jurisdiction and that the Attorney General's Office Conviction Review Unit
41:25
Speaker 1: has the final say.
41:26
Speaker 3: And I have to say that their investigation is astonishing
41:31
Speaker 3: in how thorough it is. They were able to get
41:33
Speaker 3: in to interview Don Hill in the psychiatric facility, something
41:36
Speaker 3: I was not able to do. They reviewed literally thousands
41:40
Speaker 3: of documents. They interviewed either twenty five or twenty six
41:44
Speaker 3: witnesses recorded interviews. There was no leading questions. They discovered
41:49
Speaker 3: an alibi witness for Keith Musquades, who I was unable
41:52
Speaker 3: to find. They interviewed the forensic specialists, they retained an
41:58
Speaker 3: expert of their own with respect to the confession, and
42:01
Speaker 3: ultimately they issued a report that was one hundred and
42:04
Speaker 3: eighty pages long with nine hundred footnotes to source materials.
42:08
Speaker 3: And the guy who did the majority of the investigative
42:11
Speaker 3: work for the cRIO was an Assistant Attorney General by
42:14
Speaker 3: the name of Carmel Leone, and at the end of
42:17
Speaker 3: the investigation they prepared a draft report that was reviewed
42:22
Speaker 3: not only by Carmel Leone's immediate boss, Carrie Spurling, but
42:26
Speaker 3: by her boss, the Deputy Attorney General, David Voyd. They
42:28
Speaker 3: presented a draft as a courtesy to the BCA and
42:32
Speaker 3: to the county attorney and to sheriff guide and said
42:36
Speaker 3: we're inviting you to make comments on this. And the
42:40
Speaker 3: response was an extremely hostile one, and so they they're
42:45
Speaker 3: contesting it, even though they don't have any inherent standing
42:48
Speaker 3: to do that.
42:49
Speaker 4: I have nothing to hut. I waive attorney client privilege
42:53
Speaker 4: because I knew the county assigned and agreelan to go
42:56
Speaker 4: along with the firings. And so I've been waiting for
43:00
Speaker 4: two and a half years for this investigation to unfold.
43:04
Speaker 4: And then April I found out that, Hey, they found
43:08
Speaker 4: the truth. He found everything that was going on. This
43:11
Speaker 4: investigation was so thorough. They found stuff that we didn't
43:16
Speaker 4: even plan. And yes, the county didn't like that.
43:20
Speaker 3: The sheriff was very hostile. He said that two courts
43:24
Speaker 3: had already had judged this case. Of course that doesn't
43:26
Speaker 3: mean anything because everything that we've produced, no court judge
43:29
Speaker 3: or jury hasn't it hurt any of this material. And
43:32
Speaker 3: then he said something along the lines of you have
43:34
Speaker 3: to prove to me beyond reasonable doubt that he didn't
43:37
Speaker 3: do this, and I don't think you're going to be
43:38
Speaker 3: able to do that. He also said, at one point,
43:42
Speaker 3: you never did a reenactment of anybody going through that window,
43:45
Speaker 3: So how do you know that somebody couldn't get through
43:47
Speaker 3: the window. And then he also said something along the
43:49
Speaker 3: lines up, I knew Keith Musquades from years ago. He's
43:52
Speaker 3: a very athletic guy. He could have gotten through the window.
43:54
Speaker 3: The position has never been that it's physically impossible for
43:57
Speaker 3: someone to get through the window. It's tough. It's that
44:01
Speaker 3: nobody did go through the window, given the forensic evidence
44:03
Speaker 3: at the scene. And when Carmen Leone said something along
44:06
Speaker 3: the line said, well there.
44:07
Speaker 1: Was cat blood there.
44:08
Speaker 3: You know, I guess a cat couldn't get through it
44:10
Speaker 3: because I've lived with cats all my life. I know
44:13
Speaker 3: cat's going to cut itself. So Carmen said to him, well,
44:15
Speaker 3: how do you think the cat blood got there? This
44:17
Speaker 3: is the mentality we're dealing with. He said, I think
44:19
Speaker 3: the Misquatties went out and killed a cat and put
44:21
Speaker 3: its blood on there to put us off the track.
44:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, sounds reasonable.
44:25
Speaker 3: The BCA said we're going to do our own investigation,
44:27
Speaker 3: and they hired three outside people. Sup was the experts.
44:30
Speaker 3: I don't know what the terms of those agreements are,
44:33
Speaker 3: and their motivation is undisguised that the purpose of their
44:38
Speaker 3: parallel investigation is to find something, anything, that they can
44:42
Speaker 3: use to discredit the CRU report, and so far their investigation,
44:47
Speaker 3: when you compare it to what the CRU did, is laughable.
44:50
Speaker 3: I mean, they interviewed George Horseman, but they didn't record it,
44:54
Speaker 3: and they got a summary of a statement from him,
44:56
Speaker 3: and what it was clear was that they were trying
44:58
Speaker 3: to get him to move off of his his steadfast
45:02
Speaker 3: position that no beer, no cigarettes were missing. The store
45:05
Speaker 3: portion of the building was untouched, and they evidently they
45:08
Speaker 3: got him to look at some photographs and say, well,
45:10
Speaker 3: maybe there were some cegarets there that are missing, and
45:12
Speaker 3: I guess he kind of went, well, maybe, you know.
45:15
Speaker 3: Then they did a reenactment of someone making their way
45:18
Speaker 3: through the window. They were able to show that somebody
45:20
Speaker 3: could physically make their way through the window, but without
45:22
Speaker 3: the nail protruding, without the glass in it, without the
45:26
Speaker 3: munting parts. Even then the kid who was going through
45:29
Speaker 3: it caught his shirt on the wooden.
45:31
Speaker 1: Frame, which has always been the misunderstanding. The issue is
45:36
Speaker 1: in whether someone could get through the window, but whether
45:38
Speaker 1: they could do it without leaving any evidence behind. Not
45:42
Speaker 1: even a cat could do it.
45:43
Speaker 3: Now, we labored under the impression that Jim rats the
45:46
Speaker 3: county attorney. He's a man of his word, because we
45:49
Speaker 3: could have been advancing our case through the court system
45:52
Speaker 3: as opposed to going through the cru which took two years.
45:56
Speaker 3: So he's renegged on that. He hasn't given any reason
45:59
Speaker 3: for that other than I think he's getting pressure from
46:02
Speaker 3: his sheriff there and maybe the BCA. So we filed
46:05
Speaker 3: a seventy five page petition with the Aiken County Court.
46:09
Speaker 3: We've asked for some discovery. I want to know what's
46:12
Speaker 3: going on with the so called consultants from the BCA.
46:16
Speaker 3: I want that DNA testing evidence from the BCA. There's
46:19
Speaker 3: a wallet that we believe the assailant touched, the cuttings
46:23
Speaker 3: from the nightgown. Evidently there was some material under her fingernails.
46:27
Speaker 3: We understand last January, when the Attorney General's Office was
46:31
Speaker 3: investigating the case, person from the BCA contacted Carmen Leones
46:36
Speaker 3: and said there's insufficient mail DNA under her fingernails to
46:41
Speaker 3: warrant any further testing. So I have requested those test materials.
46:46
Speaker 3: There's evidently a quant test done. There must have been
46:49
Speaker 3: enough there for them to determine that it was mail DNA,
46:51
Speaker 3: and thus far they have not been forthcoming with providing
46:54
Speaker 3: that to us. And so the defense to our petition,
46:58
Speaker 3: our seventy five page petition was nine page reply by
47:02
Speaker 3: the county attorney. It has some allegations that are demonstrably false,
47:07
Speaker 3: and it basically relies in kind of an amalgam of
47:10
Speaker 3: some technical claims. Well, this has already been adjudged. What
47:14
Speaker 3: are we doing here? That's the extent of what they've
47:16
Speaker 3: put in to defend against this.
47:18
Speaker 1: But there is a way to circumvent them.
47:20
Speaker 3: Tim Walls has the power to take the case from
47:24
Speaker 3: the county attorney and give it to Keith Ellison. He
47:27
Speaker 3: will not do that without Keith Ellison formally asking him
47:29
Speaker 3: to do that. I think with the election pending, there's
47:33
Speaker 3: little appetite to do that. Keith Ellison also has to
47:37
Speaker 3: maintain working relationships with the various county attorneys and taking
47:41
Speaker 3: this from the county attorney could be problematic for him.
47:45
Speaker 1: Although I wish this was treated with the urgency it deserves.
47:50
Speaker 1: After November twenty twenty four, either Tim Waltz or Lieutenant
47:54
Speaker 1: Governor Peggy Flanagan, who happens to be of the White
47:57
Speaker 1: Earth Band of Ojaboy, will be able to power Keith
48:00
Speaker 1: Ellison to do what is right. We have linked to
48:03
Speaker 1: petition in the episode description to show your support, and
48:06
Speaker 1: with that we go to our closing, in which I'm
48:08
Speaker 1: going to thank our guests for joining us today and
48:11
Speaker 1: then just sit back and lock it up as they
48:13
Speaker 1: share their final thoughts.
48:15
Speaker 3: The bottom line is that Brian Pippott was not there.
48:19
Speaker 3: He had no involvement in this case. He doesn't know
48:22
Speaker 3: who did it, and he's been wrongfully charged and convicted
48:25
Speaker 3: and the authorities at this point are not treating him fairly.
48:30
Speaker 3: Law enforcement's so called investigation of this, I have to say,
48:35
Speaker 3: is a discredit to law enforcement because it's not an
48:37
Speaker 3: honest investigation, and by that I mean the BCA and
48:41
Speaker 3: sheriff guide his investigation. The man should be let out,
48:44
Speaker 3: he's innocent. Anybody who's looked at this case in any
48:48
Speaker 3: real detail, which is my organization, the Attorney General's Office
48:53
Speaker 3: and Mitchell Hamlin Law School Clinic studied the case and
48:57
Speaker 3: did a pretty comprehensive job themselves determined that he is
49:01
Speaker 3: factually innocent, that he languishes in prison, has been there
49:05
Speaker 3: for twenty five years, his relatives have died in the meantime.
49:08
Speaker 3: Let the man out.
49:10
Speaker 4: I'd like to thank Jim Cousins and Centurion Ministries for
49:15
Speaker 4: helping me throughout the years, and the FAAU for highly time.
49:20
Speaker 4: I'm in the truth. What's got me through this twenty
49:24
Speaker 4: six years? Hope that the truths will come out? And
49:28
Speaker 4: then it has, and as a state prosecutor, he fells
49:33
Speaker 4: and he knows the truth. And I can't understand why
49:37
Speaker 4: he will not ask for this case because the way
49:41
Speaker 4: it was explained to me is that the other prosecutors
49:44
Speaker 4: will get mad because he took the case away from accounting. Well,
49:50
Speaker 4: he's doing what's right. His job is not about making
49:53
Speaker 4: friends keeping friends, whether people will like what he does,
49:57
Speaker 4: it's his job, and this is something he could do.
50:03
Speaker 4: Sixty two years old. Native Americans don't have at that
50:07
Speaker 4: lone of a lifespan, and I don't want to die
50:09
Speaker 4: in prison. I have this belief that your soul stays
50:14
Speaker 4: where you die, and then I don't want my soul
50:17
Speaker 4: standing around prison for trinity, and I want it to
50:22
Speaker 4: be around family and around nature. Where field connection. I
50:27
Speaker 4: figure I've got ten years left at the most I
50:30
Speaker 4: want to live life were sent to be lived.
50:38
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction.
50:40
Speaker 1: You can listen to this.
50:41
Speaker 2: And all the Lava for Good podcasts one week early
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50:47
Speaker 2: on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team,
50:50
Speaker 2: Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow
50:53
Speaker 2: executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliber. The
50:56
Speaker 2: music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR
50:59
Speaker 2: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across
51:02
Speaker 2: all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at
51:05
Speaker 2: Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram at
51:08
Speaker 2: It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava
51:11
Speaker 2: for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One.
51:14
Speaker 1: We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported
51:17
Speaker 1: in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed
51:19
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51:22
Speaker 1: and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.